Coping with the Future: Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia 9004356789, 9789004356788

Citation preview

i



Coping with the Future

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_001

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

ii

Sinica Leidensia



Edited by Barend J. ter Haar Maghiel van Crevel In co-operation with P.K. Bol, D.R. Knechtges, E.S. Rawski, W.L. Idema, H.T. Zurndorfer

VOLUME 138

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sinl

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access



Coping with the Future

iii

Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia Edited by

Michael Lackner

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

iv



Cover illustration: Meifei, the ‘Plum Concubine’, divining – woodblock print from the Catalogue of the History of Chinese Block Printing [Zhongguo Banhuashi Tulu 中國版畫史圖錄], Vol. 4. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lackner, Michael, 1953- editor. Title: Coping with the future : theories and practices of divination in East Asia / edited by Michael Lackner. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Sinica Leidensia, ISSN 0169-9563 ; volume 138 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017045878 (print) | LCCN 2017047976 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004356788 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004346536 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Divination--South Asia. Classification: LCC BF1751 (ebook) | LCC BF1751 .C67 2017 (print) | DDC 133.30954--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045878

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0169-9563 isbn 978-90-04-34653-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-35678-8 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contents Contents

v

Contents

Acknowledgments ix List of Figures and Tables x Notes on Contributors xii

Introduction 1 Michael Lackner

Part 1 Divination and Literature: Excavated and Extant 1

A Recently Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination 23 Marco Caboara

2

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature: The ThirtyTwo-Year Cycle of the Qian zuo du 47 Bent Nielsen

3

The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China 99 Paul W. Kroll

4

Divination, Fate Manipulation, and Protective Knowledge in and around The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl, a Popular Myth of Late Imperial China 126 Vincent Durand-Dastès

Part 2 Divination and Religions 5

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon 151 Esther-Maria Guggenmos

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

vi

Contents

6

The Allegorical Cosmos: The Shi 式 Board in Medieval Taoist and Buddhist Sources 196 Dominic Steavu

7

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 233 Anne C. Klein

Part 3 Divination and Politics 8

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric 255 Martin Kern

9

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies in Eighteenth-century Korea 289 Kwon Soo Park

Part 4 Divination and Individual 10

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven: Wen Tianxiang’s Concepts of Fate and Mantic Knowledge 299 Hsien-huei Liao

11

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination 345 Yung Sik Kim

12 From Jianghu to Liumang: Working Conditions and Cultural Identity of Wandering Fortune-Tellers in Contemporary China 366 Stéphanie Homola 13

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea 392 Jennifer Jung-Kim

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

vii

Contents

Part 5 Mantic Arts: When East Meets West 14

Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture 409 Che-Chia Chang

15

Against Prognostication: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts 433 Pingyi Chu

16

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge? Divination and Western Knowledge in Late Qing and Early Republican China 451 Fan Li and Michael Lackner

17

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea 486 Yong Hoon Jun

Part 6 Reflections on Mantic Arts 18

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Divination and Shifting Rationalities in Late Imperial China 499 Andrea Bréard

19

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Variables in Early Modern Japanese “Chronomancy” Techniques 530 Matthias Hayek

20 The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea 559 Sanghak Oh Index 577

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

viii

Contents

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Acknowledgments Acknowledgments

ix

Acknowledgments The present volume was originally conceived as the proceedings of a conference held in 2011 at the International Center for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication” in Erlangen. However, since conference volumes are often subject to contingencies, it seemed preferable to include more contributions in order to better represent the broad scope of our research. As a consequence, this volume reaps a plentiful harvest from the different formats of presentations that have been delivered at the Center since its establishment in 2009, up until 2014: workshops, lectures, and reading seminars, as well as papers specifically solicited for this publication. The collection thus provides a consistent overview of the Center’s research activities regarding the history of prognostication in East Asia (this would not have been possible without the generous funding, which the Center received as one of the Kaete Hamburger Kollegs, granted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF). For a number of contributions, the editor is indebted to Richard Smith, who in 2012 organized a conference on „Divinatory Traditions in East Asia“ at Rice University; also in 2012, Yung Sik Kim brought a group of Korean scholars to a workshop on “Divination and Fengshui in Korea” at the Center. I owe special thanks to Esther-Maria Guggenmos and Lu Zhao for their help with improving the structure of the materials presented in this volume – not an easy task, given the enormous span of time and of topics covered by the authors. I am grateful to Martin Kroher’s numerous suggestions and his help with preparing the abstracts. I also want to thank the colleagues who agreed to evaluate individual articles as part of our peer review process, and, in particular, the anonymous reader who was willing to take on the burden of reviewing the entire book. This volume covers a broad range of historical epochs, languages, and civilizations; each discipline has its own style conventions: while trying our best to standardize the contributions, we have not opted for an overarching uniformity. Jörn Bosserhoff and Anne Schmiedl prepared the ground for copy-editing; Anne also was responsible for a considerable part of the correspondence with the authors. Alexander Moldovan accompanied the last important steps towards the publication by creating the index and resolving various doubts (which has been the age-old purpose of divination). Finally, Matthias Schumann and Max Kruse accomplished a feat by adding the finishing touches. Michael Lackner

Erlangen, December 2016

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

x

List of Figures and Tables

List Of Figures And Tables

List of Figures and Tables Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 12.1 14.1 14.2 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.7 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 19.8 19.9 19.10

Schematic model of the three tips (三末) 32 Diagram of a circular arrangement of months and branches 75 Diagram of the Lines and Branches 爻辰圖 75 Diagram of Two Hexagrams Parting the Seasons to Rule Six Branches 二卦閒時治 六辰圖 78 Diagram of Tai and Pi Both Being in the Correct [Positions] in Their Branches and Moving Left Following Each Other 泰否各貞其辰左行相隨圖 80 Diagram of the Sixty-four Hexagrams’ Correct Branches 六十四卦貞辰圖 81 Illustration of the Diagram of the Sixty-four Hexagrams’ Correct Branches 82 Representation of a Six Dynasties Liuren 六壬 divination board 200 Schematic representation of the features of a medieval shi divination board 203 Schematic renderings of Buddhist shi boards (T.1149) 216 Schematic renderings of Buddhist shi boards (T.1275) 216 The Five Viscera along with representations of their indwelling spirits  221 Posters spread out by M. Yao on a street in Beijing 368 A horoscope from Mr. Zheng’s Astrological Cases 415 A horoscope excavated in Turfan (ninth century) 425 Illustration of a deck of 32 dominoes 502 Permutations of domino pips shown in a sixteenth-century manual 504 Possible permutation of pips for a specific combination 505 Arithmetic triangle 518 Algebraically generated hexagrams 519 Wang Lai, Dijian Shuli, 1799 520 Three types of domino combinations 525 Circular diagram of the eight trigrams in Dunhuang manuscript S6164 536 Circular diagrams in a 1708 edition of Hakke-bon [Book of Trigrams] 541 The eight trigrams projected on a left hand, in Shingon himitsu hakke kuden 542 The eight trigrams projected on a left hand, in Baba Nobutake, Tsūhen hakke shōchū-shinan 542 Square diagram with Ri as the central trigram 543 Teura in Terajima Ryōan’s Wakan sansai zue 544 The eight trigrams on one hand 548 The six lines on one hand 548 Circular diagram of the twelve stars and six paths 551 The twelve stars and six paths on the hand 552

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

xi

List of Figures and Tables 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7

A baby dragon looking at mother dragon 子龍顧母形 (Hexing tuge) 564 A tiger coming out of woods 猛虎出林形 (Hexing tuge) 567 A buffalo entering water 犀牛入水形 (Yusui Zhenjing) 568 A flying phoenix 飛鳳形 (Zhuoyu fu) 569 A crab vomiting foam 螃蟹吐沫形 (Songam myogyeol) 572 A yellow dragon coming out of the clouds 黃龍出雲形 573 A corresponding shape on Jeju Island 574

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 8.1 17.1 17.2 17.3 18.1 18.2 19.1 20.1 20.2 20.3

Divination outcomes of the first three diviners  29 Divination outcomes of the fourth diviner  30 Rhyming words in the Bu shu 卜書 46 Tabulation of the Consultation Chart 80 Overview of the extant versions of the detailed passage on mantic practices and the available translations 158 Overview of the list of magic and mantic practices in T.21 165 Overview of the structure of the Pāli list of magic and mantic practices 168 Comparison between the Jizhiguo jing and the Sanskrit passage 169 List of Shangshu chapters mentioning divination 275 The names of the twelve houses in Seongyo 489 Quotations from Zhong-Xi xing yao in Seongyo 492 Contents of Tianbu zhenyuan 493 Combinations in the Xuanhe deck rewarded with ten counters 523 Counters awarded to certain types of combinations in divination with the 32-tile Xuanhe deck 524 The twelve stars, six paths, and corresponding branches 550 Frequency and percentage of physical shapes listed in the Hexing mingmu 565 Auspicious and ominous configurations according to physical shape theory 570 Frequency and percentage of physical shapes in the Songam myogyeol 573

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

xii

Notes on Contributors

Notes On Contributors

Notes on Contributors Andrea Bréard is professor at the Faculty of Sciences at Université Paris-Sud 11. In 2017, she held an interim professorship at the Institute of East Asian Philologies Goethe University Frankfurt. She has been a research fellow at the Cluster of Excellence: Asia and Europe in a Global Context at Heidelberg University. Trained both as mathematician and sinologist, she holds Ph.D.s from TU Berlin and Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot. Her research interests involve the history of mathematics and science in China, number theory, and Transcultural Studies. Marco Caboara is currently Digital Scholarship & Archives Manager at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Library. He has been a Postodoctoral Fellow at the Department of English, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong and Research Fellow at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe” (IKGF) at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Che-Chia Chang received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. At the moment he is researcher in the Institute of Modern History at the Academia Sinica. He has been a visiting fellow at the IKGF, his research interest lies in cross-cultural interactions in early modern East Asia, among China, Japan, and the West. Pingyi Chu received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is now a research fellow at Academia Sinica. He has been a fellow at the IKGF, at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, and the Templeton Project “Science and Religion in East Asia”. His research focusses on the history of Chinese science and medicine and Chinese cultural history. Vincent Durand-Dastès is professor at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO). His research interests include the history of traditional Chinese novel and theater, the supernatural in narrative literature and religious dimensions of traditional Chinese theater. He is co-editor of Études chinoises and co-director of the research unit ASIEs.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Notes on Contributors

xiii

Esther-Maria Guggenmos has been Research Coordinator at the IKGF in Erlangen and deputy chair for Sinology at the Institute for Near Eastern and East Asian Languages and Cultures at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research interests include Chinese Buddhism, Chinese intellectual history and religious aesthetics. Matthias Hayek is Associate Professor at the East Asian Civilisations Research Centre (CRCAO) at Paris Diderot University. His research is concerned with the history and sociology of Japanese beliefs as well as the social history of knowledge in modern Japan. Stéphanie Homola holds a professorship for Chinese Anthropology at the FAU ErlangenNürnberg. She received her Ph.D. from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) on divinatory practices in contemporary China and Taiwan. She has been a visiting scholar at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine (CECMC) at EHESS, and a Research Associate at the IKGF at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Yong Hoon Jun is Assistant Professor at Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, Seoul National University. He has been a fellow at the Templeton Project “Science and Religion in East Asia”. His research interests include History of Science and History of Astronomy in East Asia. Martin Kern is Greg (’84) and Joanna (P13) Zeluck Professor in Asian Studies and Chair of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. He was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, at IKGF in Erlangen and became member of the American Philosophical Society in 2015. His research interests cover the fields of literature, philology, history, and religion and art in ancient and medieval China. Jennifer Jung-Kim is lecturer for Asian Languages and Cultures and Assistant Director of the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in Korean History and is senior editor of the Korean Classics Library series.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

xiv

Notes On Contributors

Yung Sik Kim obtained a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in History of Science from Princeton. He held several professorships at Seoul National University and was involved in international and interdisciplinary projects. Since 2011 he has been director of the Templeton “Science and Religion in East Asia” Project. Anne Carolyn Klein / Rigzin Drolma, is Professor and a former Chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University. Her main research interest is the embodied interaction between head and heart across a spectrum of Buddhist theories of cognitive and somatic knowing. Paul W. Kroll is professor for Asian languages and civilizations at the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Kroll was President of the American Oriental Society and fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies. He engages in Chinese literature, language, history, and religion. Michael Lackner is chair holder of Sinology at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, and founder and director of the research consortium IKGF “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe.” He was a fellow at several Institutes of Advanced Study around the world. His research interests include Chinese history of science, intellectual history, prognostication, and divination. Fan Li is professor in the Department of History at Beijing Normal University. He received his Ph.D. at Beijing University and is interested in the history of science in China and the West as well as intellectual history. He was a fellow at IKGF and won numerous awards for his works. Hsien-Huei Liao is Associate Professor at the Institute of History at National Tsing Hua University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles. Her research includes the socio-cultural history of Song, Chinese popular religion, Literati culture, and Daoism in traditional China.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

xv

Notes on Contributors

Bent Nielsen is Associate Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He has done research on the intellectual history of China, the Book of Changes, as well as on traditional and contemporary Confucianism. Sanghak Oh is Associate Professor at Jeju National University and Expert Adviser to the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. He obtained his Ph.D. from Seoul National University. His research interests include historical aspects of geomancy, geography and cartography. Kwon Soo Park received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University and is currently a researcher at the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, Seoul National University. He is interested in the history of science and pseudo-science in traditional Korea, especially cosmology, fortune-telling, the calendar and Yi Jing. Dominic Steavu is Assistant Professor in the Department East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was Assistant Professor of Intellectual History at Heidelberg University’s Excellence Cluster, “Asia and Europe in a Global Context.” His research focusses on Chinese Religion, especially Daoism and Buddhism.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

xvi

Notes On Contributors

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction Introduction

1

Introduction Michael Lackner For a long time, the study of mantic arts has remained a relatively marginal topic. As Wouter J. Hanegraaff has demonstrated, the need for an enemy (“the polemical Other of Modernity”) was instrumental not only for the political and social construction of Enlightenment, but also for its mental and spiritual constitution.1 In a monograph on Exorcism and the Enlightenment, H.C. Erik Midelfort makes a similar point when he states that “one could conclude polemically that the Enlightened theologians were trying to perform an exorcism of their own, trying to banish the demons of baroque culture by renaming them as superstition and enthusiasm, thus using their own verbal rituals and gestures of derision.” Henceforth, magic, divination, as well as many other forms of premodern foreknowledge, were banned as “rejected knowledge” and “superstition.”2 In China, where Enlightenment, due to the constraints of rapidly catching up with western ideas of “science,” took a more radical and violent shape (starting from the late 19th century up to the “Cultural Revolution”), the rejection of the “traditional sciences of China” (Marc Kalinowski) was wholesale, as one can see from the words of a co-founder of the Communist party, Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942): “If we believe that science is the compass needle for the discovery of truth, [then] ghosts and demons, the human soul, the techniques of alchemy, talismans and magic incantations, fate calculation and the oracle based on hexagrams, spirit writing and geomancy, yin-yang and the five phases are absurdities opposed to science and idiotic ideas that must not be believed.”3 As has been the case for similar phenomena of primal repression in the West, the 20th century Chinese modernization movements, by using vocabulary and methods, which were of fundamentally exorcist character, produced “superstitious regimes,” as has been convincingly shown by Rebecca Nedostup.4 It is precisely this kind of rejection in the name of “science” that has resulted in the still marginal status of studies on mantic arts in China, both in the Chinese and the western academia. 1 Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy. 2 Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment, 3f. 3 Lackner (Lang Mixie) and Li Fan, “Jindai Zhongguo zhishi zhuanxing shiye xia de ‘mingxue.’” 4 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_002

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

2

Lackner

However, hasn’t Jean Levi claimed the status of a “divinatory civilization par excellence” for the Chinese world?5 Were not choosing an appropriate day for a journey or a wedding, referring to the Classic of Changes for resolving an imminent question, asking a fortune-teller for advice before the examinations, using talismans for apotropaic purposes, and judging the ability of persons for different kinds of government employment according to the standards of traditional physiognomy widespread practices—not only, as being claimed by some Chinese scholars today, within the realm of the “popular” belief system, but also, and predominantly, by the learned elite? Was the conviction that knowledge about the future and the capability to cope with it were possible— at least to a certain extent—not almost ubiquitous? Wouldn’t it be time for the Chinese academia to include traditional Chinese theories and practices of prediction into the hitherto ideologically heavily biased corpus of “National Studies” (guoxue 國學)? As we will see, the problem of a general assessment of mantic arts is more complicated than a mere juxtaposition of skepticism versus credulity. Although never in a predominant position, skeptical voices have coexisted with others more inclined to trust in the possibility of knowing the tendencies of the future. Probably the most radical among the doubters, Wang Chong 王充 (27– 100), is well known and often cited.6 Moreover, numerous treatises on fate (ming 命) written during the period of the Northern and Southern dynasties attest to a fatalism that categorically denies the capacity of humans to predict future events. As Heiner Roetz has shown, Jan Jacob Maria de Groot’s theorem of a Chinese “unversism”, which has the unity of Heaven, Earth, and Man as a basic tenet and would thus function as a legitimation of the efficacy of mantic arts, has not been shared by all thinkers of premodern China7. One should also keep in mind several processes of degeneration of divination into mere ritual acts that already took place during the late Shang dynasty. However, analyzing the genre of books, treatises, and commentaries written by Chinese scholars over the centuries reveals in fact only one part of their thought, namely their world view (Weltanschauung) intended for a certain audience of equally erudite members of the elite. As for their daily experience with fortune-telling and other forms of prediction, one has to inquire into a literary genre considered as “minor”: brush notes (biji 筆記), diaries, letters and other ways of more or less private communication. Starting at the latest by the 5 Levi, “Pratiques divinatoires, conjectures et critiques rationalistes à l’époque des Royaumes Combattants.” 6 Cf. the magnificent translation by Marc Kalinowski, Wang Chong: Balance des Discours. 7 Roetz, Mensch und Natur im Alten China.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

3

Song dynasty, this genre bears witness to the world of daily experience (Lebenswelt), which is far more instructive about the degree of “rationality” that helped them approach and understand these phenomena. One should keep in mind, however, that most brush notes and even correspondence were intended to be published and thus, the distinction between both realms, the “official” and the “private” one, may get blurred. On the other hand, the contents literati deemed worth entrusting to the different genres are fundamentally divergent. One of the most representative persons in this regard is probably Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805, a contemporary of Diderot), who acted as one of the responsible compilers for the gigantic anthology of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasures (Siku quanshu 四庫全書) with its 36.381 volumes. In the introduction to the section on mantic arts (shushu lei 術數類) in the Siku quanshu, he states that “the teachings of the numerous techniques, regardless of their benefit have been present for a long time and their principles cannot be entirely dismissed. Therefore we group them under the heading of shushu. ‘Arts of enjoyment’ (youyi 游藝) are also learning of secondary importance, but if any one of the numerous techniques achieves its highest level, it becomes a vehicle of the Dao. Therefore, the ‘arts of enjoyment’ are grouped under the general category of art. Both can be considered as minor ways (xiaodao 小道).8” In the context of Ji Yun’s introduction, “minor ways” are not stained with any deprecatory connotation: rather, similar to the literary genre of xiaoshuo 小說 (novel, fiction), the term denotes practices of “secondary importance.” Rather, Ji Yun refers to the passage in the Lunyu 論語 [The Analects] 19:4: “Zi Xia said, ‘Even in minor ways there is something worth being looked at; but if it be attempted to carry them out to what is remote, there is a danger of their proving inapplicable. Therefore, the superior man does not practice them.’” Yet Ji Yun’s brush notes convey another message. The Yuewei caotang biji 閱 微草堂筆記9 is abundant in stories about fortune-tellers, planchette writing mediums, and the relationship between ghosts and prognostics. In contrast to what most modern interpreters of Ji’s brush notes consider to be a mere pastime of diverting anecdotes,10 the notes give evidence for a serious interest in 8 9 10

Ji Yun, “Siku quanshu zongmu,” 769. Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji. There are several selective translations into English, Italian, and German: the translation by Edi Bozza, Ji Xiaolan. Note scritte nello studio Yuewei is predominantly interested in Ji’s attitude toward social injustice; the bilingual edition by Sun Haichen, Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan focuses on sensational accounts on demons and spirits; David L. Keenan’s translation Shadows in a Chinese Landscape. The Notes of a Confucian Scholar. Chi Yün arranges the text according to the proximity of the people who reported to Ji Yun, starting by tales

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

4

Lackner

the possibilities and limitations of prediction. Like his collaborator Zhu Gui 朱 珪11, Ji Yun was a fervent practitioner of planchette writing, and the notes con-

tain serious reflections on the nature of the genius and the medium on whom the genius was supposed to descend, as well as general hypotheses on the reasons why the techniques of prediction could be efficient. For early modern China, this complex attitude of publicly keeping distance from a blind and unquestioned belief in divination while at the same time being convinced of individual cases of its efficiency can be traced back to Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), who rehabilitated the use of the Classic of Changes as a manual of divination12 and wrote several recommendatory prefaces to books by diviners he was familiar with.13 The same separation between Weltanschauung and Lebenswelt still runs through the entire 20th century: Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之 has shown that a considerable number of leading intellectuals of modern China indulged in mantic practices of all kinds, including the seemingly “scientific” methods of spiritist séances.14 In his impressive list figure Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921), Mu Ouchu 穆藕 初 (1876–1942), Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874–1952), Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893– 1988), Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990), Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), and Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 (1893–1964), to name just the most famous ones. Official historiography counts all of them as paragons of Chinese Enlightenment without making mention of activities that fall into the category of “superstition” in 20th century China. Traditional ways of obtaining foreknowledge require an attitude of earnestness. Notwithstanding the relationship between gaming and divination,15 a serious concern with individual or collective future leads to the creation of a

11 12 13 14 15

about his household; the translation by Konrad Herrmann, Ji Yun. Pinselnotizen aus der Strohhütte der Betrachtung des Großen im Kleinen provides the reader with a relatively representative overview while emphasizing Ji’s criticism of “the moral decay of his times“; David E. Pollard’s translation Real Life in China at the Height of the Empire. Revealed by The Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan is intended as a mirror of everyday life during the period. Despite all their respective merits, none of these works emphasizes Ji Yun’s meticulous reflections on fate and fate calculation. For Zhu’s activities with regard to planchette writing, see Goossaert, “Spirit Writing, Canonization, and the Rise of Divine Saviors.” Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, 66:1620. Zhu Xi, “Zeng Xu Duanshu mingxu” 75/7:3920, and Zhu Xi, “Zeng Xu Shibiao xu” 75/7:3939. Xiong Yuezhi, “Jindai Zhongguo dushuren de mingli shijie,” and also Lackner/Li on Yan Fu in this volume. See the special issue on “Chance, destin et jeux de hasard en Chine,” Études chinoises XXXIII-2 (2014).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

5

separate space—a mental locus and sometimes a particular location—where questions can be properly posed and answered. There is no doubt that many variants of divination possess a strong connection to ritual. As is the case for ritual, divination, too, is not situated within a polarity of “believing/disbelieving”, “rational/irrational,” but rather in a persistent ambivalence, a constant “in-between.” Instead of speaking of “rejected knowledge” for the Chinese case, one ought thus rather speak of reserve or even downgrading of mantic knowledge with regard to Weltanschauung on the one hand, and an almost insatiable desire for revelation through these same arts with regard to Lebenswelt. Both realms may seem contradictory, but perhaps only in the eyes of a post-Enlightenment western reader, whose view is shaped by the stark contrast between “science” and “superstition.” On the contrary, we will have to acknowledge that Chinese literati did not perceive a contradiction between the respective claims made in different genres. Foreknowledge enjoyed their overall trust, with, however, different weights attributed to its status in public and private life. Western attempts to reconcile predictive arts with other forms of science date back to Vettius Valens (120–175) who was the first to define astrology as the art of making conjectures (στοχαστικὴ τέχνη)16, and, later, to Albert the Great (ca. 1200–1280), who, in his treatise De Fato (On Fate) tried to integrate astrology into the canon of sciences,17 and to Wilhelm von Moerbeke (1215–1286, a student of Thomas Aquinas), who tried to legitimize a form of divination inherited from the Arabs (which was called “geomancy” in Medieval Europe) with the principles of Thomas’ Aristotelianism.18 From many of these texts, one can draw the conclusion that mantic arts do not much differ from medicine, because both arts are based on conjecture. It is precisely “conjecture” that is crucial in our context: a term that originally was used for the interpretation of signs and omens and only later became devalued as an opinion without proof. Albert the Great thought that the predictive “uncertain arts” like, for instance, astrology, had necessarily to be less precise because of the vast multitude of factors to be taken into account. Whereas “in God” everything is simple, eternal, immutable, and immaterial, on earth, these things become contingent and mutable, because they are subject to innumerable factors of change. Without any knowledge of Aristotelian categories (like causa) used by 16 Greenbaum, “Arrows, Aiming, and Divination.” 17 Palazzo, “The Scientific Significance of Fate and Celestial Influences in Some Mature Works by Albert the Great,” and Palazzo, “Albert the Great’s Doctrine of Fascination in the Context of his Philosophical System.” 18 Beccarisi, “Natürliche Prognostik und Manipulation.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

6

Lackner

Albert, Zhu Xi comes to a similar conclusion by simply replacing Albert’s notion of “God” by yin-yang and the five phases: “It is true that the principle by which Heaven and Earth produce beings does not go beyond yin-yang and the five phases, but the fluctuations of condensation and dissipation, the complexities of change and transformation are inexhaustible.”19 On the other hand, it is evident that experts and practitioners in traditional China shared the worldview of the elite to a certain extent, but were mostly not active in discourses on a meta-level. Expert knowledge in mantic arts certainly needs a theoretical background, but the study and the command of its systems require a degree of technical specialization that cannot be measured by the yardstick of abstract speculations. Therefore, a close reading of the various techniques is needed and, at the same time, it is necessary to contemplate the embedment of traditional ways of forecasting in the life of popular daily experience. Since its establishment in 2009, the International Center for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies of Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe” has explored the relationship between views of fate on the one hand and theories and practices of forecasting on the other by inquiring into problems of terminology, analyzing the concepts of authority that were believed to make an oracle efficient, the status and origin of diviners, and the development of mantic techniques. In the course of time, taking into account Korean, Japanese, and Tibetan forms of mantic practices and their respective theoretical background expanded the research. The continuous presence of specialists of European history at the Center broadened the perspectives, which allowed for studies of cross-cultural interaction of practices and their assessments. However, we refrained from imposing simplistic parallels of comparative approaches. Instead, a wide range of disciplines is assembled in this volume: philology, social history, history of science, religious studies, literary studies, and social anthropology. The contributions of this volume represent a selection of papers presented at conferences, workshops, individual lectures and study groups of the first phase of the Center. Rather than aiming at a concise history of prediction in East Asia (a project that shall be undertaken during the second phase of the research), the volume offers snapshots in time and does not intend to give a complete overview of all the mantic practices and ratiocinations that have shaped daily life and human experience in East Asia for millennia. However, it is precisely the profound impact on creeds and customs that makes it 19

Zhu Xi, Zeng Xu Shibiao xu, 7:3939.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

7

worthwhile to rehabilitate the study of mantic arts and to re-incorporate rejected knowledge into the research agenda of humanities. The contributions cover techniques as well as “philosophical” approaches, they take into account the periods of early and traditional as well as of modern China and encompass numerous different literary genres. Starting from the section “Divination and Literature,” the volume introduces how mantic practices are presented in textual and literary traditions, ranging from pre-Qin bamboo manuscripts to popular novels in later imperial China. The next two sections, “Divination and Religions” and “Divination and Politics,” focus on divinatory practices in religious and political life in China, as well in Tibet and Korea. And then, diving deeper into the world of daily experience, “Divination and Individual” looks into how individuals have reified as well as theorized mantic arts on an everyday basis. The next section, “Mantic Arts When East Meets West,” extends further geographically and looks at how European and Indian knowledge have interacted with that of East Asia. The last section, “Reflections on Mantic Arts,” takes one step further in the direction of theorization and explores the technical formations and inner dynamics of predictive arts. Both the sinological contributions in the pioneer edition of Jean-Pierre Vernant20 and the subsequent collection of articles edited by Karine Chemla and Marc Kalinowski21 have identified the elements of divinatory practices that became vital for different intellectual and social activities in ancient China by emphasizing the intrinsic rational elements inherent in these practices. These insights being firmly established by now, the present volume extends the scope of research both in geographical and historical regard; at the same time, it is more interested in the inner dynamics of predictive arts, their rhetoric, the assessments and transformations they were subject to, and the role they played (and are still playing) in religious contexts.22 Marco Caboara deals with the Bu shu (4th century bce), the oldest known text describing methods of plastromancy. The textual structure of this manuscript is markedly different from what we know about reports of divination, and it contains a hitherto unknown system of interpreting the cracks on the 20 Vernant et al. (ed.), Divination et rationalité. 21 Chemla and Kalinowski (ed.), Divination et rationalité en Chine ancienne. 22 The Center is currently preparing a Handbook Series on prognostication in China; furthermore, we plan a series of publications related to the history of prognostication encompassing a broader range of civilizations, as well as a journal with the same purpose.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

8

Lackner

tortoise-shell. At the same time, there are links between the received tradition on the topic and the other interpretative method and terminology that the Bu shu presents. In this way it shows that divinatory practices in ancient China were both diverse and interconnected in time and space. Marco Caboara argues that the extant text, despite its internal coherence, must have been part of a larger manual on divination, since its negative outlook goes against what we know of the form and use of divination manuals. On the basis of the debate that the discovery of the Bu shu caused in Chinese academic circles, the paper presents the first analysis and annotated translation of the text to a Western audience. Bent Nielsen shows that the Weishu, Apocrypha, are a type of text that had its origin in the intellectual and political need of the Han dynasty (206 bce220 ce) to provide metaphysical underpinnings for the older canonical literature. Bent Nielsen here discusses one representative of this genre, the Qian zuo du [Chiseling open the regularities of the Hexagram Qian], and provides a detailed study of its fragmented transmission history and diverse commentarial tradition. Based on the thirty-two-year cycle and the hexagrams of the Yijing tradition, the text combines cosmology, astronomical and calendrical calculations, numerology, and divination into what at some point supposedly was a coherent calculatory system. By reconstructing this system and how it purported to predict the fate of a state over vast stretches of time, Nielsen shows why this type of literature was both valued and feared for its potential as a political weapon. Paul W. Kroll’s contribution is devoted to the Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China. Were the mantic arts in decline in the elite culture of medieval China (200–900), or were they merely so commonplace that mentioning them was unnecessary? Be that as it may, this survey of pertinent literary and historical sources confirms that mantic arts during this period received less and less attention in these texts. Categories in encyclopedias and ranks of officials were supposed to reflect hierarchies of knowledge and administrators, respectively, and in both cases Paul W. Kroll shows that, with some variation, the status of divination cannot have been very high during this period. He concludes his paper by discussing the case of a poem by Lu Zhaolin, whose author appears doubtful about his diviner’s verdict, and thus is another witness for the ambiguous attitude of medieval elites towards divination. Vincent Durand-Dastès focuses on the depiction of mantic arts and fate in the popular myth The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl. By

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

9

way of introduction, Vincent Durand-Dastès discusses the role of divination in vernacular narratives in general, as well as some themes and patrons of divination recurring in this genre. This particular plot pits the magician Peach Blossom Girl against a diviner named Zhougong, ‘Duke of Zhou,’ a reference to one of the most eminent and respected figures of Chinese culture, who tries to entrap his opponent by offering her to marry into his household. Not only is the lowly girl able to ward off and defeat the eminent diviner at every point of their struggle, in the process she also shows her ability to reverse what seemed to be fated deaths. In this way, the story turns cultural hierarchies on their head, and calls into question the immutable nature of fate. Durand-Dastès highlights the ambiguities apparent in the story and its editorial history, which both depict and question received notions about gender, divination, fate, or the strict differentiation between comic entertainment and serious religious and therapeutic knowledge. In the end, one version of the story has both opponents resume their rightful place in the pantheon of divination deities as complementary figures impersonating yin-yang. Esther-Maria Guggenmos deals with the enumeration of mantic practices to be found in the Buddhist text corpora across Asia (the Pāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese canon). Reflections about the relationship between Buddhism and divination will at some point have to resort to this exhaustive list of practices a Buddhist should abstain from. Guggenmos took the effort to assemble all extant parallels of the magic and mantic practices listed and provides the only translation into a western language which is to be found in the first chapter of the Sūtra of the 62 views of the Net of Brahma (Taishō vol. I, no. 21, translated probably in the third century). The list is obviously a collection of mantic and other arts that were common in the Brahmanic society of Early India. The whole passage has obviously been collected and put under prohibition with the intention in mind to distinguish the Buddhist identity from its social environment. The transfer of such a passage across languages and cultures in Asia must result in painstaking tries of Buddhist translators to mediate its highly cultural specific content. While Chinese translations of this passage flourished who brought into play the acknowledged mantic arts of traditional China, the Indian enumeration is obviously inspired by Mesopotamian omen literature and even contains a medieval European parallel. This shows how, despite being rejected, this knowledge seems to have traveled through time and space on the coat-tails of the major religious movements. It enables us to trace the cross-continental transfer of mantic knowledge through a concrete example and reveals that Buddhist texts served as a stable vehicle also for the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

10

Lackner

transport of mantic knowledge. In a large appendix the paper contributes structured translations of other versions of the text. Dominic Steavu gives evidence for the manifold adaption of a computational instrument. The cosmic board (Shi 式 Board) originally was a tool used both for computation and divination of the future in the context of official state affairs and rituals, such as astronomical and calendrical computation, selection of auspicious days, prediction of the weather, etc.. In these roles, its operation required a high level of technical knowledge. Starting from the idea of ritual as ‘as if’ fiction, Dominic Steavu here examines how and why this material object subsequently could be adopted into religious ritual practices of a very different nature. He argues that the ‘internal form’ of the Shi Board stayed the same, despite changing its outward form quite considerably depending on the respective cultural needs, even to the point where a meditative ritual based on it apparently did not depend on a material board to be implemented. In this way, the practitioner acted ‘as if’ the connection of the board to its original context of technical knowledge and statecraft were still at work in his ritual, and thus coopted their cachet for his own purposes. Anne C. Klein’s contribution deals with the embedment of forecasting in diverse ritual contexts. On the Tibetan Plateau, local experts perform divination and elaborate rituals in order to protect the crops in a particular area from hail. Anne C. Klein here presents the different stages of the practice, as well as the underlying knowledge and worldviews. Starting with tantric techniques that still seem very much in tune with the peaceful tone of classical Buddhist ethics, the process later takes on a more adversarial nature meant to turn away the hail-causing deities. In fact, the informant-practitioner himself acknowledges this tension between pre-Buddhist magic and classic Buddhist thought, and distances himself from the more violent aspects of the practice that he is an expert in. Among other things, his expertise and preparation lead to the ability to see the connections between seemingly disparate entities, which then allows him to predict hail and take the appropriate measures to prevent it. The expert is part of a social contract with the community he is supposed to protect, which allows him to stipulate certain behavior and prohibitions and have offenders policed by the local authorities. In this way, this case study demonstrates how ritual and divinatory practice can involve heterogeneous beliefs and unresolved tensions without taking anything away from its perceived efficacy. Martin Kern analyzes the changing function of divination by tracing its historical itinerary form actual prediction to confirmation. Since the archeological re-discovery of the Shang dynasty, the issue has been to understand the relationship between the received textual sources and what has been unearthed in

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

11

China. The essay by Martin Kern discusses this question with regard to divination. Archeological findings from all periods of early China clearly demonstrate how important and pervasive the practice of divination was at the time, and yet, accounts of it are curiously absent from most of the transmitted textual record. Already in the case of oracle bones of the Shang, it is clear that inscribing predominantly successful outcomes on the tools for divination must have had a legitimizing or declaratory purpose for the ruler and his family. Since not all oracle bones bear script, the inscriptions apparently were not necessary for the practice itself. Kern argues that the later instances of divination in the textual tradition, such as in the Shangshu, take this a step further: they deemphasize the actual practice of divination in favor of its glorifying function of getting confirmation for important decisions already made by the ruler. A similar connection can be made between the daybooks (rishu) found in many tombs, which give testimony to the prevalence of hemerological practices in early China, and the almanacs that are part of the literature aimed at displaying and affirming sovereignty on more philosophical grounds. In both cases, the claim to legitimacy could only work because of the prevalence of divination in early China, and because gaining confirmation for one’s actions was already part of everyday divinatory practice. Kwon Soo Park sheds new light on the political impact of hemerology in Korea. By drawing on the so-called uigwe [Books of State Rites], Kwon Soo Park here paints a contradictory picture of the use of divinatory techniques in late Joseon Korea, which he calls a ‘true ritual state.’ On one hand, elaborate ceremonies were supposed to strengthen stability and cohesion by displaying the sovereignty of the royal court. Techniques for divining the date and site of, for example, a state funeral, had an important function in legitimizing these performances, to the point of being called on to choose a date for choosing an auspicious date for such an event. On the other hand, the result of such divination was still changeable and influenced by political circumstances, such as when it seemed politically opportune to placate the second wife of the late king by not burying him close to his first wife. In a move clearly meant to strengthen the new king’s position, the geomancers who had chosen the first site were declared incompetent and the officials supporting the decision—and thereby the old political arrangement—were dismissed. In this way, divining rituals could be both a stabilizing factor and a tool for political change. Hsien-Huei Liao investigates the relationship between Confucian world view and Lebenswelt. Wen Tianxiang (1236–1282) is famous for his martyrdom at the hands of the Mongols, which made him a model of Confucian loyalty and virtue. Hsien-Huei Liao in this essay attempts to square Wen’s known, lifelong interest in the mantic arts with the strong Confucian idealism that he

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

12

Lackner

displayed towards the end of his life. In the process, she constructs an opposition between the mantic arts and Confucian notions of fate, based on the fact that Confucian thinkers in the past had been openly critical of the former. Yet, her own description of how both ‘sides’ intermingled in Wen’s life also offers another interpretation: mantic arts constituted an important part of elite society in Song China, and in fact, its everyday practitioners and even experts cannot be strictly differentiated from ‘Confucian’ circles. It was just a matter of course that a curious literatus like Wen Tianxiang would seek the truth about the Mandate of Heaven not just in the classics, but in all writings that he could get hold of. He did not read them uncritically, though, and some of Wen’s attitudes towards mantic texts and their practitioners speak to the low esteem that he had for most of them, thus, in fact, underlining their assessment as a lesser art. He still did not dismiss the possibility that they could make a contribution to his knowledge. When faced with building his legacy, however, he and his supporters of course would turn to Confucian hagiographic tropes and ‘Confucian’ fate to do so. Yung Sik Kim explores the arguments of a radical critic of traditional predictive practices. Since Neo-Confucian doctrine posits that all things are qi, it follows that the human mind is connected to the world through it. This in turn makes divination feasible, as it seems just to be a matter of making use of this existing connection. The Neo-Confucian attitude towards divination is nevertheless more complex, as exemplified by the Korean thinker Chŏng Yak-yong (1762–1836) of the late Chosŏn period. For Chŏng, there could be no doubt that the Classic of Changes (Yijing) of the Chinese canon was indeed predominantly about a system of divination, which was created by the sage in order to be able to receive commands from heaven. Other techniques of divination might work as well, as someone who was perfectly sincere could indeed foresee things due to his superior, spirit-like insight. Unfortunately, in this day and age divination was used for different, lowly and selfish purposes, to gain petty advantages in this world, and without any regard for heaven’s wishes. In other words, the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ divination was determined by the moral attitude of the person seeking to divine. Due to the general moral decline since antiquity, there was a clear danger that divination at present would not establish the much-needed connection to the will of heaven, and thus do more harm than good. For this reason, Chŏng Yak-yong argued that even divination following the canonic Yijing system should be banned from being used. Yung Sik Kim in this essay discusses the critical attitude of one Neo-Confucian thinker towards contemporary divination, and shows how he justified this attitude in the face of a canonical literature where in which instances of divination seemed to be abundant.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

13

From a perspective of social anthropology, Stéphanie Homola’s contribution explores the grey zone of fortune-telling in present-day China. Centered on the case of the itinerant diviner Mr. Yao, Stéphanie Homola in this contribution discusses the ambiguous status of divination and its practitioners in contemporary China. The CCP officially reviles fortune-telling as superstition, and although the common people do not seem to consider mantic knowledge fraudulent as such, wandering fortune-tellers are relegated to the social twilight of beggars and charlatans. Yet, this twilight still seems to provide Mr. Yao with the opportunity to fulfill his needs for subsistence, independence, and even recognition. Mixing techniques from the fields of anthropology, cultural history, and literature studies, Homola here develops a rich description of Mr. Yao’s background, lifestyle, legal situation, and ambiguous status in society. Coming from a family of CCP ‘aristocrats,’ Mr. Yao turned to fortune-telling when he fell on hard times, and claims to have studied the old techniques with masters and from books. At times boastful, rude, and out of line, he still appears to be respected by his clients for his expertise, and willingly provides them with the services that they desire. In this manner, Mr. Yao has carved out a niche for himself that is located right in the space between esteemed traveling expert and despised vagabond, between traditional Chinese culture and the upheavals of the 20th century. Homola closes by comparing her informant to the writer Wang Shuo, who embodies and writes about a Chinese liumang (hooligan) culture that is both a product of and in opposition to the prevailing system and its iconoclastic history. Jennifer Jung-Kim deals with the psycho-hygienic function of divination in modern Korea. Why would young women in today’s technologically advanced South Korea still consult diviners? In order to find answers to this question, Jennifer Jung-Kim conducted interviews with women under 50, who all had an academic background. Modern ‘rationality’ in fact seems to have played a role in choosing the divination technique: more computational practices such as the four-pillars technique were generally preferred over more archaic, shamanic methods, to the point that even DNA and finger print analysis today are incorporated into mantic practices. Her informants still quite consistently did not expect the answers to be completely, or even predominantly, accurate. Belief seemed not to be at stake, and some informants even professed that they considered their religious beliefs to be in conflict with seeing a diviner. Instead, the women found help with making difficult decisions and sought reassurance about their own and their families’ fortunes, especially regarding children. Going to the diviner was compared to consulting a psychologist, in that it helped them to develop the positive attitude needed to deal with the vagaries of modern life as a woman in Korea. They found relief in being able to talk

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

14

Lackner

openly about their problems, and after the consultation felt empowered and secure in their status within their families. All that was needed for divination to be successful in this way was the possibility, in this very moment, that it could be true, hence the importance of the performative aspects of the trade. Che-Chia Chang explores the complex interaction between Chinese and non-Chinese concepts in the framework of astrology. What is authentically Chinese, what foreign? In this essay, Che-Chia Chang takes this age-old question to the case of astrology in China. Her starting point is a seventeenth-century Chinese translation of a commentary on Claudius Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, a foundational text of Greek and, subsequently, European astrology. In the preface, the translator Xue Fengzuo (1628–1680) argues that the ‘Chinese’ fourpillars technique, as well as Western knowledge could be used side by side, while hybrid techniques such as the five-planets method should be ­abolished, despite being considered orthodox in China. Chang goes on to recon­struct the influx of Indian astrological ideas regarding the lunar mansions through translations of Buddhist sutras—by this route, even recognizably Ptolemaic con­cepts by the 9th c. had found their way to East Asia. Acceptance of these ‘exotic’ ideas was not a question of authenticity, but of usefulness and adaptability to Chinese needs. Each subsequent author of texts and diagrams on the five planets had his way of combining ‘foreign’ concepts and knowledge with ‘Chinese’ ideas, such as the earthly branches and heavenly stems. Techniques that in theory should have been determined by sacred tradition or the immutable course of celestial bodies were in fact very much open to change and interpretation. Chang concludes that before the nineteenth-century challenges to their identity, the Chinese were more than willing to accept foreign ideas and incorporate them into their own culture and tradition. Pingyi Chu provides us with an important contribution to Chinese con­ ceptual history. Mixin, superstition, is arguably one of the more important con­cepts in China’s search for modernity; over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries it was used by various parties in their quest to clearly differentiate themselves from the unenlightened ‘other’ that was considered to hold China back from achieving this goal, be it ‘foreign’ beliefs like Buddhism, or ‘feudal’ remnants like Confucianism. Along with many other ‘modern’ terms, mixin therefore has long been considered a late import via Japan. Pingyi Chu in this contribution argues that the Jesuits and their followers had in fact used this term earlier, in their argument against mantic practices at the early Qing court. However, unlike the iconoclastic modernization movements of later times, the Christian missionaries of the 17th century had to qualify their criticism—their astronomical expertise after all was their main asset in gaining positions within the astronomical bureau at court, positions which at least indirectly were

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

15

connected to mantic practices, such as finding auspicious dates. Chu illustrates the range of forms that these qualified arguments against ‘superstition’ could take within the writings of the Jesuits and their followers. Ferdinand Verbiest, for example, tried to strike a balance between being true to the Christian doctrine, which reserved knowledge of the future to god alone, and showing the usefulness of his Western expertise within a Chinese cultural context. Rather than conveying causal relations and literal truths about the world, like Western astronomical learning did, the useful parts of Chinese mantic tradition in his view consisted of symbols signifying correct behavior and decisions in a given situation, symbols which were very much guided by li, principle. Pingyi Chu thus shows how Verbiest made his ‘foreign’ argument from within the Chinese cultural context. Fan Li and Michael Lackner shed light on the status of mantic arts in 20th century China. In this essay, the ‘fate’ of mingxue 命学 [study of fate] exemplifies the dilemmas that Chinese proponents of modernization faced at different stages of their endeavor. What was the relationship between Western science and Chinese learning? What role, if any, did traditional Chinese knowledge and techniques have to play in a modern China? Literati before the turn of the century and shortly thereafter had still tried to incorporate traditional knowledge into the Western scientific system, and in fact were known to be prac­titioners of divination. But the more the self-confidence of Chinese literati and, later, intellectuals was shattered over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the more it seemed that indigenous superstitions and mantic practices had to be radically discarded, as they had no place in the new order of knowledge. This development eventually culminated in the Cultural Revolution, when Maoist science-turned-superstition was transformed into a weapon devoid of any morality. Fan Li and Michael Lackner illustrate how only a few men versed in mingxue tried to make an argument against this general trend, and in favor of knowledge thus rejected. Both modernizers and their critics accepted certain premises brought on by recent developments, and were hindered by their one-dimensional, ahistorical understanding of Western science. However, it was the few critics who in their defense of fate pointed out that the Social Darwinist notions that appeared to be the moral of Western science were in fact anything but that. Yong Hoon Jun in this essay adds several layers to the complex transmission history of Western astrological knowledge to East Asia. By analyzing the provenance of the knowledge contained in the text Seongyo [Essence of Stars], he shows how Ptolemaic astrology found its way to 19th c. Korea. Jun con­clusively identifies the astronomer and mathematician Nam Byeong-cheol (1817–1863) as the author and compiler of the text, who used sources that had their origin

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

16

Lackner

in Chinese translations from both Arabic and early modern Western commentaries on the aforementioned Tetrabiblos by Claudius Ptolemy. These sources included the work of Xue Fengzuo, which is the subject of Che-Chia Chang’s essay in this volume. Jun argues that the Asian authors were well aware that the two transmissions were part of one astrological system, despite being corrupted in the process. Nam in particular insisted that Western knowledge was original and not merely a descendant of Chinese knowledge transmitted to the West, which was widely believed to be the case in Korea at that time. Andrea Bréard examines the relationship between mathematics and divination. Even without resorting to complex mathematical theories, it is readily apparent that combinatorial probabilities play a large role in number-based divination, and in many cases simple lists of the possible combinations can give the practitioner a notion of these probabilities. Drawing on divination by domino tiles that also can be used in gambling, Andrea Bréard illustrates the role that mathematical, ‘rational’ considerations like this played in the development of and theoretical underpinning for this technique in late imperial China. It turned out, however, that later manuals started to place more value on situating their divination technique within the larger numerological tradition, most notably the Yijing, while the same rules ignored probabilities when ascribing ‘winning’ values to certain combinations. This is what Bréard calls the numerological turn, away from more rationalistic justifications of what was going on, which allowed the practice to be imagined as part of a more universal number-based cosmology than mathematical theory about probabilities could provide. Matthias Hayek’s contribution deals with a particular form of interplay between time and space in mantic arts. Countless possible methods to perform what Cicero called artificial divination are found in human societies, which complicates any systematic discussion of the relationship between whatever parameters are used and the techniques that are applied to them. Matthias Hayek here looks at three cases of what he calls chronomancy, which belong to very different mantic categories (calendar astrology, horoscopy, and arithmology). However, all these divination techniques rely on given— ‘linked’—temporal parameters, which begs the question whether there are similarities between the ways that these diverse methods process the temporal ‘data’ provided by the client or the circumstances of the divination? Hayek starts by tracing the cultural origins of three Japanese practices to the East Asian mainland, and goes on to describe in detail what mathematical operation is applied to the temporal data in each case. The somewhat surprising result is that two out of three apply a modulo operation to calculate the result, while the third still remains modular in essence. Moreover, all three allow for

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

17

the practitioner to use his left hand as calculation device in lieu of the diagrams that were employed as well. Hayek concludes that these techniques seemed to rely on a similar logic linked to the nature of the data they were using. Then again, the hand mnemonic in particular might also contain a ritual, performative meaning conducive to the divinatory act itself. Sanghak Oh inquires into the origins of the Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea. Two basic theorical approaches can be distinguished in Chinese Fengshui: the Form (xingshi 形勢) theory and the Compass (liqi 理氣) theory. Sanghak Oh in this essay identifies the former textual tradition as the origin of the Physical Shape (wuxing 物形) theory that has been widely used in Korea until today, and thus shows that it is not in fact an entirely indigenous method, as some commentators claim. Oh goes on to explain some of the characteristics of this method, which in fact consists of finding landscape features corresponding to certain images, such as ‘a buffalo entering the water,’ and then ascribing a meaning to this feature. Identifying a certain formation of the landscape was a highly complex and, in fact, subjective process that resembled a narrative more than a repeatable technique. Manuals for this technique therefore tended to contain maps and descriptions of actual formations rather than only abstract descriptions of features. Indigenous Korean texts featuring this technique indicate that some aspects were adapted to Korean needs and circumstances, but much of the literature was adapted from Chinese sources on the topic, showing once again how easily knowledge originating in China was appropriated and made one’s own by its neighbors.

Works Cited

Beccarisi, Alessandra. “Natürliche Prognostik und Manipulation: Wilhelm von Moer­ bekes ‘De arte et Scientia geomantiae’.” In Mantik, Schicksal und Freiheit im Mittelalter, edited by Loris Sturlese, pp. 109–128, Köln et al.: Böhlau, 2011. Chi, Yün. Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: The Notes of a Confucian Scholar. Edited and translated by David L. Keenan. London; New York: Routledge, 1999. Chance, destin et jeux de hasard en Chine: Études chinoises XXXIII-2 (2014). Paris: Association Française d’Études Chinoises, 2015. Chemla, Karine, and Marc Kalinowski, eds. Divination et rationalité en Chine ancienne. Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 21 (1999). Goossaert, Vincent. “Spirit Writing, Canonization, and the Rise of Divine Saviors: Wenchang, Lüzu and Guandi, 1700–1858.” Late Imperial China 36.2 (2015): 82–125.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

18

Lackner

Greenbaum, Dorian Gieseler. “Arrows, Aiming and Divination: Astrology as a Stochastic Art.” In Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium, edited by Patrick Curry, pp. 179– 209. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Ji, Yun 紀昀: “Siku quanshu zongmu: zi bu zongxu 四庫全書總目：子部總敘 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries: General Discussion of the Philosophical Works].” In Siku quanshu zongmu 四庫全書總目 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], edited by Yong Rong 永瑢, p. 769. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965. Ji Yun. Yuewei caotang biji 閱微草堂筆記. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984. Ji, Yun. Pinselnotizen aus der Strohhütte der Betrachtung des Großen im Kleinen. Translated by Konrad Herrmann. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1983. Ji, Yun. Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. Edited and translated by Sun Haichen. Beijing: New World Press, 1998. Ji, Yun. Ji Xiaolan: Note scritte nello studio Yuewei. Edited and translated by Edi Bozza. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1992. Ji, Yun. Real Life in China at the Height of the Empire: Revealed by The Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan. Edited and translated by David E. Pollard. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2014. Kalinowski, Marc. Wang Chong: balance des discours: destin, providence et divination. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. Lackner, Michael (Lang Mixie 朗密榭), and Li Fan 李帆. “Jindai Zhongguo zhishi zhuanxing shiye xia de ‘mingxue’ 近代中国知识转型视野下的 ‘命学’ [The ‘Study of Fate’ in the Epistemological Transformation of Modern China].” Shehui kexue 社会 科学 [Journal of Social Sciences], 2012.6: 147–154. Levi, Jean. “Pratiques divinatoires, conjectures et critiques rationalistes à l’époque des Royaumes Combattants.” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 21 (1999): 67–77. Midelfort, H.C. Erik. Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth.Century Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Nedostup, Rebecca. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. Palazzo, Alessandro. “The Scientific Significance of Fate and Celestial Influences in Some Mature Works by Albert the Great: De fato, De somno et vigilia, De intellectu et intellegibili, Mineralia.” In Per perscrutationem philosophicam: Neue Perspektiven der mitteralterlichen Forschung. Festschrift Loris Sturlese zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by Alessandra Beccarisi et al., pp. 55–78. Hamburg: Meiner, 2008. Palazzo, Alessandro. “Albert the Great’s Doctrine of Fascination in the Context of his Philosophical System.” In Via Alberti: Texte—Quellen—Interpretationen, edited by Ludger Honnefelder et al., pp. 135–218. Münster: Aschendorff, 2009.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Introduction

19

Roetz, Heiner. Mensch und Natur im Alten China: Zum Subjekt-Objekt-Gegensatz in der Klassischen Chinesischen Philosophie; zugleich eine Kritik des Klischees vom “Universismus”. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984. Vernant, Jean-Pierre et al., eds. Divination et rationalité. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1974. Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之 “Jindai Zhongguo dushuren de mingli shijie 近代中国读书人的命 理世界 [Modern Chinese Scholars and Their World of Fate Calculation].” Xueshu yuekan 学术月刊, [Academic Monthly], 2015.9: 147–160. Zhu Xi 朱熹. Zhuzi Yulei 朱子語類 [Classified Sayings of Master Zhu]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999. Zhu Xi 朱熹. “Zeng Xu Duanshu ming xu 贈徐端叔命序 [A Preface on Fate Presented to Xu Duanshu].” In Zhu Xi ji 朱熹集, 75/7: p. 3920. Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyou chubanshe, 1996. Zhu Xi 朱熹. “Zeng Xu Shibiao xu 贈徐師表序 [A Preface Presented to Xu Shibiao].” In Zhu Xi ji 朱熹集, 75/7: p. 3939. Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyou chubanshe, 1996.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

20

Lackner

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

21

Introduction

Part 1 Divination and Literature: Excavated and Extant

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

22

Lackner

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

23

Chapter 1

A Recently Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination* Marco Caboara

1 Introduction The manuscript here introduced and translated, with the title Bu shu 卜書 [Text on Divination] provided by the editor, Li Ling, can be dated between 350 and 300 bce and ascribed to the former state of Chu. It contains the earliest known methodological treatment of turtle-shell divination and crack interpretation and therefore represents a new fundamental piece of evidence in the history of Chinese divinatory practices. The manuscript consists of ten bamboo strips, four complete (1–2, 7–8) and six defective (3–6, 9–10), for a total of 256 characters. The complete strips consist of 32 to 34 characters and have an ordinal number at the end, and the last strip has a clear black mark signaling the end of the text. The order of the remaining strips can be established quite confidently by means of their physical features and on the basis of textual coherence. In contrast to the better known Guodian manuscripts corpus to which this manuscript belongs, the so-called Shanghai Museum manuscripts from Chu, has not been excavated by archeologists. It has been bought on the antiquarian market in Hong Kong after having been taken out of China by unknown hands. Its provenance is therefore uncertain. However, everything points to its being entirely authentic material produced in a time and place very close to the Guodian findings (Hubei, former state of Chu, between 350 and 300 bce).1 This article is divided into two parts. In part one, I will briefly provide some background for the manuscript’s significance (1.1), then I will give an account of its reception (1.2), an analysis of its textual structure (1.3) and of its system of * I thank Joachim Gentz, Linda Leung, Axel Schuessler, and Edward Shaughnessy for their comments. I wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of a Department Research Grant (DRGENGL, PolyU Project 4-ZZAG) from the Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the project on “Nominalization in Old Chinese: Typological and Diachronic Implications of Its Referential and Non-referential Uses for Nominalization Phenomena in Indo-European Languages.” 1 See Shaughnessy, Rewriting Early Chinese Texts, 3–4 for a brief discussion.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_003

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

24

Caboara

crack interpretation (1.4). In part two I will provide a transcription and an annotated translation of the piece (the first translation of this text, to my knowledge). The translation presents my understanding of the text in the clearest and simplest form possible, while the paleographical and phonological annotations are meant to justify my transcription for the specialists as well as to give the general sinological public an idea of the multiple options available in establishing and understanding the text. Background: The Bu shu’s Place in Ancient Chinese Divinatory Literature Turtle divination has been the prevalent form of divination in Shang China, to be gradually substituted during the Zhou dynasty by yarrow stalk divination.2 Its concurrent usage with yarrow stalk divination has been widely attested in the received literature.3 Recent archeological excavations have provided new textual materials for the early Zhou4 and Warring States5 practice of plastromancy, while recent findings have shown its continued usage until the Tang.6 The new evidence on the continued relevance of plastromancy has stimulated a new interest for the oldest handbook of plastromancy, the Gui ce liezhuan 龜策列傳 [Treatise on Tortoise and Milfoil Stalks Divination]7, a compilation of materials of different origin edited by Chu Shaosun (ca. 104–ca. 30 bce) and combined with passages authored by Sima Qian to reconstruct the by then lost chapter 129 of the Shiji.8 The Gui ce liezhuan was previously generally dismissed as a dry apocryphal text of dubious value, but its extensive treatment on the divinatory interpretation of crack configurations has shown a strong relevance for the interpretation of newly excavated bamboo manuscripts and, as we will show, the system used in the first part of our text has remarkable similarities with the one used in the Shiji treatise.

1.1

2 See Vernant, Divination et rationalité; Keightley, Sources of Shang history; and Takashima, Studies of Fascicle Three of Inscriptions from the Yin Ruins. 3 Shaughnessy, “The Composition of the Zhouyi,” 66–69. 4 Shaughnessy, “Zhouyuan oracle bone inscriptions.” 5 Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou.” 6 Between 1994 and 1998, three scorched and cracked plastrons—all pretreated with drilled hollows—were recovered from the Mingyueba 明月垻 site on the inner eastern rim of the Sichuan basin (Kory, Cracking to divine, 9). 7 Liezhuan 列傳 is normally translated, in the Shiji, as “biography” or “appended traditions,” but in this case “treatise” is closer to the nature of the chapter. 8 See Shaughnessy, “Biography of Tortoise and Rods,” Pu, Xian Qin bu fa yanjiu (an overview of pre-Qin turtle-shell divination), and Kory, Cracking to divine (an overview of turtle-shell divination from the Han to the Tang).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

25

1.2 Literature Review Our text has been first mentioned by its editor, Li Ling, in 20049 and then by Bing Shangbai in 200910. Due to the pace of publication of the Shanghai Museum Collection (around one volume per year), it took Li Ling eight years to actually publish the text. On the basis of the high quality photographic reproduction of the manuscript as well as Li Ling’s transcription and explanation, the scholarly debate went on within the framework of electronic philology, as it usually happens with Chu bamboo manuscripts, whereby a new, sometimes radically different understanding of a given text rapidly takes shape by means of exchanges on the web. In early January 2013 there had been a long series of exchanges in the main web forum of Ancient Chinese Paleographers hosted by the Center for research on Bamboo and Silk manuscripts of Wuhan university.11 As a result, Li Ling’s transcription (published just a month before) had been modified in about 30 cases (affecting directly more than 10% of the text), as will be shown in the paleographical notes. Then in mid January a comprehensive (if preliminary) article by Chen Shaoxuan hosted by the website of the Center for Research on Excavated Texts and Paleography of Fudan University had summed up the discussion and given a significant contribution to a better understanding of some key divinatory terms used in the second portion of the text. Two more articles followed, published by Luo Zhenyi and Lin Zhipeng on the website of the Center for research on Bamboo and Silk manuscripts of Wuhan university, dedicated to narrower textual and paleographical issues. On the basis of these researches and debates, it is now possible to present a preliminary analysis and translation of the text for a Western public. 1.3 Structure and Coherence of the Text The text consists of the divinations of four (unknown) diviners, and is divided into two parts: the first addresses private affairs concerning the abode of an unknown person commissioning the divination and uses a terminology based on the analysis of the divinatory cracks on the shell’s turtle conceived as 9 Li, Jianbo gushu yu xueshu yuanliu, 409. 10 Bing, Geling Chu jian yanjiu, 244 (based on Li, Jianbo gushu yu xueshu yuanliu). 11 Jianbo lun tan -> Jianbo yandu 簡帛論壇 -> 簡帛研讀 [Forum on bamboo and silk man­ uscripts -> Analysis and close reading of bamboo and silk manuscripts] -> “Bushu” chu du 〈卜書〉初讀 [preliminary reading of the text on divination] . I will cite it in a short form as JBLT and provide day and time of entry to indicate to which entry of the thread I am referring (such as JBLT 01–08 23:55, referring to an entry created on January 8th 2013, at 23:55).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

26

Caboara

bodies, with head, feet and trunk rising and falling, very close to the one used by the Gui ce liezhuan; the second part addresses matters of state and uses a different, previously unknown terminology, based on divinatory cracks conceived as a web of lines, converging or diverging, and being fuzzy or curvy in their contours. Before addressing the detailed analysis of the two parts and the two systems of crack interpretations they reflect (section 1.4), I will examine the text from the point of view of its structure and textual cohesion.12 The manuscript is textually complete, having a clear beginning and end, carefully written as if meant for display, made cohesive by its nearly uniform line structure and authoritative by the provenance of its statements, its abstract terminology and proverbial statements; finally, being provided with a rhyming scheme, the text is easier to memorize. For the first two features (textual completeness by numbering and markings, as well as writing features) I refer to the detailed description and to the photographical reproduction of the manuscript in Li, Bu shu. The other features will be discussed below. The divinatory statements we know from the oracle bones13 and the Warring States divinatory manuscripts14 have a fixed structure with a preface stating the time of the divinatory act, the name of the diviner and (for Warring States texts) the name of the person on whose behalf the divination is made,15 a charge, or statement to be submitted to the oracle for verification, a prognostication stating the result of the divinatory process and (not always) a verification stating the fulfillment of the prognostication.16 preface (date, diviner’s name, [beneficiary])—charge—prognostication—[verification] Our text has a different line structure:17 diviner × says—crack configuration—(name of the configura­tion)— prognostication

12

See Appendix One (Structure of the piece) for a visual representation of the elements discussed in this section. 13 Keightley, Sources of Shang history, 28–44. 14 Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou,” 379–383. 15 This is unnecessary in the Oracle Bones, as it is by default done on behalf of the Shang sovereign. 16 See Li, “Formulaic Structure of Chu Divinatory Bamboo Slips.” 17 Even though the text is clearly divided into two parts, they are both organized in a similar way, the main difference being the absence of the name of the configuration in part two.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

27

In contrast with the known divinatory formulas, in the Bu shu text the topic of the divination is not given in the charge but stated (when it is stated) at the beginning of the prognostication, as in line 2.1 chu gong wu jiu 處宮無咎 “for staying in the (present) palace there will be no troubles” or line 4.3 zhen bang wu jiu 貞邦無咎 “in the divination about the state there will be no troubles.” This is most likely a consequence of the organization of the text: the topic remaining the same within part one (dwelling) and part two (divination about the state) there is no need to state it explicitly. Furthermore, this being much more a handbook than a collection of statements, the focus is not on a specific divinatory event, but on the regular correlation between a given crack configuration and a given prognostication. The citation of the names of the diviners, their different status (the last two are named gong 公 ‘lord’) and terminology points to an archival provenance.18 At the very least, the identification of the diviners by name, and the attribution of prestigious titles like gong 公 ‘duke, lord’ to some of them, gives authority to the text citing them. As for the abstract terminology, each of the crack configurations in part one is designated by means of one of five terms: pi 闢 ‘opening,’ xian 陷 ‘sinking,’ bi 蔽 ‘obscure,’ mie 滅 ‘extinguishing’ and jian 肩(?) ‘shouldering(?).’ All of them, except the last, are in prominent, rhyming position.19 These terms are not used in a technical sense in other divinatory texts, but they are all stative verbs mostly used as action nouns with a broad range of applicability. They are suitable for an abstract discourse on actions and events,20 and seem to belong to the same conceptual area as the Yijing names for the hexagrams. The descriptive sentences in the prognostications in lines 3.2 and 3.3, sounding like proverbs or Yijing-like references, are also suitably general, referring to archetypical figures like younger and older sons (line 3.2 xiao zi ji, zhang zi nai ku 小子吉，長子乃哭 “the young son prospers, while the older son cries”) and husband and wife (line 3.3 furen jian yi yinshi, zhangfu shen yi funi 婦人肩(?) 以 18

This is naturally just a hypothesis—we have no way to be sure about the source of the statements, whether they are archival material or fictive examples. 19 Appendix One puts rhyming words in bold. See Appendix Two for the list of rhyming words with their Old Chinese reconstructions. All the reconstructions of Old Chinese here given are based on Schuessler’s 2009 revision of Baxter’s system, whereby non-III (non-third division) words are indicated by a circumflex accent on the main vowel. 20 The Gui ce liezhuan has the following bisyllabic, less abstract names for crack configurations, that I give here for comparison: yuren 漁人 ‘the fisherman,’ zai suo 載所 ‘carrying the place,’ gen ge 根格 ‘root obstruction,’ ting zha 挺詐 ‘unyielding deceit,’ hu he 狐狢 ‘enraveled fox,’ hu che 狐徹 ‘fox penetrating’ (see Shaughnessy, “Biography of Tortoise and Rods,” from which the translations for these terms are taken or adapted).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

28

Caboara

飲食，丈夫深以伏匿 “The wife shoulders (?) (the task of) carrying food and drinks while the husband stays deeply hidden”). Finally, the text is rhymed, even though not consistently. In almost every line, the rhyming elements both immediately precede and end the prognostication segment, breaking each line into two main parts. All these features point to a text that systematizes a body of data with the attempt to build a close, normative system, similar to the early commentarial tradition.21 We don’t know for which audience the manuscript was trying to establish its authoritative voice—probably diviners working for high local officials like Shao Tuo, members of the elite close to the royal entourage of the Warring States kingdoms,22 and perhaps also directly for some curious local officials like the ones in whose tombs hemerological treatises were buried.23

1.4 The System of Crack Interpretation As I mentioned at the beginning of section 1.3, the text is divided into two parts that use two different systems of crack interpretation. I will now proceed to their separate analysis (1.4.1–1.4.2) and then compare them and draw some conclusions (1.4.3). The First Part 1.4.1 The first part consists of the statements of three diviners. The first two, Fei Shu 肥叔 (strip 1) and Ji Zeng 季曾 (strips 1–2), divine about whether or not to dwell in a certain place; the third, Lord Cai 蔡公 (strips 2–4),24 goes on divining and expounding upon the topics divined about by the first two diviners. The first three diviners use a terminology very similar to the one used by the Gui ce liezhuan, where the top of the crack is defined as ‘head’ (shou 首) and its bottom as ‘feet’ (zu 足—here the synonym zhi 趾 is used). Furthermore, 21 See Gentz, “Language of Heaven,” 817–818. 22 Cook, Death in Ancient China, 4–6. 23 Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou,” 386. 24 Li Ling thinks that Lord Cai is responsible also for the divinations given in strips 5 and 6 (lines 4.1–4.4 in my text, where I follow Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” for the line numbering). Chen Shaoxuan attributes the portion of text following strip 4 (and line 3.3) to Lord Yuan. I follow Chen over Li, even though there is no ultimate way to decide the issue, the important thing being to recognize the division of the text itself into two parts, a division emphasized by attributing all of part two to the fourth diviner, Lord Yuan. Li, Bu shu and others have noted that the fourth diviner is the only one using the negative existential wang 亡 instead of wu 無 in the last lines of part two. This is an argument used by Li Ling to defend his attribution of only lines 4.5–4.8 to the fourth diviner. I take it just to reflect textual variation.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

29

refer­ence is made to the ‘belly’ qin 肣25 and the ‘neck’ ying 嬰 (literally ‘necklace’) of the crack, its back (bei 背 ‘spine’) and its front (ying 膺 ‘chest’); these references are not as clearly interpretable, as they do not occur (or not with same meaning) in the Gui ce liezhuan. In one occasion (line 3.2) the only item mentioned is, generically, the crack itself (zhao 兆). The abovementioned elements, as in the Gui ce liezhuan, can be rising (yang 仰, na 納, gao shang 高上) or falling (fu 俯, chu 出, xian 陷). Other modifications have to do with their contours being clear (chun 純 ‘pure’) or fuzzy (dun 沌, hun 混). The outcomes of the divination acts of the first three diviners are all somehow negative: in 1.1 the initiator of the divination should leave his hamlet, in 2.1 (the least negative) his sickness might get worse, in 3.1 and 3.2 his present dwelling is found out to be, to different degrees, unfit for living, and the last line, 3.3, while not giving any clear direction for action, describes a situation of danger. The information is summarized in Table 1.1. Table 1.1

Divination outcomes of the first three diviners

首

趾

背

1.1

仰

出

negative

2.1

俯

納

mildly negative

3.1

仰

出

沌

膺

肣

嬰

兆

negative

混 陷

3.2 3.3

高上

純深

negative mildly negative

1.4.2 The Second Part The second part consists of the statements of one diviner, the fourth, Lord Yuan 淵公, and is concerned with divination about the state (zhen bang 貞 邦).26

25

26

This character is defined as lian 斂 ‘collect, retract’ in the Suoyin 索隱 commentary to the treatise on turtle and milfoil divination in the Shiji 史記 [Records of the Grand Scribe]. I follow Li Ling in considering it a noun and translating it as ‘belly,’ on the basis of its definition in the Yupian 玉篇 [The Jade Book]. See note to line 3.3. See note to line 4.2. As mentioned above, Lines 4.1–4.4 have been attributed by Li Ling to the third diviner, Lord Cai. I follow Chen Shaoxuan in attributing them to Lord Yuan.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

30

Caboara

Here two terms are used, which are not known from the received literature: san zu 三簇 (‘three clusters’)27 and san mo 三末 (‘three tips’). The outcome of divination is established on the basis of the aspect (you ci 有疵 ‘having flaws,’ bai 敗 ‘being defective,’ meng 蒙 ‘being dim’), contour (juzhi 句指 ‘being curvy,’ qi ju 起鉤 ‘rising like a hook’), color (bai 白 ‘white,’ huang 黃’yellow,’ chi 赤 ‘red’), convergence (cui 萃 ‘converge’) and divergence (ti 逖, tuo 脫 ‘diverge’) of the cracks. An important element is also shimo 食墨 ‘eating up the ink,’ a term which is known from the literature28 and discussed here in the notes under its first textual appearance in line 4.429. The outcomes of the divination acts of the fourth diviner are all negative, in different degrees: two very negative (4.1, 4.5.2), two negative (4.7, 4.8), three mildly negative (4.3, 4.5.1, 4.6). The information is summarized in Table 1.2. Table 1.2

Divination outcomes of the fourth diviner

三簇

三末

兆

4.1 4.2

very negative 有疵

吉/ 白, 黃

4.3 4.4 4.5.1

mildly negative

起鉤/ 白, 赤/ 萃以逖 食墨

mildly negative

脫

4.5.2

食墨/ 蒙

very negative

4.6

句指/ 逖

敗

mildly negative

4.7

萃

吉

negative

4.8

?

?

27

28

29

不利

negative

I follow Chen Shaoxuan in reading 簇 zu ‘cluster’ the word that Li Ling read as zu 族 ‘clan,’ leaving open the issue of what crack factor is associated with it. See section 1.4.3 and note 52. Compare with the following passage from the Zhouli: 凡卜筮，君占體，大夫占色， 史占墨，卜人占坼 “Generally, in plastromantic and achilleomantic divination, lords prognosticate on the basis of frame, daifu on the basis of color, scribes on the basis of ‘ink,’ diviners on the basis of (finer) cracks” (Zhouli, 805). More generally, all the items above are discussed in the notes to the relevant parts of the annotated translation.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

31

1.4.3 Features of the Two Systems By looking at tables 1.1 and 1.2, we can perceive a systematic approach both in part one (which we know corresponds to a fairly complete system as developed in the Gui ce liezhuan) and in part two, where the same features (con­vergence and divergence, fuzziness and colors) are associated with the three main factors (the cracks as such, the three clusters and the three tips). We know from the divinatory handbooks from the Han to the Tang that certain features (like rising and clarity of contour) are generally thought to be positive, while their opposites are negative. Curviness (juzhi 句指), at least in our text, seems also to be positive (4.6), while shimo 食墨 ‘eating up the ink,’ which is generally positive, is negative in our text (line 4.5.2). Convergence (cui 萃) seems to be negative while divergence (ti 逖, tuo 脫) seems to be positive. Lacking an interpretation of the key elements ‘three clusters’ and ‘three tips,’ these correspondences remain purely formal, allowing us to describe the textual system but not to draw inferences on its relationship with other systems. The ‘cracks as body’ system, both in this manuscript and in the Gui ce liezhuan, does not seem to be hierarchically organized; the different items (head, chest, foot, etc.) all playing a seemingly equal role, as happens in the “Hong Fan” passage from the Shangshu discussing the roles of the King’s heart, his dignitaries, the noblemen, the common people, as well as the tortoise and milfoil oracles, in achieving the aim of divination, namely the resolution of doubts.30 30

I here give the whole passage (in Karlgren’s translation, modified): 汝則有大疑，謀及 乃心謀及乃心，謀及卿士，謀及庶人，謀及卜筮。汝則從，龜從筮從，卿士 從。庶民從，是之謂大同，身其康彊。子孫其逄，吉。汝則從, 龜從。筮從， 卿士逆。庶民逆，吉。卿士從，龜從。筮從，汝則逆。庶民逆，吉。庶民 從，龜從。筮從，汝則逆。卿士逆，吉。汝則從，龜從。筮逆，卿士逆。庶 民逆，作內吉，作外凶，龜筮共違于人，用靜吉，用作凶。“Now you have a great doubt; then consult with your heart, consult with the dignitaries and noblemen, consult with the common people, consult with the tortoise and milfoil oracles. Now you consent (sc. to a certain action), the tortoise consents, the milfoil consents, the dignitaries and noblemen consent, the common people consent; that is called the great concord; your person will be prosperous and strong, your sons and grandsons will be great; it is auspicious. Now you consent, the tortoise consents, the milfoil consents, but the dignitaries and noblemen oppose, the common people oppose, it is still auspicious. The dignitaries and noblemen consent, the tortoise consents, the milfoil consents, but you oppose and the common people oppose; it is (still) auspicious. The common people consent, the tortoise consents, the milfoil consents, but you oppose and the dignitaries and noblemen oppose; it is (still) auspicious. Now you consent, the tortoise consents, but the milfoil opposes, the dignitaries and noblemen oppose, the common people oppose; in internal affairs it is auspicious, in external affairs (sc. outside the state) it is baleful. When tortoise

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

32

Caboara

Figure 1.1 Schematic model of the three tips (三末)

On the contrary, the ‘cracks as web’ system is hierarchically structured, with the three clusters dominating the three tips, as can be seen by comparing lines 4.6 and 4.7. In line 4.6 a negative feature of the three tips (defectiveness) is not enough to overcome a fundamentally positive configuration of the three clusters (curviness and divergence), while in line 4.7 a positive feature of the three tips (auspiciousness31) is overcome by a negative feature of the three clusters (convergence). While the above analysis points to a fairly complete system, this completeness needs to be seen against a characteristic of our text that we have already noted while discussing, separately, part one and part two: the negativity of all prognostications. If divination is an attempt not only to resolve doubts but also to control events,32 a divination treatise focusing entirely on negative events makes sense only if it is a subset of a larger treatise, other parts of which might contain symmetrical, positive events, or perhaps sections with methods to deal with such negative outcomes, such as prayers and exorcisms (in the Baoshan texts, for example, divinatory statements consist of two prognostications, the first of which is negative while the second, following proposals for sacrifices and exorcisms, positive)33. Therefore, while the text is cohesive and conceptually relatively closed, it is also most likely not self-sufficient, but merely a part of a whole that might or might not be later made known to us.

31 32 33

and milfoil both go counter to men, to remain still is auspicious, to act is baleful.” Shangshu, 191. This is the only feature that seems to be non-descriptive, instead directly pointing to an interpretation of the crack on the basis of some unspecified features. See Shaughnessy, “The Composition of the Zhouyi,” 56. See Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou,” 380–381.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

2

33

Annotated Translation34 2.1  肥叔曰：兆仰首出趾35 ，是謂闢，卜人無咎，將去其里，而它方 焉36 適。 Fei Shu said: when the crack is raising on the top and falling at the bottom, this is referred to as “opening”; the initiator of the question will have no troubles, but he will leave his hamlet and go to another place. 2.1  季曾曰：兆俯37 簪40 。

34 35 36

37

38 39

40

首納趾38，是謂【一】陷39，處宮無咎，有疾乃

The numbering of the lines is mainly based on Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo.” Literally “raising the head and sending forth the feet”—see section 1.4.2. In the Gui ce liezhuan, zu 足 ‘foot’ is used instead of zhi 趾. Yan 焉: used as yu zhi 於之 ‘from there,’ or just as post-topical particle, as often in the Guodian and Shanghai Museum Manuscripts, as in the following example: 我何爲，歲 焉熟 “What should I do, so that the harvest be ripe?” (Jian da wang bo han 柬大王泊旱, strip 13, Shanghai Museum Collection vol. 4). Li Ling transcribes the character as tiao 頫 ‘bend the head.’ According to Gao, Guzi tongjia huidian, 366, tiao 頫 is the guwen 古文 form of fu 俯 (see also Grammata Serica Recensa 1145m), but this transcription is problematic, as the character consists of the elements “頁” and “九,” and jiu 九 *kuʔ is not a good phonetic for tiao 頫 *lhiâuh. I accept the emendation proposed by JBLT, so that the text here matches more closely the terminology used in the Gui ce liezhuan. According to JBLT 01–06 02:10 九 is a graphic mistake for bao 勹/ 包 *bru. Fu 俯 is *poʔ in Old Chinese, with the same initial (the -r- is an infix and does not affect the similarity of the initials) but a different main vowel. Different main vowels do not generally allow phonetic loans, but He 1998: 236 and Wang Hui 2008: 151 show examples of bao 勹 *bru standing for fu 符 *bo, supporting the argument for the likelihood of ‘u’/‘o’ interchange in the Chu manuscripts. Literally “lowering the head and bringing in the feet”—see introduction. The phrase 俯首 納趾 is the exact opposite of the phrase 仰首出趾. I follow Li Ling in reading the character as xian 陷 *grɘ̂ ms; JBLT 01–05 10:54 proposed to change it into chen 沈 *drɘ̂ m, but there is no compelling reason to do it (see also JBLT 01–06 21:11). Li Ling transcribes this character as shi 適 ‘to go.’ The identification of the character under discussion here is a much debated issue. Chen Jian argued at length that it should be transcribed as cong 琮 *dzûŋ ‘a piece of jade’ and read as cong 從 *dzoŋ ‘to go’ (Chen Jian, Shi “cong” ji xiangguan zhu zi (yi)). Bai, Jiandu boshu tongjiazi zidian, 248 shows that it can be read both as can 憯 ‘grieved’ and zhen 簪 ‘quick’ as well as cong 從, which would imply, in my understanding, that it can write two different words, a rare but verified phenomenon. I read as zhen 簪 ‘quick,’ on the basis of its occurrence in the Shanghai Museum

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

34

Caboara

Ji Zeng said: when the top of the crack goes down and the bottom is raised, this is referred to as “sinking”; for staying in the (present) palace there will be no troubles, but if there is sickness, it will quicken. 3.1  蔡41 公曰：兆如仰首出趾，而沌背混膺42，是謂蔽43 卜，火44 龜其 有吝；處，【二】不占45 大汙，乃占大谷。 Lord Cai said: when the crack seems to be raised at the top and lowered at the bottom, and the back and the front are unclear (in their contour?), this is referred to as “obscure”; to crack a burned up turtle is a bad omen (?); if the location is not prognosticated as being too moist, then it is

41

42

43

44

45

manuscript of the Zhouyi. See Ji, Shanghai Bowuguan zang zhanguo Chu zhushu duben (vol. 3), 42–43 for an exhaustive discussion. As shown in the introduction, xian 陷 and zhen 簪 rhyme. 蔡: Li Ling transcribes this graph as ; characters with phonetic jian 戔 are often read as cai 蔡 in the Chu manuscripts—see Bai, Jiandu boshu tongjiazi zidian, 366–367 and Chen, Chu di chutu zhanguo jiance, 231 n. 7. Li Ling transcribes this sequence of graphs as 屯[= 純] 不困膺, and the meaning of the sequence is by him left unclear. I follow JBLT 01–08: 09:50 in understanding bu 不*pɘʔ as bei 背 *pɘ̂ kh ‘back’ in opposition to ying 膺 ‘front’ (literally ‘chest’). This prompts to understand kun 困 *khûns as hun 混 *kûn, in analogy with dun 沌, both meaning “unclear.” The word following bei 背 *pɘ̂ kh starts with a k-, which could explains why the scribe might have heard the sequence *pɘ̂ kh kûn as *pɘʔ kûn (supposing oral and not written transmission of the text). Li Ling transcribes it as pei 犻 *pɘt and reads it as fu 拂 *pɘt ‘to go against.’ I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as bi 蔽 *pets ‘cover’ which often interchanges with words with main vowel ‘e’ in the Chu manuscripts (see Bai, Jiandu boshu tongjiazi zidian, 201 and the examples reported in Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji, at notes 11 and 12); furthermore, in his way bi 蔽 *pets rhymes with 滅 *met, and the rhyming scheme is an important structural feature of this text. 火: Li Ling transcribes this graph as “ 火+ 見,” and reads it as lian 覝 ‘to examine.’ JBLT 01–06 00:55 transcribes it as 火+ 色, and understands it as huo 火. Huo gui 火龜 is, according to Er Ya (爾雅• 釋魚), one kind of turtle. I take huo 火 here verbally (as in the following example from the Zuozhuan, Duke Xuan, year 16: 夏，成周宣榭火。人火之也 “In summer, the pavilion of Duke Xuan at Chengzhou was set on fire. People set it on fire.”— Yang Bojun edition, 769). Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji understands the character as zhe 赭 ‘red,’ but without good paleographical reasons. Li Ling transcribes this graph as zhan 沾 ‘wet.’ The character consists of 水+ 占; whether it stands for zhan 沾 ‘wet’ or zhan 占 ‘to prognosticate’ is open to interpretation (and is left open by Li Ling himself). I prefer to understand it as zhan 占 ‘to prognosticate’ because the grammar of the clause seems therefore more natural.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

35

prognosticated as being in a great valley (= in both cases, unsuitable to live in); 3.2  曰：兆小陷，是謂滅46 。小子吉，長子47 乃哭；用處宮[... 謂] 【三】 瀆48 。 He said: when the crack is slightly sinking (=going downward, a bad omen), this is referred to as “extinguishing.” The young son prospers, while the older son cries, therefore to inhabit the palace [notwithstanding this omen … is referred to as being] rebellious (?). 3.3  肣49 高上，嬰50 純深，是謂幵[= 肩?]51 。婦人幵[= 肩?] 以飲食， 丈夫深以伏匿。 46

47

48 49

50

51

See introduction. Li Ling transcribes the character as and, based on the mo 末 *mat phonetic, reads it as mie 滅 *met. Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji, on the basis of the same phonetic, proposes mei 昧 *mɘ̂ s ‘obscure.’ Both options are problematic on phonetic grounds—I choose mie 滅 *met because, notwithstanding the different main vowel, it preserves the rhyming with bi 蔽 *pets (note that the phonetic series containing mie 滅, GSR 311, has also elements with ‘a’ vowel, like 襪 *mat). BYL 202 gives examples of loans between mo 末 *mat and mie 滅 *met (but compare with the discussion by Gao, “Shanghai Bowuguan zang zhanguo Chu zhushu ‘si’ ‘Caomo zhi chen’” yanjiu, 260–266). The character here is chang 倀, followed by a reduplication mark; Li Ling reads it as a joined graph (hewen 合文) for zhang ren 丈人 ‘husband’ (with chang 倀 *thraŋ = zhang 丈 *draŋʔ); in strip 4 the same character is read as zhangfu 丈夫 ‘husband.’ I read zhang zi 長子 ‘older son’ because it is an attested joined graph (see Tang, Zhanguo wenzibian, 1008), to preserve the parallelism with xiao zi 小子 (or shao zi 少子) ‘younger son,’ and also because, other things being equal, keeping the original graph is to be preferred to adopting a phonetic loan. Du 瀆 ‘to treat without the proper respect,’ as in 禮記·17·1/21 毋瀆神: “do not treat spirits without proper respect.” According to Li Ling, this character is used in the Gui ce liezhuan 龜策列傳 in two kinds of context: in some it is parallel to shou 首 ‘head’ and zu 足 ‘foot’ as a term referring to the middle portion of the crack; in other contexts it is used verbally, defined as lian 斂 ‘collect, retract’ in the Suoyin 索隱 commentary to the Shiji 史記. I follow Li Ling’s gloss as ‘chest,’ based also on a gloss in the Yupian 玉篇 treating it as niu fu 牛腹 “ox belly.” Kory (Cracking to divine, 138 n.56) interprets it as verbal, antonym of kai 開 (open [up]), throughout the Gui ce liezhuan 龜策列傳. JBLT 01–08 23:55 modifies Li Ling’s transcription from 𠧞 [ 兆+ 卜] into [ 妟+ 卜] = ying 嬰 ‘necklace’ (see HLY: 780—strictly speaking, it should be [ 妟+ 卜], but 妟= 嬰, see He, Zhanguo guwen zidian, 969). In this way the sentence is made up of two parallel clauses. Li Ling transcribes the graph as kai 开 “open,” which is a technical term used in the Gui ce liezhuan 龜策列傳, but paleographically it should be instead transcribed as the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

36

Caboara

The middle of the crack rises, its ‘neck’ is obscure and deep, this is referred to as “shouldering(?).” The wife shoulders (the task of) carrying food and drinks while the husband stays deeply hidden (?). 4.1  一占 […] 【四】[…] 吉，邦必有疾。 The first prognostication [...] auspicious. There must be sickness in the state. 4.2  凡三簇52 有疵53，三末54 唯吉，如白如黃, 貞邦55 [...] 【五】夫。

52

53 54 55

graphically similar but unrelated graph jian 幵 * ken (He, Zhanguo guwen zidian, 998), whose meaning is given by the Shuowen as ‘even, level’ (but such meaning is not textually attested—see Grammata Serica Recensa n. 239). JBLT 01–08 23:55 proposes qian 淺 *tshenʔ ‘shallow,’ which matches shen 深 ‘deep’ given above—but the initials are not compatible. I tentatively propose the homophone jian 肩 *ken ‘shoulder, to carry.’ The direct transcription of the graph is zu 族, which Li Ling interprets as standing for zu ‘clan.’ I follow Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” in transcribing it as zu 簇 ‘cluster.’ See section 1.4.2. The direct transcription of the graph is ci 此 ‘this.’ I follow Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” in transcribing it as ci 疵 ‘flaw.’ The ‘three tips’ are a crack configuration factor opposed to the ‘three clusters.’ See section 1.4.2. This is the only case in the bamboo manuscript where the affairs of the state are being divined about—the divination is generally about private affairs, like health, abode, career (see Yan, Wugui yu yinsi, 209 ff). The phrase zhen bang 貞邦 ‘to divine about the state’ does not occur in the received or excavated literature, but the Zhouli discusses in the following passage eight charges (ming 命) to be addressed to the turtle about the affairs of the state (bang shi 邦事): 以邦事作龜之八命一曰征二曰象三曰與四曰謀五曰果六 曰至七曰雨八曰瘳 [...] 凡國大貞卜立君卜大封則眡高作龜。(周禮，春官宗 伯，十三經注疏) “The eight charges for which one prepares the turtle (to divine) about the affairs of the state are: 1) warfare; 2) heavenly omens; 3) tributes; 4) strategic deliberations; 5) outcomes; 6) arrivals; 7) rain; 8) healing. [...] In each case when making a great divination about the state, such as divining about setting up a new sovereign or about a great enfeoffment, one should inspect the top (of the plastron) in preparing the turtle” (Zhouli, 803). Beside establishing a new sovereign and enfeoffments, another object of state divination was the number of generations a dynasty would last (see Kory, Cracking to divine. 224), as in the following passage from the Zuozhuan: 成王定鼎于郟鄏，卜世 三十，卜年七百，天所命也。“When King Cheng (of Zhou) put the cauldrons in place at his capital in Jiaru, he divined by the tortoiseshell the number of generations (of his dynasty) with the result ‘thirty,’ and he divined to determine the number of years with the result ‘seven hundred.’ This was mandated by Heaven” (Duke Xuan 宣公, year 3, Yang Bojun edition, 672). Lines 4.5.1–4.5.2 seem to be interpretable in this sense.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

37

In all cases, when the “three clusters” have flaws, even if the “three tips” are auspicious, and are both white and yellow, the divination about the state [...] (?). 4.3  貞卜邦：兆唯起鉤，如56 白如赤，如萃57 以逖58，貞邦無咎，繄59 將有役60 。 In divining with turtle-shells about the state: if the crack rises like a hook, and it is white and red, if the cracks (first) converge and then diverge, in the divination about the state there will be no troubles, it’s only that there will be corvées.

56

57 58

59

60 a)

b)

Li Ling transcribes the character as wu 毋 ‘do not’; I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in transcribing it as the graphically very similar characters nü 女 = ru 如 ‘to be like,’ which allows to construct the sentence as parallel to the preceding lines (see a list of shapes of the two graphs in Teng, Chuxi jianbo wenzi bian, 1006ff., and 1018ff.) Li Ling transcribes the character as zu 卒 ‘finally’; I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as cui 萃 ‘collect, assemble.’ Li Ling transcribes the character as yi 易 *lek ‘to change.’ I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as ti 逖 *lhêk ‘distant’ (intepreted inchoatively as ‘to become distant, to diverge,’ in opposition to cui 萃, which here is interpreted as ‘to converge’). Chen Jian (as reported by Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo”) gives this character as yi 抑, as has become common in the recent literature. This choice seems to be mainly based on the assumption of a strong phonetic similarity between yi 繄 *ʔî and yi 抑 *ʔə̂ k (see for example Qin, Shangbo jian ‘Lu Bang da Han’ xuci zhaji: “ 殹” 屬影 母脂部，“ 抑” 屬影母質部，爲阴入對轉，可以通假). This similarity is not strong enough to warrant loanword relationships when using modern systems of phonological reconstruction like Schuessler’s, based on Baxter. Public works could be a minor disaster, as shown by two omenological passages from the Shanhaijing (see Fracasso, “Teratoscopy or Divination by Monsters”): 有獸焉，其狀如豚，有距〔五〕，其音如狗吠，其名曰貍力，見則其縣多土 功 “There is an animal on Mount Teawillow which looks like a suckling pig and it has cock spurs. It makes a noise like a dog barking. Its name is the wildcat-strength. Wherever it appears there will be major earthworks in that district” (Birrel’s translation, Yuan, Shanhaijing jiaozhu, 10). 有獸焉，其狀如人而彘鬣穴居而冬蟄，其名曰猾褢，其音如斲木，見則縣有 大繇 (郭璞云: 謂作役也) “There is an animal on this mountain which looks like a human, but it has hog bristles. It lives in a cave and in winter it hibernates. Its name is the tricky wrap. It makes a noise like wood being chopped. Wherever it appears there will be an extensive military draft for that district (gloss by Guo Pu: ‘it refers to instituting corvées’)” (Birrel’s translation, Yuan, Shanhaijing jiaozhu, 10).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

38

Caboara

4.4  如 [...] 【六】食墨61，亦無它色。 If [...] the crack eats the ink [therefore matching the pre-drawn contour], and there are no other colors. 4.5.1  淵62 公占之曰：三簇之脫63，周邦有吝, 亦不絕； Lord Yuan prognosticated about it, saying: if the “three clusters” diverge, there will be misery in the land of Zhou, and yet it will not be extinguished. 61

62

63

In this context, mo 墨 ‘ink’ refers to the area of the crack (see Chen, Zhongguo fangshu da cidian for a short definition and Liu, Zhongguo gudai guibu wenhua, 178–181 for a thorough discussion of all alternative interpretations). According to Kong Yingda’s commentary to a Shangshu passage about divining the location of a new capital, the expression shi (ci) hei 食(此) 墨 (eating up the blackened area) implies the matching of the crack with its contour previously drawn with ink. I first give the passage and then the comment: 予惟 乙卯，朝至于洛師，我卜河朔黎水，我乃卜澗水東，瀍水西，惟洛食(＝飭) ，我又卜瀍水東，亦惟洛食，伻來以圖及獻卜 “On the day yimao, in the morning I came to (the intended) capital Luo, I prognosticated about (the region of) the Li river north of the He; I then prognosticated about (the region) east of the Jian river, and the west of the Chan river; but it was the region of Luo that was ordered (sc. by the oracle). Again I prognosticated about (the region) east of the Chan river; but again, it was (the region of) Luo that was ordered. I have sent a messenger to come (to the king) and to bring a map and to present the oracles” (Shangshu, 214). Kong Yingda’s Comment: 凡卜 之者，必先以墨畫龜，要坼依此墨，然後灼之，求其兆，順食此墨畫之處， 故云惟洛食 “Whenever one divines about something, one must use ink to draw on the turtle, and the main cracks should follow this ink, and when then one applies heat there, trying to obtain the proper cracks, they should accordingly eat up the area drawn with the ink, so the text says ‘it was the Luo that was eaten up.’” According to Zheng Xuan’s commentary to a passage in the Zhouli, it denotes the width of the crack: 凡卜筮君占體大夫 占色史占墨卜人占坼。[ 鄭玄云墨兆廣也] “Whenever one divines, the lord examines the body (of the crack), the official its color, the scribe its blackness, the diviner its (minor) cracks [around the main crack]. [According to Zheng Xuan’s commentary ‘blackness stands for the crack’s width’].” (Zhouli, 805). I here tentatively follow the first interpretation. Li Ling transcribes the character as , but Chen Shaoxuan has shown that it is not an accurate transcription. I follow Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” in transcribing this character as 囦 = yuan 淵. The direct transcription of the graph is duo 敚 *lot ‘to snatch,’ which Li Ling reads as duo 奪 *lôt ‘to grasp, to obtain’; Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” propends for rui 銳 *lots ‘sharp,’ a word that would here refer to the shape of the crack. I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as tuo 脫 *lôt ‘to take off, to escape,’ in analogy with ti 逖 ‘to diverge’ used above. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

4.5.2  三末食墨且蒙64，我周之子孫其【七】散65

39

于百邦，大貞邦亦

兇。

If for the “three tips” the crack eats the ink [= matches the contour] and it is obscure [unclear], the progeny of our state of Zhou will be scattered in the various states. The great divination about the state will also be inauspicious.

64

65

Li Ling transcribes the graph as 𧙕 and reads it as mei 昧 ‘obscure’; I follow Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” in transcribing it as [ 衣+ 丰], with feng 丰 *phoŋ being the phonetic element, and reading it as meng 蒙 *moŋ ‘cover, dark, blind.’ Leung (unpublished paper) reads it as biao 表 * pauʔ and understands it as a loan for fu 孚 *phu, a technical divination term used in the Zhouyi in the sense of ‘matching’ (with the traditional gloss xin 信 ‘trust’). The idea of interpreting biao 表 as fu 孚 in the Chu manuscripts has been first proposed by Chen Jian, then taken over by Qiu Xigui and finally expanded by Shen Pei. Shen pointed also to another case (in the Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript Jian da wang bo han 柬大王泊旱 [The great king Jian (of Chu) exposes himself to dispel the drought], strips 3–4) where a near homophone (and guwen 古文 form) of biao 表, pao 麃 *brâuʔ, should be read as fu 孚 (see his article “Cong Zhanguojian Kan Guren Zhanbu de Bizhi,” 391–434). I will not provide a full discussion of this analysis, as Leung’s article, which should be published soon, has a full paleographical and phonological discussion of the issue, advocating the biao 表 = fu 孚 interpretation and elaborating on its implications for our understanding of the text in the context of divinatory literature, especially in its relationships with the Zhouyi. I will simply point out that the main vowels ‘au’ and ‘u’ rarely interchange, even though we do have cases of these vowels alternating in the same phonetic series (including the fu 孚 phonetic series) and even though Wang, Guwenzi tongjia zidian, 176, item n.1281 has three examples of words written with piao 票 *phiau phonetic that might be interpreted as fu 孚 *phu (but all of them are problematic, two being interpretable as synonyms rather than phonetic loans, and one writing a proper name, which tend routinely to present both graphic and phonetic variation, and are therefore not reliable). I will therefore here provisionally stick to the reading meng 蒙 ‘obscure’ (even though the initials of feng 丰 and meng 蒙 do not match easily) based also on the fact that in this way the rhyming between the elements 蒙 *môŋ / 邦 *prôŋ / 兇 *hoŋ is preserved, and rhyming seems a strong feature of the text (but see infra footnote a to Appendix 2). I thank Axel Schuessler for his insights on this issue. Li Ling transcribes the character as [ 戔+ 止] and reads it as can 殘 *dzân ‘damage, fragment.’ Chen, Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” proposes qian 遷 *tshan ‘to remove, to be removed.’ I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as san 散 *sân ‘to scatter.’ Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

40

Caboara

4.6  淵公占之曰：若卜貞邦，三簇句指66

而逖；三末唯敗67，亡大

咎，有【八】吝於外。

Lord Yuan prognosticated about it saying: in divining with turtle-shells about the state, when the “three clusters” are curvy and diverge, even though the “three tips” are defective, there will not be great troubles, and there will be misery (merely) outside. 4.7  如三末唯吉，三簇是萃68，亦亡大咎，有吝於內。 But even if the “three tips” are auspicious, if the “three clusters” really converge, still, even though there will be no great troubles, there will be misery inside. 4.8  如三簇【... 九】兇，兆不利邦貞。【十】

66

67

68

Li Ling transcribes the two characters as ju zhi 句指 and understands them as ju li 苟慄 “uneasy and scared,” with a phonologically problematic equivalence 指 *kiʔ = 慄 *rit. In fact ju zhi 句指 *kôʔkiʔ is a bisyllabic alliterative adverb or lianmianzi 連綿詞 meaning ‘curved, bent down’ (also written 句倨 *kôʔka and 拮据 *kôʔkeʔ, a graphic and phonetic variation typical of these kind of words). Fu, Lian mian zi dian provides the following examples: 今取新聖人書，名之 孔， 墨，則弟子句指而受者必眾矣 “Now if we take the books of the recent sages and ascribe to them the names of Confucius and Mozi, there will certainly be many among their disciples that will bend down (as a sign of respect) and receive them” (Huainan zi, 1167). 故身之倨佝，手之高下，颜色声气， 各有宜称，所以明尊卑，别疏戚也 “So, the curviness of the body, the height (of the position) of the hands, the countenance and the tone (of the voice), each have their own matching, by means of which one can make clear the difference between noble and base and distinguish between foreign and kin” (Xin shu, 188). Cai Wei 蔡偉 has a recent paper discussing the usage of this bisyllabic adverb on the basis of many examples in the received literature and of its occurrence in another manuscript in volume 9 of the Shanghai Museum collection, Yu wang Tianxia 禹王天下 [Yu reigned over all under Heaven]: 手句指，身命[min = lin 鱗?] 粗，禹使民以二和。“(His) hands curved, (his) body scaly(?) and coarse, Yu made the people doubly harmonious” (Yu wang Tianxia, strip 31). I translate bai 敗 as ‘defective’ [= ‘unclear’ in their contour], interpreting the term as designating their shape, like in most cases above; it could also be interpreted as being a prognostication based on the shape of the “three tips” (just like ji 吉 ‘auspicious’ in line 4.7); and translated as ‘defeat.’ The direct transcription of the graph is ; Li Ling reads it as zu 瘁 ‘distressed’; I follow Lin, Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji in reading it as cui 萃 ‘collect, assemble.’

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

41

If the “three clusters” [...] are inauspicious, the cracks will not be favorable in divining about the state.

Works Cited

Bai Yulan 白於藍. Jiandu boshu tongjiazi zidian 簡牘帛書通假字字典 [Dictionary of Interchangeable Characters in Tablets and Silk Documents]. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2008. Bing Shangbai 邴尚白. Geling Chu jian yanjiu 葛陵楚簡硏究 [Study of the Chu Bamboo Manuscripts from Geling]. Taipei: Taiwan daxue chuban zhongxin, 2009. Cai Wei 蔡偉. Shi “Bai jiu zhi shen ming xi” 釋“𦣻 丩旨身𩸍䱜” [Explaining the Meaning of the Sentence “ 𦣻 丩旨身𩸍䱜”]. Fudan daxue chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu zhongxin 复旦大学出土文献与古文字研究中心 [Fudan University Research Center for Excavated Documents and Paleography], 16.1.2013. (accessed September 15, 2013). Chen Jian 陳劍. Shi “cong” ji xiangguan zhu zi (yi) 釋“琮” 及相關諸字（一）[Explaining the Meaning of 琮 cong and Several Related Characters (Part 1)]. 复旦大学出土文献 与古文字研究中心 [Fudan University Research Center for Excavated Documents and Paleography], 18.12.2007. (accessed November 9, 2013). Chen Wei 陳偉. Chu di chutu Zhanguo jiance 楚地出土戰國簡冊 [Excavated Warring States Bamboo Strip Manuscripts from the Chu Region]. Beijing: Jingji kexue chubanshe, 2009. Chen Shaoxuan 程少軒. Xiaoyi Shangbo jiu “bu shu” de “san zu” he “san mo” 小議上博九 《卜書》的“ 三族” 和“ 三末” [Brief Comment on the Phrases “ 三族” and “ 三末” in the Treatise on Divination in Volume 9 of the Shanghai Museum Collection]. Fudan Daxue chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu zhongxin 复旦大学出土文献与古文字研究中心 [Fudan University Research Center for Excavated Documents and Paleography], 16.1.2013. (accessed September 15, 2013). Chen Yongzheng 陳永正, ed. Zhongguo fangshu da cidian 中國方術大辭典 [Great Dictionary of Chinese Formulas and Techniques]. Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1991. Cook, Constance A. Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man’s Journey. Boston: Brill, 2006. Fracasso, Riccardo. “Teratoscopy or Divination by Monsters. Being a Study on the Wut­sang shan-ching.” Hanxue Yanjiu 漢學研究 [Chinese Studies] 1.2 (1983): 657–700. Fu Dingyi 符定一. Lian mian zi dian 聯綿字典 [Dictionary of Binomials]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1954.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

42

Caboara

Gao Heng 高亨. Guzi tongjia huidian 古字通假會典 [Collection of Interchangeable Homophones of Ancient Characters]. Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1989. Gao Youren 高佑仁. “Shanghai Bowuguan zang zhanguo Chu zhushu ‘si’ ‘Caomo zhi chen’” yanjiu 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書（四）‧曹沫之陣》研究 [Study of “The Battle Array of Cao Mo” in Volume 4 of the Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts from Chu Held in the Shanghai Museum]. Taipei: Hua Mulan wenhua, 2008. Gentz, Joachim. “Language of Heaven, Exegetical Skepticism and the Reinsertion of Religious Concepts in the Gongyang Tradition.” In Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang Through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski, pp. 813–838. Leiden: Brill, 2008. He Linyi 何琳儀. Zhanguo guwen zidian 戰國古文字典 [Dictionary of Old Graphs of the Warring States]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Ji Xusheng 季旭昇. Shanghai Bowuguan cang zhanguo Chu zhushu duben 上海博物館 藏戰國楚竹書讀本 [Reader of the Bamboo Documents of the Warring State Era from Chu Held in the Shanghai Museum]” vol. 1–4. Taipei: Wan juan lou, 2003–2007. Jia Yi 贾谊, and Yu Zhirong 于智荣. Jia Yi “Xin shu” yi zhu 贾谊新书译注 [Annotated Translation of Jia Yi’s “Xin Shu”]. Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin, 2003. JBLT= Jianbo lun tan -> Jianbo yandu 簡帛論壇 -> 簡帛研讀 [Forum on Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts -> Analysis and Close Reading of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts] -> ‘Bushu’ chu du 〈卜書〉初讀 [Preliminary Reading of the Text on Divination]. Jianbo 簡帛 [Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts], 2013. (accessed September 15, 2013). Kalinowski, Marc. “Mantic Texts in Their Cultural Context.” In Medieval Chinese Medicine, edited by Christopher Cullen and Vivienne Lo, pp. 109–133. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005. Kalinowski, Marc. “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou (770–256 BC). Transmitted Texts and Recent Archaeological Discoveries.” In Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang through Han, edited by John Lagerwey and Mark Kalinowski, pp. 341– 396. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Kalinowski, Marc. “Divination and Astrology: Received Texts and Excavated Manuscripts.” In China’s Early Empires: A Re-appraisal, edited by Michael Nylan and Michael Loewe, pp. 339–366. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Karlgren, Bernhard. Grammata serica recensa. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1957. Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang history: The Oracle-bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Keightley, David N. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, ca. 1200–1045 bc Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 2000.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

43

Kory, Stephan N. “Cracking to Divine: Pyro-plastromancy as an Archetypal and Common Mantic and Religious Practice in Han and Medieval China.” Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Indiana University, 2012. Available online: PQDT open. (accessed September 15, 2013). Leung, Linda. “A Study of the Divination Document (Bushu) of the Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscripts Volume 9.” Unpublished paper. 2013. Li, Ling. “Formulaic Structure of Chu Divinatory Bamboo Slips.” Translated by William G. Boltz. Early China 15 (1990): 71–86. Li Ling 李零. Jianbo gushu yu xueshu yuanliu 簡帛古書與學術源流 [Old Texts on Bamboo and Silk and the Origins of Learning]. Beijing: Sanlian, 2004. Li Ling. Bu shu 卜書 [Text on Divination]. In Shanghai Bowuguan cang zhanguo Chu zhushu ( jiu) 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書（九） [Bamboo Documents of the Chu State Held in the Shanghai Museum, vol. 9], edited by Ma Chengyuan 馬承源, pp. 290–302. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012. Lin Zhipeng 林志鵬. Du Shangbo jian dijiu ce “bu shu” zhaji 讀上博簡第九冊《卜書》 札記 [Notes Reading the Manuscript on Divination in Volume 9 of the Shanghai Museum Collection]. Jianbo 簡帛[Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts], 11.03.2013. (accessed September 15, 2013). Liu Yujian 劉玉建. Zhongguo gudai guibu wenhua 中國古代龜卜文化 [Pyro­plastromantic Culture in Ancient China]. Guangxi: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 1992. Loewe, Michael. “Divination by Shells, Bones, and Stalks during the Han.” In Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy in Han China, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 160–190. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Luo Zhenyi 駱珍伊. “Shangbo jiu bu shu” “san yu bai bang” xiaoyi 《上博九•卜書》 「散于百邦」小議 [Brief Comment on the Expression “Scattered in the Hundred States” in the Manuscript on Divination in Volume Nine of the Shanghai Museum Collection]. Jianbo 簡帛[Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts], 26.02.2013. (accessed September 15, 2013). Ma Chengyuan 馬承源, ed. Shanghai Bowuguan zang zhanguo Chu zhushu 上海博物館 藏戰國楚竹書 [Bamboo Documents of the Warring State Era from Chu Held in the Shanghai Museum]. Vols. 1–9. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2001–2012. Pu Zaifu (Pak Chae-bok) 樸載福. Xian Qin bu fa yanjiu 先秦卜法研究 [Study on the Methods of Pre-Qin Divination]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2011. Qin Hualin 秦樺林. Shangbo jian “Lu Bang da Han” xuci zhaji 上博簡《魯邦大旱》虚 詞劄記 [Notes on Function Words in the Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript “The Great Drought in the State of Lu”]. Jianbo yanjiu 簡帛研究 [Study of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts]. (accessed September 15, 2013). Shangshu 尚書 [Classic of Documents]. Edited by Ruan Yuan 阮元. In Shisan jing zhushu 十三经注疏 [Comments to the Thirteen Classics]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

44

Caboara

Schuessler, Axel. Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammata serica recensa. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Shaughnessy, Edward. “Biography of Tortoise and Rods (Guice liezhuan 龜策列傳; Shiji 史記, ch. 128).” M.A. thesis. Stanford University, 1980. Shaughnessy, Edward. “The Composition of the Zhouyi.” Ph.D. dissertation. Stanford Uni­versity, 1983. Shaughnessy, Edward. “Zhouyuan Oracle Bone Inscriptions: Entering the Research Phase?” Early China 1–12 (1985–87): 146–63. Shaughnessy, Edward. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. New York: SUNY Press, 2006. Shen Pei 沈培. “Cong Zhanguo jian Kan Guren Zhanbu de ‘Bizhi’—Jianlun ‘Yisui’ Shuo 從 戰國簡看古人占卜的「蔽志」─ 兼論「移祟」說 [‘ 蔽志’ in Ancient People’s Divina­ tion as Seen from Warring States Period Bamboo Strips—Concurrently Discussing ‘ 移 祟’ Theory].” In Guwenzi yu Gudai Shi 古文字與古代史 [Paleography and Early Chinese History], edited by Chen Zhaorong, vol. 1, pp. 391–434. Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology, 2007. Available online: Fudan daxue chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu zhongxin 复旦大学出土文献与古文字研究中心 [Fudan University Research Center for Excavated Documents and Paleography], 16.12.2007. (accessed September, 15, 2013). Song Huaqiang 宋華強. Xincai Geling Chujian chutan 新蔡葛陵楚簡初探 [Preliminary Investigation of the Chu Bamboo Strips of Xincai Geling]. Wuhan: Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 2010. Takashima, Ken-ichi. Studies of Fascicle Three of Inscriptions from the Yin Ruins. Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology, Special Publications No. 107B. Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology, 2010. Tang Yuhui 湯餘惠, Lai Bingwei 賴炳偉, Xu Zaiguo 徐在國, and Wu Liangbao 吴良寶. Zhanguo wenzibian 戰國文字編 [Compilation of Warring States Graphs]. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2001. Teng Rensheng 滕壬生. Chuxi jianbo wenzi bian 楚系簡帛文字編增訂本 [Revised and Enlarged Edition of the Compilation of Graphs on Bamboo and Silk from the State of Chu]. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008. Vernant, Jean-Pierre, ed. Divination et rationalité. Paris: Éditions du seuil, 1974. Vandermeersch, Léon. “De la tortue à l’achillée.” In Divination et rationalité, edited by Jean-Pierre Vernant, pp. 29–51. Paris: Éditions du seuil, 1974. Wang Hui 王輝. Guwenzi tongjia zidian 古文字通假字典 [Dictionary of Interchangeable Characters in the Old Script]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008. Xu Kuangyi 許匡一, ed., and Liu An 劉安. “Huainan zi” quan yi 淮南子全譯 [A Complete Translation of “The Masters of Huainan”]. Guiyang: Guizhou renmin, 1993. Yan Changgui 晏昌貴. Wugui yu yinsi: Chu jian suojian fangshu zongjiao kao 巫鬼與淫 祀 : 楚簡所見方術宗教考 [Shamans, Spirits and Unorthodox Cults: Divinatory Arts

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination

45

and Religion as Reflected by the Chu Bamboo Manuscripts]. Wuchang: Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 2010. Yuan Ke 袁珂. “Shanhaijing” jiaozhu 山海經校注 [The “Shanhaijing”, Collated and Annotated]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980. Zhang Guangyu 張光裕, and Huang Dekuan 黃德寬, eds. Gu wenzixue lungao 古文字 學論稿 [Collection of Essays on Paleography]. Hefei: Anhui daxue chubanshe, 2008. Zhouli 周禮 [Rites of Zhou]. Edited by Ruan Yuan 阮元. In Shisan jing zhushu 十三经注 疏 [Com­ments to the Thirteen Classics]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980.



Appendix One

Structure of the Piece Preface (diviner’s name, verb of saying and divination topic) Crack configuration Crack configuration’s name Prognostication Rhyming words are in bold Part 1 1.1 肥叔曰：兆仰首出趾，是謂闢，卜人無咎，將去其里，而它方焉適。 2.1 季曾曰：兆俯首納趾，是謂【一】陷，處宮無咎，有疾乃簪。 3.1 蔡公曰：兆如仰首出趾，而沌背混膺，是謂蔽，卜火龜其有吝；處， 【二】不占大汙，乃占大谷。 3.2 曰：兆小陷，是謂滅。小子吉，長子乃哭 ；用處宮[... 謂] 【三】 瀆 。 3.3 肣高上，嬰 純深，是謂幵[= 肩?] 。婦人幵[= 肩?] 以飲食 ，丈夫深以伏 匿。

Part 2 4.1 一占 […] 【四】[…] 吉，邦必有疾。 4.2 凡三簇有疵，三末唯吉，如白如黃, 貞邦 [...] 【五】夫. 4.3 貞卜邦：兆唯起鉤，如白如赤，如萃以逖. 貞邦無咎，繄 將有役。 4.4 如 [...] 【六】食墨，亦無它色 。 4.5.1 淵公占之曰：三簇之脫，周邦有吝, 亦不絕； 4.5.2 三末食墨且蒙，我周之子孫其【七】散于百邦，大貞邦亦兇。 4.6 淵公占之曰：若卜貞邦，三簇句指而逖；三末唯敗，亡大咎，有 【八】吝於外。 4.7 如三末唯吉，三簇是萃，亦亡大咎，有吝於內 。 4.8 如三簇【... 九】兇，兆不利邦貞。【十】

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

46

Caboara



Appendix Two



Rhyming Words

Table 1.3

Rhyming words in the Bu shu 卜書

Lines 1.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.3 4.4 4.5.1 4.5.2 4.6 4.7

闢*bek 陷*grɘ̂ ms 蔽 *pets 谷*klok 食*m-lɘk 吉*kit 逖*lêk 墨*mɘ̂ k 脫*lot 蒙*môŋa 敗*prâts 萃*dzuts

適*lhek 簪*tsrɘ̂ m 滅 *met 瀆*khôk 匿*nrɘk 疾*dzit 役*wek 色*srɘk 絕*dzot 邦*prôŋ 外*ŋwâts 內*nûts

兇*hoŋ

a Line 4.5.1 is the only one with three rhyming elements, and the rhyming character meng 蒙 ‘obscure’ is object of debate and possibly extrametrical (Schuessler). See discussion in note 64.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

47

Chapter 2

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature: The Thirty-Two-Year Cycle of the Qian zuo du Bent Nielsen The Qian zuo du 乾鑿度 [Chiseling Open the Regularities of the Hexagram Qian] belongs to a once large body of literature primarily known as the chen wei 讖緯 [The Prognostics and Apocrypha].1 According to the editors of the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 [Critical Catalogue of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries] of 1782, the chen and the wei constitute two different categories of texts. The editors argued that these texts could be differentiated based on contents and objectives. Ideally, the chen would be mere oracle books attempting to predict the future whereas the wei would be a distinctive class of amplifications of the jing 經 [The Classics], providing these with a muchwanted metaphysical dimension.2 This view has prevailed in the few existing studies of this literature,3 although it has been demonstrated that during the Later Han dynasty (25–220), when these texts became widespread, the terms chen and wei were frequently used interchangeably.4 The Apocrypha were often by title attached to one of the Five Classics or to the Yue jing 樂經 [The Classic of Music], the Xiao jing 孝經 [The Classic of Filial Piety], and the Lunyu 論語 [The Analects]. Commonly, the opinions expressed in the Apo­crypha were attributed to Confucius or believed to reflect his views on the Classics.5

1 This paper is partly based on chapter five, “The 64 Hexagrams and Calendric Computations,” of my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation “The Qian zuo du: A Late Han Dynasty (202 bc– ad 220) Study of the Book of Changes, Yijing,” Copenhagen, 1995. A different version of it was published in China as “Calculating the Fall of a Dynasty: Divination Based on the Qian zuo du,” Zhouyi Studies 6, no. 1 (2009–2010): 65–107. 2 Yong, Siku quanshu, vol. 1, 114. The relevant paragraphs have been translated by Bodde in Fung, History, vol. 2, 90. Literally, jing 經 means ‘warp,’ and wei 緯 means ‘weft.’ 3 See Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 1, 100; Bruce, “The I Wei,” 102; Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 97ff.; and Fung, History, vol. 2, 89ff. 4 See Yasui and Nakamura, Isho no kinoteki, 30; and Dull, Historical Introduction, 485f. 5 See Fung, History, vol. 2, 89, where Bodde translates the traditional account of Confucius’s association with the Apocrypha as it appears in the Sui shu, vol. 4, 941.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_004

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

48

Nielsen

Modern scholars generally agree that the Apocrypha began to appear in the decades preceding Wang Mang’s 王莽 (r. 9–23) usurpation of the Imperial throne.6 In the following centuries, these texts not only had a huge impact on interpretations of the Classics, they also influenced several important political issues such as, for example, calendar reforms and nominations of heirs to the throne.7 It is the political application of the texts that accounts for the repeated proscriptions, which eventually, during the reigns of the Sui 隋 emperors Wen 文帝 (r. 581–604) and Yang 煬帝 (r. 605–617), culminated in an almost complete eradication of the Apocrypha.8 Just over a handful of texts, all of them asso­ ciated with the Yijing 易經 [The Classic of Changes], survived relatively intact whereas the rest were lost—except for fragments preserved in histories and commentaries on the Classics and other works. Collections of such fragments began to appear during the Southern Song (1127–1279). The Qian zuo du is one of eight texts, known collectively as the Yiwei ba zhong 易緯八種 [The Eight Apocrypha of the Changes], that has been transmitted relatively intact. These eight texts constitute a rather heterogeneous collection. Two of them barely qualify as texts and would be better described as large fragments: the Bian zhong bei 辨終備 [Explaining the Completeness] is comprised of roughly 270 characters, and the Kun ling tu 坤靈圖 [The Spiritual Diagram of the Hexagram Kun] consists of about 230 characters.9 The Qian yuan xu zhi ji 乾元序制記 [Record of the Original Order and Regulations of the Hexagram Qian] and the Qian Kun zuo du 乾坤鑿度 [Cutting through to the Regularity of Qian and Kun] are not mentioned in any sources prior to the Tang dynasty (618–907) but, whereas the former is considered a late (post-Song) compilation of pre-Tang material, the latter is regarded as Song fabrication.10 6

7 8

9 10

See, for example, Dull, Historical Introduction, 152ff.; and Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 292. Dull finds that the earliest records of the Apocrypha date to the reign of Emperor Cheng 成帝 (r. 32–37 bce) and 29 ce, respectively; see Historical Introduction, 114f. and 200ff. For traditional beliefs and controversies regarding the origins of the Apocrypha, see Fung, History, vol. 2, 89f.; Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 100ff.; Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 102ff.; Liu, “Jing, Wei,” 83f.; and Dull, Historical Introduction, 486ff. See, for example, Needham, Science and Civilisation, vol. 2, 380; Dull, Historical Introduction, 405; Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 297; and Mansvelt Beck, Treatises, 53 and note 17. See Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 105; Needham, Science and Civilisation, vol. 2, 382,; and Dull, Historical Introduction, 406. Dull counts ten proscriptions between 267 and 1273, some of which were accompanied by death penalties for violations of the bans. See Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 123ff.; Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 2, 9f. and 13f.; and Nielsen, Companion, 306–307. See Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 127ff., and Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 14. Yasui and Nakamura believe both texts to be forgeries. However, in my examination of

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

49

The remaining four texts, the Qian zuo du, the Ji lan tu 稽藍圖 [Consultation Charts], the Tong gua yan 通卦驗 [Understanding the Examination of the Hexagrams], and the Shi lei mou 是類謀 [Classified Deliberations], while far from being intact or free of interpolations and lacunae, are believed to be genuine late Han dynasty (202 bce–220 ce) texts.11 As far as we know, the author or authors of the Qian zuo du were never made publicly known. Often the Apocrypha were conceived of as revealed texts that had either been recovered miraculously or transmitted secretly from the time of Confucius or some other sage. Therefore the real authors had to remain anonymous. However, Anna Seidel describes the following profile of a typical author within this particular textual tradition: The authors of the apocrypha are believed to have been among those Han scholars generally referred to as fang-shih 方士 (‘masters of recipes,’ that is, of ‘know-how’). This term, often translated as ‘magician’ or, equally inadequately, as ‘technician,’ ‘expert in a craft,’ does not refer to a specific occupational group or school of thought, but to all those literate members of Han society who did not fit the Confucian ideal of an all-round cultivated but unspecialized scholar-official, an educator in the Confucian classics and proponent of the official ideology. In contrast to these scholar-officials, the fang-shih were usually outsiders, sometimes accepting official positions in their capacity as experts, often living close to the people, spreading their ideas and sometimes supporting themselves by their crafts. Some tended to the Confucian New Text school, others

11

the two texts I find that they share very few features. Whereas the contents and style of the Qian yuan xu zhi ji are similar to the rest of the seven Apocrypha of the Changes, the Qian Kun zuo du is completely different. It contains almost no textual problems, but the frequency of archaistic characters is significantly higher. The composition of the Qian Kun zuo du is more coherent and complete than the other texts, and, unlike these, which have scores of quotations not included in the present editions attributed to them, only two quotations (two short entries in the Kangxi zidian 康熙字典) attributed to the Qian Kun zuo du are not included in the present edition. I find that these characteristics certainly indicate that the Qian Kun zuo du may be a forgery, possibly of the late Song dynasty (960–1279); see Nielsen, Companion, 191f. The Qian Kun zuo du is divided into two juan 卷 with the titles Qian zuo du and Kun zuo du, respectively. Due to the identical names, the first juan of the Qian Kun zuo du and the Qian zuo du are often confused—for example, in the Ci yuan 辭源 [The Origin of Words] under the entry ‘Shi yi’ 十翼 [“The Ten Wings”], where it says this title occurs in the Yi Qian zuo du; see Ci yuan, vol. 1, 400. In fact, the name occurs in the Qian Kun zuo du and not in the Qian zuo du. See Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 115ff.; Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 2, 5ff. and vol. 2, 7ff.; and Nielsen, Companion, 23, 143, 210, 191–192, and 304–307.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

50

Nielsen

were I-ching experts, astrologers, diviners, alchemists, pharmacologist or healers.12 Judging from the contents of the Qian zuo du this profile fits its author reasonably well. The major part of the text is devoted to studies within the Yijing tradition, and it incorporates cosmological elements usually associated with the Confucian New Text School, Jin wen jia 今文家. The author also dem­on­ strates considerable knowledge of mathematical astronomy, calendar cal­­cu­la­­tions, divination, numerology, and so forth. This may all point to a semi-retired life, affording him the intellectual freedom to pursue these studies, which were often frowned upon by officials, while maintaining connections with the court due to his expert knowledge and skills. The author of the Qian zuo du may have resembled one of the fangshi portrayed in the Hou Han shu 後 漢書 [The Documents of the Later Han Dynasty], for example a certain Fan Ying 樊英: Fan Ying, styled Chi-ch’i, was a native of Lu-yang in Nan-yang. As a youth, he was educated through the offices of the capital districts where he became skilled in the Book of Changes: Commentary of Ching Fang and thoroughly versed in the Five Classics. He was also adept in Wind Angles, Stellar Calculations, Yellow River Charts and Lo River Scripts, the Seven Apocrypha,13 and inductive interpretations of disasters and anomalies. […] Whenever the court experienced a disaster or an anomaly and the edict came down asking for suggestions on what might effect the corrective changes, Ying’s explanations most frequently proved to be accurate. Early in life, Ying wrote Comments on the Changes, which were popularly called “Theories of Mr. Fan.” His instructions were based on the charts and apocrypha.14

12

13

14

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 294f. Without ruling out the possibility of multiple authors, I shall in the following for convenience refer to the the Qian zuo du’s author in the singular. In his commentary on this passage in the Hou Han shu, Li Xian 李賢 of the Tang dynasty lists seven categories of Apocrypha, and the Qian zuo du is listed in the Yijing category; see Hou Han shu, vol. 5, 2721. Ibid., 2721 and 2724. Translated in DeWoskin, Doctors, 63 and 66. See also the account of Fan Ying in Dull, Historical Introduction, 383ff.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

51

It is no coincidence that a man well versed in Jing Fang’s 京房 (ca. 76–37 bce) commentary on the Yijing is also conversant with the Apocrypha.15 Indeed, the Yijing studies of Jing Fang and his slightly older contemporary, Meng Xi 孟喜 (fl. 69 bce), share a lot of assumptions with those contained in the Apocrypha. According to the Han shu 漢書 [The Documents of the Han Dynasty], Jing Fang received the Yijing from Meng Xi through Jiao Yanshou 焦延壽 (fl. 80–30 bce), and Meng Xi in turn received it from experts in “waiting for yin-yang and calamities.”16 Meng Xi was a native of Lanling 蘭陵 in Donghai 東海, located in what was formerly the ancient state of Lu 魯 (in the southern part of the present Shandong 山東 province), and his school of Yijing studies was known as the Lu School.17 Scholars speculate that the Qian zuo du may have originated in this area.18 As to the date of composition of the Qian zuo du, we are on slightly firmer ground. Three texts, all of which contain Han material, either quote the Qian zuo du or have identical paragraphs. These are the Bai hu tong 白虎通 [The Discussions in the White Tiger [Hall]], the Liezi 列子 [Master Lie], and the Hou Han shu. The Bai hu tong claims to be the report on a conference discussing the differences in the Five Classics held in the White Tiger Hall in the capital in the year 79. Zhuang Shuzu 莊述祖 (1751–1816) considers the received text to be a forgery and thinks that the original notes from the conference have been lost. Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908) and Liu Shipei 劉師培 (1884–1919) believe that two sets of notes existed. One set, records of the actual discussion, was lost by the fourth century, they argue, while the other set, a shorter summary, was compiled as the received edition of the Bai hu tong. Both sets of notes are attributed to Ban Gu 班固 (32–92).19 William Hung (aka Hong Ye 洪業, 1893– 1980), on the other hand, compares passages from the Bai hu tong with similar passages in the Apocrypha and Ban Gu’s Han shu, and he concludes that the Bai hu tong is the latest of these texts. Hung finds that the statements in the Bai 15

16 17 18

19

This Jing Fang (with the zi Junming 君明) is not to be confused with the Yijing scholar also named Jing Fang 京房 who probably lived between 140 and 80 bce; see Hulsewé, “The Two Early Han I Ching Specialists,” 161f.; and Nielsen, Companion, 129–132. 陰陽災變; Han shu, vol. 5, 3599. See also Fung, History, vol. 2, 111f., and Nielsen, Companion, 126, 129–132, 177–178. Han shu, vol. 5, 3599; and Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 1, 87. The late Han commentator Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200) points to linguistic evidence, see Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 5. See also Ding, “Yi Qian zuo du,” 514, note 4, and Eberhard and ­Müller, “Contributions,” for further evidence, which may link the Apocrypha in general to the area of modern Shandong province. See Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 1, 11ff.; and Loewe, “Pai hu t’ung,” 349.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

52

Nielsen

hu tong reflect ideas belonging to the third century ce, so he dates the compilation of the present edition between 213 and 245.20 Tjan Tjoe Som (aka Zeng Zhusen 曾珠森, 1903–1969) refutes Hung’s arguments and concludes that, allowing for “interpolations and many omissions, [the present edition] may also be regarded as derived from the earliest edition, and therefore as representing, with the above reservations, the Po-hu discussions on the Classics.”21 If the Bai hu tong paragraphs quoting the Qian zuo du are not later interpolations, it follows that the latter was sufficiently known and esteemed to be quoted in a discussion of the Classics in 79 ce. There are altogether four ‘quotations’ in the Bai hu tong, which may stem from the Qian zuo du, but only one of these is actually introduced by the phrase “the Qian zuo du says.”22 This quotation is only a short excerpt of a long passage, which is also included in the Liezi where it occurs as an almost verbatim repetition of the Qian zuo du passage and is introduced by “Liezi said.”23 The Liezi is attributed to a sage by the name Lie Yukou 列禦寇, who is supposed to have lived circa 400 bce. However, no reference to the text is known to us prior to a document by Liu Xiang 劉向 (79–8 bce) dated 14 bce, after which it is mentioned only by Zhang Hua 張華 (232–300) and the commentator of the received edition Zhang Zhan 張湛 (late fourth century).24 The Liezi includes numerous parallels to other works, and based on thorough investigations of these, Graham concludes that it was not Zhang Zhan who compiled the received version but maybe his father or grandfather.25 This would mean a date of compilation in the beginning of the fourth century. In the Hou Han shu there are several references to the Qian zuo du. For example, in the Lü li zhi 律曆志 [Treatise on the Pitch-pipes and Calendars] it

20 Tjan, ibid., 19ff.; and Loewe, ibid. 21 Tjan, ibid., 65. 22 See Chen, Bai hu tong, 501; and Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 2, 592. Another quotation is introduced by the phrase “the commentary says” (zhuan yue 傳曰; this quotation is repeated in the paragraph introduced by “the Qian zuo du says”), see ZZMJ, vol. 86, 536; and Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 1, 244. The two remaining ‘quotations’ are not identified as originating in the Qian zuo du. 23 See Zhang Zhan 張湛, “Lie zi” Zhang Zhan zhu, 13ff.; and Graham, Book of Lieh-tzu, 18f. Lie Zi is identified as Lie Yukou 列禦寇 who is mentioned in the Zhuang zi 莊子; see Graham, Chuang-tzu, 44f. and 96ff. 24 Graham, “The Date,” 147f.; and Barrett, “Lieh tzu,” 299. 25 Graham, ibid., 198; and Barrett, ibid., 300. According to Zhang Zhan the Lie zi had been transmitted in his family from the time of his grandfather.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

53

says that the Qian zuo du has the Day Rule (ri fa 日法) to be 43/81.26 Elsewhere in the same monograph, the Qian zuo du is twice mentioned together with a text called Yuan ming bao 元命苞 [The Inclusion of the Original Charge], and it says that both texts “consider [the time from] the creation to the capture of the qilin 麒麟 beast to be 2,760,000 years.”27 The Hou Han shu, which covers the period 25–220, was compiled by Fan Ye 范曄 (398–447) who selected his material from historians of the Later Han dynasty whose works are now lost. The Lü li zhi is one of several treatises that were added after the death of Fan Ye. It was originally compiled for another work, the Xu Han shu 續漢書 [The Continuation of the Han Dynasty Documents], by Sima Biao 司馬彪 of the Jin dynasty (265–420), and was later added to the Hou Han shu by Liu Zhao 劉昭 (fl. 502).28 The external evidence presented by the three sources mentioned above allows us little more than to conclude that during the Later Han there was a text by the name Qian zuo du, which did contain paragraphs and passages that also occur in the editions we possess today. However, when supplemented by the internal evidence provided by the present edition, the Later Han date is not only confirmed but may also be narrowed down a little. The language of the Qian zuo du answers to W. Dobson’s description of Late Han classical Chinese, that is to say, it “borrows from Archaic grammatical form, is mannered, patterned, and terse. […] a style in which Archaic features provide stylistic variants for contemporary features, thus providing a ‘classical’ flavour.”29 Examples of contemporary features include the use of yu 欲 in the potential aspect, ‘about to,’ as opposed to the Late Archaic desiderative aspect, ‘wish to,’ and the use of the compound piyou 闢猶, ‘is like,’ as opposed to the Late Archaic you 猶.30 The author of the Qian zuo du makes references to several texts, none of which affects a late Han dating. He repeatedly quotes both the oldest parts of the Zhouyi 周易 [The Changes of Zhou], as well as the Tuan 彖 commentary and the Xi ci 繫辭 [The Appended Phrases].31 Several important paragraphs seem to 26

以為開闢至獲麟二百七十六萬歲; Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3035. See also Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 5. 27 Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3038. Incidentally, this is nowhere to be found in the present editions of the Qian zuo du. However, the sentence occurs in a fragment of the Qian zuo du culled from Luo Bi’s 羅泌 (fl. 1176) Lu shi 路史 [The Grand History], and appended to Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 66. 28 Mansvelt Beck, Treatises, 33. 29 Dobson, Late Han Chinese, 109. 30 Ibid., 23 and 73. 31 I distinguish between the Zhouyi, which is the basic texts belonging to the sixty-four hexagrams and the hexagram lines, and the Yijing, which comprises both the Zhouyi and the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

54

Nielsen

be directly inspired by the Xi ci and the Shuo gua 說卦 [Discussing the Trigrams]. However, in his discussion of Yijing numerology as it relates to calendric computations, the author of the Qian zuo du demonstrates his knowledge of the Han calendars. He shows great familiarity with the various constants of two different calendars: the San tong li 三統曆 [“The Three Concordances Calen­ dar”] and the Sifen li 四分曆 [“The Quarter Remainder Calendar”]. “The Three Concordances Calendar” was devised by Liu Xin 劉歆 (46 bce– 23 ce) with some assistance from his father Liu Xiang between 32 bce and 5 ce.32 This means that the Qian zuo du or, at the very least, the paragraphs on calendar calculations cannot have been written before this period. “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” is even later as it superseded “The Three Concordances Calendar” in 85 ce so this would place the composition of the Qian zuo du after the White Tiger Hall conference in 79 ce. However, Eberhard and Müller contend that the Apocrypha, which deal with calendar calculations, “rely upon figures of the Ssu-fen calendar, and reveal themselves to be developments of the T’ai-ch’u calendar and precursors of the Ssu-fen.”33 The Tai chu li 太初曆 [“The Calendar of the Great Beginning”] was in use from 105 bce until it was replaced by “The Three Concordances Calendar”, and like “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” it divides the year into 365¼ days—as opposed to the 365385/1539 days of “The Three Concordances Calendar.” So if Eberhard and Müller are correct in assuming that the calendar figures of the Qian zuo du stem from “The Calendar of the Great Beginning”—and not “The Quarter Remainder Calendar”—it still means that the text cannot be earlier than the beginning of the first century ce. The terminus post quem non is either 79 ce (if the Bai hu tong is reliable) or some time in the second century ce before Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200) composed his commentary (assuming that parts of the transmitted commentary were indeed written by Zheng, see the discussion below). The original composition of the Qian zuo du can only be known if archaeology should miraculously present us with an intact copy. The present edition is based on the compilation of the Yongle dadian 永樂大典 [The Encyclopaedia of the Yongle Reign Period (1403–1424)], which was compiled on imperial orders by Xie Jin 解縉 (1369–1415) and Yao Guangxiao 姚廣孝 (1335–1418) and finished in 1407. The Yongle dadian has not survived intact but the edition of the Qian zuo du was copied by Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805) and the other editors of the Siku

32 33

later commentaries collectively known as the Shi yi 十翼 [The Ten Wings]. Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 201. See, however, also Needham’s date of 7 bce; Science, vol. 3, 421. Eberhard and Müller, ibid., 200.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

55

quanshu zongmu tiyao before it was lost. This edition is collated with other Ming dynasty (1368–1644) editions as well as later editions by Yasui Kōzan and Nakamura Shōhachi in their Isho shūsei. In the following I shall refer exclusively to the Yasui and Nakamura edition but all citations and references have been checked against the four editions of the Qian zuo du included in the Wuqiubei zhai Yijing jicheng 無求備齋易經集 成 [The Complete Collection of the Classic of Changes in the Wuqiubei Studio] by Yan Lingfeng 嚴靈峰 (1903–1999).34 These editions are: 1) the edition included in the Gu jing jie hui han 古經解彙函 [A Collection of Explanations of Old Books] of 1874; 2) the edition collected by Huang Shi 黃奭 (1809–1853); 3) Qian Shubao’s 錢叔寶 (b. 1508) edition; and 4) Fan Qin’s 范欽 (1506–1585) edition. The pres­ent edition of the Qian zuo du is composed of 6,884 characters (one of which is illegible) and divided into two juan, bundles or chapters. According to Ji Yun this division is based on the catalogue of Zheng Qiao’s 鄭樵 (1104–1162) Tong zhi 通志 [Comprehensive Treatises]. There are several examples of lacunae, interpolations, and commentary that have entered the text (and vice versa), and dislocation of phrases.35 A few corrupt passages in the Yongle dadian edition have been emended based on Qian Shubao’s 錢叔寶 (b. 1508) edition.36 There is every indication that the Yongle dadian editors compiled the present edition of the Qian zuo du from various sources. A number of paragraphs, which are almost verbatim repetitions of passages occurring throughout the first juan, have been grouped at the beginning of the second juan. Nearly identical paragraphs have presumably been included because they stem from different editions, have different commentaries, and, in a few cases, have passages that complement each other. The text is edited as a series of quotations attributed to Confucius; there are no less than thirty-seven instances of ‘Confucius said’ (Kongzi yue 孔子曰). What follows ‘Confucius said’ is, of course, apocryphal quotations, and it is impossible to decide whether we should regard the entire passage down to the next ‘Confucius said’ as a statement by Confucius or if we should see it as a brief statement by Confucius, which the author of the Qian zuo du comments on. Stylistically, some passages fit the former concept and others the latter, so in my translations below I make no efforts to indicate precisely which paragraphs I believe the author of the Qian zuo du attributes to Confucius. 34

See Yan, Wuqiubei zhai, vol. 157. Similarly, my concordance to the Qian zuo du is based on the Yasui and Nakamura edition and checked against the four editions included in Yan’s Wuqiubei zhai; see Nielsen, Concordance. 35 See, for example, Zhong Zhaopeng, “Zhouyi,” 515. 36 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 23n9.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

56

Nielsen

The composition of the first juan reflects a conscious editorial attempt to present the contents as systematic and instructive as possible without getting involved too much in textual emendations. The Qian zuo du opens with what is claimed to be Confucius’s exposition of the three meanings of Yi 易,37 which is followed by two accounts, also attributed to Confucius, of how the eight trigrams (ba gua 八卦) came into being. Then follows a discussion of the eight trigrams’ relations to temporal and spatial concepts, which are combined in a cosmological diagram illustrating a life cycle. Having established the trigrams in relation to the cosmos, the Qian zuo du moves on to a cosmogony incorporating numerology closely related to the construction and composition of the sixty-four hexagrams. This, in turn, leads to an explanation of the composition of the Zhouyi and the relative positions of the hexagrams. The remaining paragraphs of the first juan consist of comments on individual hexagrams and their associated line texts, which at times are close in form to a commentary, interspersed with paragraphs on the hexagram lines and their symbolic meanings and correlations. In comparison, the second juan appears as a ragbag. As stated above, it starts off repeating paragraphs from the first juan. After that follow the paragraphs that constitute the focus of the second part of this paper: the correlation of Yijing numerology with calendar calculations of the Han dynasty. These paragraphs, which amount to well over ten per cent of the Qian zuo du, are, of course, not attributed to Confucius as they are so unmistakably of Han origins. The latter half of the second juan deals with various other prognostication techniques, some of which are related to the calendar calculations and correlations with the ten heavenly stems (tian gan 天干) and the five phases (wu xing 五行). One of these techniques (discussed below) is designed to forecast events during a dynasty and to calculate its duration. Others are associated with charts and diagrams related to the Mandate of Heaven (tian ming 天命). Finally, there are several paragraphs on omens: the colours of the dragon’s head, the colours of the river, various constellations and their changing colours, and so on.38 All sources mention Zheng Xuan’s commentary on the Yiwei except the Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書 [The Old History of The Tang Dynasty] (completed 945) and the Xin Tang shu 新唐書 [The New History of The Tang Dynasty] (completed 37

38

This is a good example of a paragraph that may be interpreted as Confucius offering three brief definitions of yi, which are subsequently commented on by the author of the Qian zuo du. See also the seventeen points outline of the contents in Chao, “The Cosmogonic Significance,” 28.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

57

1060), which list a commentary by Song Jun 宋均. The Chongwen zongmu 崇文 總目 [The General Catalogue of the Glory of Literature], compiled by Wang Yaochen 王堯臣 (1001–1056) and others between 1034 and 1042, also has the

Yiwei with Song Jun’s commentary but it lists the Zhouyi Qian zuo du separately with no reference to the provenance of the commentary.39 The rest of the Song dynasty catalogues and later editors unanimously refer to the Qian zuo du commentary as that of Zheng Xuan. This may indicate that the transmission of Song Jun’s commentary was discontinued, probably at the beginning of the twelfth century, but it does not necessarily mean that the commentary was lost. As noted above, the only probable reason why the present edition of the Qian zuo du includes several almost identical paragraphs is that the commentaries differ. Had these different commentary fragments once belonged to a complete commentary, one would expect a higher degree of homogeneity. Zhang Huiyan 張惠言 (1761–1802) has pointed to the heterogeneous nature of the commentaries, and Zhong Zhaopeng thinks that the commentaries by Zheng Xuan and Song Jun were combined after the Song dynasty and attributed to Zheng Xuan.40 Zheng Xuan, zi Kangcheng 康成, is primarily known as the famous classical commentator of the Later Han dynasty who embraced both the new and the old text learning but adhered to the latter.41 Relevant for the present chapter are his studies of the new text Yijing in Jing Fang’s interpretation and the Jiu zhang suan shu 九章算數 [The Nine Sections on the Art of Mathematics].42 Zheng Xuan was also fully conversant with the San tong and Qian xiang 乾象 [The Heavenly Image] calendars.43 He became a student under the eminent old text scholar Ma Rong 馬融 (79–166) who, according to Zheng Xuan’s biography in the Hou Han shu, did not pay him any attention until Zheng Xuan distinguished himself in a debate about the Apocrypha.44 Zheng Xuan is credited with commentaries on the eight Apocrypha of the Changes mentioned above and several others that have survived as fragments only but these attributions have been questioned. Dull thinks that, “because of Cheng’s fame as a commentator many later commentaries were attributed to him, including a long list of apocryphal texts.”45 In fact, Fan Ye, the compiler of 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

See Wang Yaochen, Chongwen zongmu, 2; and Chen Pan, “Gu Chen Wei 7,” 717. Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 14; and Zhong, “Zhouyi,” 515f. See Nielsen, Companion, 333f. Zheng Xuan’s own commentary on the Yijing, however, is based on the old text edition of Fei Zhi 費直 (ca. 50 bce–10 ce); see Dull, Historical Introduction, 395. Hou Han shu, vol. 2, 862; Lü, Zheng Xuan, 133f.; and Cheng, Étude, 140f. Hou Han shu, vol. 3, 1207; and Dull, Historical Introduction, 393. Ibid., 424n130.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

58

Nielsen

the Hou Han shu, mentions only Zheng Xuan’s commentary to the Shang shu zhong hou 尚書中候 [The Central 5-Day Period According to the Hallowed Documents].46 However, Lai Yanyuan 賴炎袁 and Lü Kai 呂凱 point to examples where Zheng Xuan’s commentaries on the Classics quote the Apocrypha.47 These examples include three passages that may originate in the Qian zuo du, but unfortunately Zheng Xuan does not explicitly state which text he is quoting. Dull finds the first of these passages so general that “there is no reason to assume this brief passage had to come from this apocryphal text [the Qian zuo du].”48 The remaining passages, one on the identity of Di Yi 帝乙 in the Yijing and Shujing 書經 [The Classic of Documents], and one on the three Kings’ sacri­ fices in the suburbs, also occur in the Bai hu tong.49 Only an in-depth exam­ination and a comparative analysis of the numerous commentaries attributed to Zheng Xuan may shed some light on the question of their respective authenticity. The putative commentator on the Qian zuo du, Song Jun 宋均, is not to be confused with the Han scholar Song Jun 宋均 (d. 76 ce).50 According to Chen Pan 陳槃, Song Jun 宋均, the commentator, is identical with Song Jun 宋鈞, a scholar of the Wei 魏 dynasty (220–265).51 Chen Pan quotes the preface to the Mao 毛 edition of the Shijing 詩經 [Classic of Poetry], in which Song Jun 宋鈞 refers to his former teacher Zheng 鄭, Minister of Agriculture.52 Some time during the 190s, Zheng Xuan served briefly as Minister of Agriculture under Yuan Shao 袁紹 (d. 202 ce), one of the contenders for power over the crumbling Han Empire. This suggests a tentative dating of Song Jun 宋鈞 to circa 180–240. That Song Jun was Zheng Xuan’s student explains the similarities that occur in the two commentaries, as Song Jun not always indicates that he is quoting or passing on the teachings of his master. The only evidence that Song 46

Hou Han shu, vol. 3, 1212; Dull, Historical Introduction, 424; and Lü, Zheng Xuan, 245ff. The fragments of this text, which are included in Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 2, show that in addition to the commentary by Zheng Xuan, there are commentaries attributed to both Song Jun and Song Zhong (see below). 47 Lü, Zheng Xuan, 182ff. Lai Yanyuan is quoted in Dull, Historical Introduction, 425n142. 48 Ibid. 49 Lü, Zheng Xuan, 183f.; and Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 2, 584 and 652. 50 Needham, Science, vol. 3, 199, attributes commentaries on the Apocrypha to the Song Jun of the first century ce but William Hung attributes these commentaries to Song Zhong 宋 衷; see Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 23n107 and 31. 51 Chen Pan, “Gu Chen Wei 7,” 718. Song Jun 宋均 is mentioned in the Jin shu 晉書 [The Documents of the Jin Dynasty (265–420)]; see vol. 1, 36, and vol. 8, 2351. See also the discussion of the identity of Song Jun in Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 23n107. 52 Chen, “Gu Chen Wei 7,” 718.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

59

Jun did write a commentary on the Qian zuo du occurs in the commentary on the Wen xuan 文選 [Selections of Literature], which quotes a line from the opening paragraph of the Qian zuo du.53 Song Jun has mistakenly been identified with his contemporary Song Zhong 宋衷, also a scholar of the Wei dynasty and a commentator on the Apocrypha.54 Song Zhong is probably best known for his commentaries on Yang Xiong’s 揚雄 (53 bce–18 ce) Fa yan 法言 [Model Sayings] and Tai xuan jing 太玄經 [The Classic of the Grand Mystery], but commentaries on fragments of the Apocrypha of the Changes have also been attributed to him.55 One of these fragments occurs in the commentary on the Wen xuan, which is introduced with ‘The Yi Qian zuo du says’ (Yi Qian zuo du yue 易乾鑿度曰) and followed by Song Zhong’s commentary.56 In some cases there are notable similarities between the commentaries attributed to Song Zhong and those attributed to Zheng Xuan, which may either indicate that one is copying the other or that they draw on a common source.57 The evidence allows us to conclude that there may have existed commentaries on the Qian zuo du by all three commentators mentioned above. None of these has been preserved intact in the present editions of the Qian zuo du, and only those by Zheng Xuan and Song Jun are mentioned by the later bibliographers and catalogues. However, this does not necessarily preclude the inclusion of parts of a commentary by Song Zhong in the present editions. A tentative conclusion may be that the two commentaries by Song Jun and Song Zhong, due to confusion of the names, were merged some time between the fourth and the tenth century. Towards the end of the Song dynasty this commentary was probably combined with that by Zheng Xuan whose name and reputation lent prestige to the texts. A significant part of the Qian zuo du is devoted to numerological speculations that link the Yijing to calendar computations. Yijing numerology is based on the figures related to the divination procedure and the numerical desig­ nations of the hexagrams lines. During the formative stages of the Zhouyi 53 Xiao, Wen xuan, vol. 1, 221. 54 Chen, “Gu Chen Wei 7,” 718f. To further complicate matters, after the death of emperor Hui (Sima Zhong 司馬衷, r. 290–306) Song Zhong’s personal name was changed into Zhong 忠 or Jun 均 to avoid the taboo of the late emperor’s name; see Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 24n108–113 (in notes 112 and 113, the characters 忠 and 衷 have been interchanged). 55 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 2, 132. 56 This quotation is not included in the present editions of the Qian zuo du but it is appended to the edition of Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 65. See also Xiao, Wen xuan, vol. 1, 221; and Chen, “Gu Chen Wei 7,” 718. 57 See the discussion in Tjan, Po hu t'ung, vol. 1, 34f.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

60

Nielsen

divination, the numerology was in all probability developed from temporal concepts. In fact, this may have been the case from the very beginning—as suggested by Qu Wanli 屈萬里 (1907–1979) who advanced the theory that the six lines of the hexagrams are based on the Shang dynasty’s (ca. 1600–1045 bce) ten-day weeks of which there were six within the so-called sexagesimal cycle of the stems and branches (gan zhi 干支). Other obvious examples are the total number of lines of the sixty-four hexagrams (6 × 64 = 384), which corresponds to the number of days in a year with an intercalary month,58 and the numerical designations six, seven, eight, and nine, which when added result in thirty, the approximate number of days in a month. These are evident examples of conscious correlations with a relatively primitive calendar.59 Thus Yijing numerology is at least partly based on calendric calculations, which contributed to the reputation of the Yijing both as a manual of divination and as a cosmological text. During the Han dynasty this reputation, in turn, had a strong influence on the calendar calculators who could not avoid the influence of the Yijing numerology, especially as this was propounded by the authors of the Apocrypha. This is attested by the numerous quotations from and references to the Yijing in the treatises on the pitch-pipes and the calendars in Han shu and the Hou Han shu as well as by the references to the Apocrypha in the latter.60 Dull has summed up the role of the Apocrypha as a two-edged sword: “The apocryphal literature was an important factor in the one major calendric reform of the Later Han dynasty and it was also in part responsible for preventing further reforms and thereby preserving an inefficient and out-dated calendar.”61 Several pages in the Hou Han shu are devoted to the problems arising when trying to integrate the numerology of, among others, the Qian zuo du into calendric calculations.62 In Mansvelt Beck’s opinion, because “they carried the authority of antiquity, it was necessary that the calendar be adapted to the theories developed in the Diagrams and Apocrypha.” But he also observes, 58 59

See Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 230. This was clearly understood by Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 bce–18 ce) whose Tai xuan jing 太玄 經 [The Classic of the Grand Mystery] of circa 4 bce, which was modeled on the Yijing, was “deliberately tailored to fit the units of the astronomical and harmonic systems then in use”; Henderson, Development, 18. See also Nylan, Canon, 16. 60 See Han shu, vol. 4, 955ff.; and Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 2999ff. The name of the calendar formulated between 178 and 183 ce by Liu Hong 劉洪 (fl. 170–200), the Qian xiang li 乾象曆, certainly testifies to this influence. This calendar was used in the kingdom of Wu 吳 (222– 280) from 223 to 280; see Jin shu, vol. 2, 285; and Ho, Astronomical Chapters, 61. 61 Dull, Historical Introduction, 275. 62 Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3033ff.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

61

“that in the last analysis the calendar calculators try to steer away from the influence of these books.”63 The Han calendars that are relevant for the present discussion are “The Calendar of the Grand Beginning” (Tai chu li), “The Calendar of Three Concordances” (San tong li), and “The Calendar of a Quarter Remainder” (Sifen li). “The Calendar of the Grand Beginning” is the earliest calendar system that is known in some detail. It was formulated by Luoxia Hong 落下閎 (fl. 140–87 bce) and Deng Ping 鄧平 (fl. 104 bce) among others, and, as noted above, it was based on a year of 365¼ days. “The Calendar of the Grand Beginning” was used from 104 bce until it was superseded by “The Calendar of Three Concordances”, which represents the improvements made by Liu Xiang 劉向 (79–8 bce) and Liu Xin 劉歆 (46 bce–23 ce).64 It has been debated to what extent Liu Xin merely copied the methods and constants of “The Calendar of the Grand Beginning” but in Nathan Sivin’s opinion, Liu Xin also “with great originality extended them (that is, the methods and constants) into a universal system which became the pattern for his successors.”65 “The Calendar of Three Concordances” was probably inaugurated in the year 6 ce and remained in use until it was superseded by “The Calendar of a Quarter Remainder” in 85 ce.66 The “three concordances” refer to the three periods which constitute a period of resonance in this system, that is, one of “those rather long lapses of time which end in approximate concordance of phase.”67 Sivin explains a resonance period as follows: 63 Mansvelt Beck, Treatises, 59 and 62. 64 See Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3034 and 3040; Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 197ff.; Needham, Science, vol. 3, 200; and Sivin, “Cosmos,” 19. Needham’s apparent misunderstanding of Jia Kui’s 賈逵 (30–101) role in the calendar reform is corrected in Dull, Historical Introduction, 278 and 328n57 and 328n59. Dull himself, however, in spite of quoting parts of Needham’s explanation of the cycles of “The Calendar of Three Concordances” (ibid., 277) does not mention the existence of that calendar but only “the T’ai-ch’u calendar which had existed from 104 b.c. to the reform of a.d. 85”; ibid., 280. My translations of the technical terms of the calendric and astronomical sciences in this chapter are almost entirely based on Sivin, “Cosmos.” 65 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 11 n1. 66 Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 200, say that “The Calendar of Three Concordances” was devised between 32 bce and 5 ce, and the inauguration of a new calendar in 6 ce would coincide with Wang Mang’s 王莽 (r. 9–23) de facto assumption of power. However, there is some uncertainty regarding the inauguration date. Needham, Science and Civilisation, vol. 3, says that “The Calendar of Three Concordances” was formulated in 26 bce (20) and dates its inauguration to 7 bce (421). Needham refers his reader to Eberhard and Henseling, “Beiträge I,” but I have not been able to locate this date in said article. 67 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 12ff.; see also Needham, Science, vol. 3, 406.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

62

Nielsen

[C]ycles were determined for the phenomena to be represented, and, by a process which amounts to finding lowest common multiples, larger cycles were constructed to contain and subsume series of smaller ones. This system was made integral, when this process was done, by a “great year” cycle, like an immense wheel driving a congeries of graduated smaller wheels arranged in subsystems. It was then necessary to find the epoch, to determine just how long ago the largest cycle had begun. Then the state of any of the smaller cycles, which by definition began at the same time, could be determined […].68 For example, nineteen tropical years are approximately of the same length as 235 lunations, and this is the shortest period of time within which a certain constellation of the sun and the moon will return on the same day. A cycle of nineteen years or 6,939 ¾ days is called a Rule Cycle (zhang 章), and four such cycles correspond to what the Qian zuo du refers to as an Era Cycle (ji 紀).69 Twenty Era Cycles are called an Obscuration Cycle (bushou 蔀首), and three of these constitute an Epoch Cycle (yuan 元), which is equivalent to 4,560 years and may be considered ‘a great year’ or a resonance period.70 These cycles belong to “The Quarter Remainder Calendar,” but in “The Three Concordances Calendar” the resonance period is also known as the Epoch Cycle (yuan 元), only here it is fifty-seven years longer, that is 4,617 years. This Epoch Cycle comprises three Concordances Cycles (tong 統) of 1,539 years each.71 The Han dynasty astronomers were able to calculate the length of a month and a year with great precision. “The Quarter Remainder Calendar,” which is slightly more accurate than “The Three Concordances Calendar,” deviates from the modern figures of the tropical year by a mere 0.00781 day and from the 68 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 9. 69 The commentary notices that in the Qian zuo du, the astronomical terms ji and bushou have incorrectly exchanged meanings; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 2, 46. This was also observed by Zhang Huiyan 張惠言 (1761–1802); see Yiwei, 47. The Era Cycle (ji) and the Obscuration Cycle (bu or bushou) are technical terms belonging to “The Quarter Remainder Calendar.” The Obscuration Cycle is seventy-six years whereas the Era Cycle is twenty Obscuration Cycles or 1,520 years: see Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3058; Needham, Science, vol. 3, 406; and Sivin, “Cosmos,” 20. To avoid confusion I shall, however, follow the Qian zuo du’s use of these terms. The Qian zuo du has 部 for 蔀. 70 The cycles and constants are tabulated in the treatises in the pitch-pipes and calendars of the Han shu, vol. 4, 991ff., and the Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3058ff. See also Sivin, “Cosmos,” 20f.; Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 204ff.; Eberhard and Henseling, “Beiträge I,” 211ff.; and Needham, Science, vol. 3, 406f. 71 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 12.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

63

synodic month by only 0.0002631 day.72 The Han shu has a perfect example of the relationship between Yijing numerology and the Apocrypha on the one hand and the calendar calculations as expounded in the treatises on the pitchpipes and calendars on the other: Therefore, for the Primordial Beginning there is the representation of one, for the Spring and Autumn [Annals or Period] there are two, for the Three Sequences there are three, and for the four seasons there are four. Combined they are ten and complete the five [heavenly] bodies. Multiplying five by ten [results in] the number of the Great Expansion, but the Way takes one of them. The remaining forty-nine are those that should be used so in divination with plant sticks this is considered the [correct] number. To represent two this is doubled. Furthermore, to represent three this is tripled. Moreover, to represent four this is quadrupled. Also, go back to the remainder representing the intercalary nineteen and the one that was taken away and add these. Because [the sticks are] twice [placed in] the space between the fingers, this is doubled. This is the dividend of the Lunation Rule.73 Expressed in plain figures, the above calculations proceed as follows: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 5 × 10 = 50 50 – 1 = 49 49 × 2 = 98 98 × 3 = 294 294 × 4 = 1,176 1,176 + 19 + 1 = 1,196 1,196 × 2 = 2,392 [2,392 ÷ 81 = 2943/81 = 29.5308642, the length of a lunation according to the Three Concordances Calendar, which deviates from the modern figure by 0.002763 days] The last calculation is enclosed in brackets because it does not occur in the Han shu, which is content with finding the value of the Lunation Rule. It may 72 Needham, Science, vol. 3, 390. 73 Han shu, vol. 4, 983. This passage is closely related to the beginning of Xi ci 繫辭 [The Attached Phrases], paragraph 1.8. When the Lunation Rule—2,392—is divided by the Day Rule—81—the result is 2943/81, the number of days in a month.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

64

Nielsen

be difficult to fathom that such precise figures apparently are the results of calculations starting from the symbolic numbers associated with the number of divination sticks prescribed by the Xi ci. The seemingly systematic and straightforward progression of the numbers 1–2–3–4 applied to both the addition and the multiplication in the preceding calculations is both fascinating and luring. But this is not how the Lunation Rule is calculated; on the contrary, the calculations take the Lunation Rule as their starting point. None of the figures, except for nineteen, the length of the Rule Cycle (zhang 章),74 expresses any calendric units nor are they in any way relevant to calendric computations. Reconciling numerology with the numbers of the calendar requires more numerology. The problem to be solved is how to bridge the gap between the number of the Lunation Rule of the calendar and the number of the Great Expansion of the Xi ci in the most simple and elegant way possible. From the point of view of the author of the Qian zuo du, the purpose of the correlations between the numerology of the Yijing and the calendar computations may have been twofold: on the one hand it endows the Yijing with a cosmic authority and, on the other, it constitutes an extension of the logical basis of the Yijing’s capacity for predicting the future. If it is possible, by means of calculating the ends and beginnings of the various cycles, to tell which hexagram, line, phase, stem, or branch is correlated to any day in the future, it is also possible—by knowing what circumstances, qualities, or portents are correlated with the hexagram, line, phase, stem, or branch—to predict what may happen on the day in question.75 It was therefore pertinent to provide a clear picture of the correlations between the hexagrams and the relevant spatiotemporal concepts. The system of these correlations is discussed below following an elucidation of Yijing numerology and its relationship to calendar computations. 74 75

The Rule Cycle is also referred to as the Intercalary Cycle (run 閏); see Han shu, vol. 4, 991. Such calculation had great political significance, especially in the centuries following the downfall of the Han Empire, and no doubt it accounts for the repeated proscriptions of the Apocrypha; see, for example, Mansvelt Beck, Treatises, 59: “[Diagrams and Apocrypha] contained potentially dangerous prophecies about the end of dynasties.” The Ji lan tu contains similar examples of the political application of divination, and the titles and fragments that have been preserved from Yiwei texts which did not survive suggest that there were several texts dealing with calendric computations and the related divination used for political purposes; see, for example, the Yiwei Jiu e chen 易緯九戹讖 [The Prognostications of the Nine Calamities], which is quoted in the treatise on the pitch-pipes and calendars of the Han shu as saying: “Three Obscuration Cycles are the years of an Epoch Cycle. The intercalations of the years of an Epoch Cycle are the calamities of yin-yang.” See Han shu, vol. 4, 984; and Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 2, 130.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

65

The Xi ci has a paragraph describing how the divination sticks are manipulated to form a hexagram. The paragraph contains a reference to the intercalation of months, and the remaining part has this observation on the connection between Yijing numerology and the calendar: Qian’s divination sticks are 216, and Kun’s divination sticks are 144. The total is 360 corresponding to the days of a year. The divination sticks of the two chapters [of the Zhouyi] are 11,520 corresponding to the number of the myriad things.76 The Qian hexagram is here considered to have six yang lines of the value nine. A moving yang line of the value nine requires that the remainder obtained in the divination procedure should be thirty-six, so we have six times the remainder of thirty-six (6 × 36 = 216). In the case of Kun, the six yin lines have the value six obtained from a remainder of twenty-four, which results in a similar calculation (6 × 24 = 144). The figure 11,520 is the remainders of all the lines of all sixty-four hexagrams. The total number of lines thus produced would be 384 (= 6 × 64). Half of the lines are yang and assuming (as above) that these have the value nine, the remainder is thirty-six in half of the 384 cases (36 × 192 = 6,912). The other half consists of yin lines, which means the calculation results in 4,608 (= 24 × 192). Adding 6,912 and 4,608 results in 11,520, which supposedly corresponds to “the number of the myriad things” or, literally, “the number of the ten thousand things.”77 The Qian zuo du refers to both the divination procedure and the association between the divination sticks and the number of days in a year while elaborating on the correspondences between divination and calendric science: In the calendar 365¼ days are considered to be one year. In the Yi (that is, the Xi ci) 360 divination sticks are considered to correspond to the days of one year. These are the numbers of the pitch-pipes and the calendar. “In five years there are two intercalations, therefore twice [returning the remainder to] the space between the fingers and afterwards there is a

76

77

The paragraph is numbered 1.8 in Kong Yingda’s 孔穎達 “Zhouyi” zheng yi 周易正義 [The Correct Meaning of The Changes of the Zhou], see YJJC, vol. 6, 727f. See also Wilhelm, “I Ching”; 310, Lynn, Classic of Changes, 61; and Swanson, “Great Treatise,” 136. The entire paragraph 1.8 is missing from the Mawangdui silk manuscript; see Han, Bo “Yi”, 198. Kong, “Zhouyi”, 727f.; and Gao, “Zhouyi” gu jing, 130.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

66

Nielsen

hexagram.”78 This is to make correspondence between the numbers of the pitch-pipes and the calendar.79 This passage reflects the different results that occur when comparing the methods of the calendar with that of the pitch-pipes. The calendar measures or calculates the solar year whereas the pitch-pipes are the means by which the lunations are recorded. The latter procedure is known as hou qi 候氣, ‘waiting for the vital forces.’80 It was believed that a specific vital force existed only in a limited period of time thus making it possible to record time by the changing of the vital force if only the change taking place could be known. Carefully filling and adjusting a number of pitch-pipes with the finest ashes, it was thought that the ashes would be blown out when a particular vital force was in tune, so to speak, with a particular pitch-pipe. Ideally, when correctly tuned, a set of pitch-pipes would during the course of a year one by one give off its ashes.81 The Qian zuo du commentary explains: The calendar is used to calculate the seasons, and the pitch-pipes are used to wait for the vital forces. When the vital forces, which lead for fifteen days making one revolution, and the pitch-pipes influence each other, there are 360 days. This roughly constitutes the end, but the calendar’s number has a remainder of a quarter. This is irregular and not uniform, so an intercalary month is established [during] the four seasons to complete the mutual correspondence between the years and the seasons.82 Zhang Huiyan correctly remarks that five days still remain to be accounted for.83 The commentary is probably referring to “The Quarter Remainder Calendar,” which, as the name suggests, calculates the length of a tropical year to 365¼ days. The pitch-pipes, on the other hand, by calculating the lunations, each of which contains two revolutions of vital forces according to the commentary, end up with 360 days (twenty-four periods of fifteen days).84 It is this 78

This quotation is from the Xi ci 1.8 paragraph on the divination procedure referred to above. 79 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 45. 80 See Nielsen, Companion, 188f., for a Han dynasty definition of qi 氣. 81 See, for example, Mansvelt Beck, Treatises, 58; and Bodde, “Cosmic Magic,” 15ff. 82 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 45. 83 Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 45. 84 Actually, the twenty-four vital forces were by the beginning of the first century of the common era calculated to correspond to the year according to “The Three Concordances

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

67

lack of compatibility between the two systems the author of the Qian zuo du addresses in the passage translated above. He seems to identify the pitch-pipe method with the numerology involving the divination sticks (at least, the two give the same result), and he also suggests that the solution to the incompatibility was already known to the author of the Xi ci because the text points to the question of intercalations. However, the Xi ci contains nothing more on the issue than the few lines translated above, and with these as his point of departure the author of the Qian zuo du sets out to reconcile the systems of the Yijing and the pitch-pipes with the sophisticated calendric computations of the Later Han dynasty:85 The yang [lines’] numerical designation is nine, and the yin [lines’] nume­rical designation is six. As to the numerical designations of yin and yang, there are 192 for each. When these (yin and yang) are multiplied by the four seasons [the result is] eight and there is a cycle. [When further multiplied by four the result is] thirty-two and there is a great cycle.86 384 lines are 11,520 divination sticks. Therefore, the hexagrams correspond to the years, the lines correspond to the months, and the divination sticks correspond to the days.

85

86

Calendar.” One vital force was calculated to last for 151010/4617 days, which multiplied by twenty-four results in 365385/1539 days in a year; see Eberhard, Müller, and Henseling, “Beiträge II,” 940. There may be two reasons why the commentary does not mention these figures: First, the calculations of the Qian zuo du are not concerned with pitch-pipes, and second, they are based on the constants of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar”—while those of the pitch-pipes mentioned here are based on “The Three Concordances Calendar.” Part of the Qian zuo du passage translated below is corrupt, and the commentary suggests a rearrangement of the paragraph; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 43f. Based on the context, different rearrangements could be justified but while there is no doubt whatsoever that most of the Qian zuo du’s second juan is all but hopelessly corrupt, I am content to alert the reader to this fact and have chosen to leave the text as it is rather than to engage in the enormous and dubious task of ‘emending’ it. The treatise on the pitch-pipes and calendars of the Han shu has a similar passage (vol. 4, 985): “Heaven produces [the phase of] water with the number one, and earth produces [the phase of] fire with the number two. Heaven produces [the phase of] wood with the number three, and earth produces [the phase of] metal with the number four. Heaven produces [the phase of] soil with the number five. When the five conquerors are multiplied by each other, they produce a little cycle. When multiplied by the sticks of Qian and Kun, they complete a great cycle.” In purely astronomical terms a great cycle, da zhou 大 周, is 343,335 days; see Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3060; and Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 206.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

68

Nielsen

“The number of the Great Expansion must be fifty […] to complete the transformations and make the spirits move.”87 Thus, for the ten [stems of] the days there are the five notes, for the twelve periods of the day there are the six pitch-pipes, and for the twenty-eight stars there are the seven lodges [of each of the four corners]. All these fifty are those that greatly open things and send them out. Therefore, the sixty-four hexagrams and the 384 lines are ready, each having that which is attached to it. So when yang intones, yin harmonizes, and when man acts, woman follows. The way of Heaven rotates to the left, and the way of Earth moves to the right. Two hexagrams have twelve lines and [they cover] a period of one year.88 Like the Xi ci, the Qian zuo du correlates the divination sticks with the days of the year but whereas the Xi ci says the divination sticks of Qian and Kun are like the 360 days of the year, the Qian zuo du says the total of 11,520 divination sticks are like the days of the year. The Qian zuo du further says that the 384 lines are like the months and the sixty-four hexagrams are like the years, thus incorporating the entire composition of the Zhouyi in the correlations. The key to understanding this is given in the last sentence translated above, “Two hexagrams have twelve lines and [they cover] a period of one year,” and in the enigmatic reference to a ‘great cycle’ of thirty-two in the beginning of the passage. Assuming two hexagrams cover a period of one year, the sixty-four hexagrams will cover a period of thirty-two years, presumably the so-called great cycle. The twelve lines of the two hexagrams covering a year correspond to the twelve months, and in thirty-two years the number of months will total 384 (= 12 × 32). If the 11,520 divination sticks correspond to the number of days in thirty-two years, the number of days in one year is 360 (= 11,520 ÷ 32). Although these correlations are more coherent and appealing than those of the Xi ci, a figure such as 360 days in a year is still a far cry from the capacities of the calendric computations of the day. So the author of the Qian zuo du continues:

87

Again the Qian zuo du quotes the Xi ci paragraph 1.8. The ellipsis indicates that the Qian zuo du omits seventy-eight characters that constitute the substance of the description of the divination procedure, from which the Qian zuo du quotes a small part above. 88 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 43.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

69

The First Calendar had no [specific] name.89 Calculating the first Era Cycle was called Jia yin.90 The Art of Calculating the Hexagrams that Govern the Year91 says, when constantly using Jupiter92 to record the years, seventy-six [years] constitute one Era Cycle, and twenty Era Cycles constitute an Obscuration Cycle. Then, the accumulated [years gone by] are set up [on the calculating board in units of] the Obscuration Cycle’s number of years (= 1,520) to which is added [those years] that have [already] entered the Era Cycle’s number of years (= seventy-six), and this is divided by thirty-two. The remainder that is less [than thirty-two] is, beginning with Qian and Kun, counted by two hexagrams to obtain each year. The final counting rod, then, [indicates] the hexagrams that rule the year. Then, set up [on the calculating board] one year’s accumulated Day Rules93 and divide this [by] 2943/81,94 the obtained unit is called a month, and the obtained accumulation is 127/19 months in one year.95 89

There are references to annals merely entitled Yuan li 元歷 or 元曆 [First Calendar] in the Shang shu kao ling yao 尚書考靈曜 [Investigating the Spiritual Glory of the Hallowed Documents]; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 2, 31. 90 The commentary says, “‘Calculating the First’ is the calendar’s first name, it means there is nothing before”; Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 46. Zhang Huiyan follows Qian Shubao’s 錢叔寶 (b. 1508) edition which has, “The calendar was originally named Seizing the First; the days [were recorded by means of] the jia zi, and the years [were recorded by means of] the jia yin”; see Yiwei, 46; and Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 46n42 and 46n43. 91 Qiu gua zhu sui shu 求卦主歲術. This seems to be the title of a divination manual, which I have been unable to identify. It is consequently not possible to decide how much of the following (if any) is a quotation. 92 Tai sui 太歲, literally “the great year,” which is also referred to as sui xing 歲星 (the year star). Actually, tai sui does not refer to Jupiter but to its “invisible counter-rotating correlate”; see Sivin, “Cosmos,” 15; and Needham, Science, vol. 3, 402. 93 Ri fa 日法 (Day Rule), is one of two integral constants used in “The Three Concordances Calendar” to express the mean figure for the length of a lunation. The other constant is the yue fa 月法 (Lunation Rule). Dividing the Lunation Rule of 2,392 by the Day Rule of eighty-one results in the length of a month according to this calendar: 2943/81 days; see Sivin, “Cosmos,” 12, note 1. 94 The Qian zuo du has the numerator to be forty-two, which is incorrect, as pointed out by Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 47f. There is a reference to the Qian zuo du using the Day Rule of 2943/81 in the Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3035. 95 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 46. The commentary gives a detailed account of how this calculation is performed with counting rods on a calculating board, see ibid., 47. Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 48, has the following explanation attributed to Wang

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

70

Nielsen

Having introduced the Era and Obscuration Cycles of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar,” the author of the Qian zuo du in the next paragraph proceeds to a calendric computation involving concepts and figures associated with “The Three Concordances Calendar.” The aim of this calculation is to find the number of lunations in a solar year, which is a trivial operation of dividing the number of days in a solar year by the number of days in a lunation. The latter figure is given as 2943/81 whereas the former is not disclosed. A simple multiplication, however, will reveal the figure of “one year’s accumulated Day Rules,” the days of one lunation multiplied by the number of lunations in one year (2943/81 × 127/19 = 365385/1539). These figures belong to “The Three Concor­ dances Calendar.” The next step is to make the calendric computations compatible with the Yijing numerology by constructing an Epoch Cycle: Multiplying this [127/19 months] by seventy-six results in 940 accumulated months or 27,759 accumulated days. This is an Era Cycle. Multiplying this by twenty results in 1,520 accumulated years or 18,800 accumulated months or 555,180 accumulated days. This is one Obscuration Cycle.96 If

96

Lai 汪萊 (1768–1813): “In the Three Concordances Calendar nineteen years’ accumulated days are a fraction [with the numerator] 562,120 and the Day Rule is eighty-one. Now, when one wants to calculate the accumulated days for every year, one should divide the fraction of nineteen years’ accumulated days with the Day Rule to get the accumulated days of nineteen years (562,120 ÷ 81 = 6,39361/81). When further dividing this with nineteen, one gets the accumulated days for every year (6,39361/81 ÷ 19 = 365385/1539). Omitting the divisors by multiplying eighty-one with nineteen, one gets 1,539 to be the divisor, and using this as a shortcut to divide the fraction of [nineteen years’] accumulated days by, one gets 365385/1539 (562,120 ÷ 1,539 = 365385/1539). This is the accumulated days for every year. When one wants to calculate the accumulated months for every year, the [integer] twenty-nine of the Lunation Rule is made compatible with (literally, ‘to communicate with,’ which here means to find the common denominator) 1,539, so one gets 44,631 to be the divisor (29 × 1,539 = 44,631). [Adding] the remainder of the proper fraction [of the Lunation Rule] 817 (43/81 × 1,539 = 817), one gets 45,448 to be the divisor (44,631 + 817 = 45,448). Returning to make [the integer of] every year’s accumulated days compatible [and adding] the numerator of the proper fraction, one gets 562,120 to be the dividend (365 × 1539 = 561,735 + 385 = 562,120). Dividing this by the divisor, one gets twelve months and 16744/45448, and reducing this, it becomes 7/19. This is every year’s accumulated months.” The commentary notes that according to this method three Obscuration Cycles constitute one Epoch Cycle, which makes a Great Year Cycle after which the cycle of stems and branches are repeated; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 47. Zhang Huiyan points to a similar statement in the Yue xie tu zheng 樂叶圖徵 [The Harmo­-

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

71

one again sets up an Era Cycle and multiplies this by sixty-four, it results in 1,776,576 accumulated days.97 When further multiplied by sixty, it results in 192 Obscuration Cycles or 3,840 Era Cycles or 291,840 years. Dividing this by thirty-two results in 9,120 cycles. This is called the hexagrams corresponding to the years. The result in accumulated months is 3,609,600 and of these the 107,520 are intercalary. Dividing this by the 384 lines results in 9,400 cycles.98 This is called the lines corresponding to the months. The result in accumulated days is 106,594,560.99 Dividing this by the 11,520 divination sticks results in 9,253 cycles. This is called the divination sticks corresponding to the days, and the Changes constitute one great cycle. The pitch-pipes and the calendar attain each other in it.100 These figures are very impressive, indeed, and on closer inspection it seems that this is exactly what they are meant to be. The author of the Qian zuo du first introduces (his misconception of) the Era and Obscuration Cycles of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” after which he presents the exact figures for the lunation (2943/81) and the number of lunations (127/19) of the solar year

97

98

99

100

nization of Music and Verification of Diagrams] (see also ibid., 98) where it says that 4,560 years constitute an Era Cycle (which is corrected to Epoch Cycle by the commentary attributed to Song Jun) and the cycles of the stems and branches are exhausted; see Yiwei, 49f. The commentary observes that the author of the Qian zuo du returns to the Era Cycle because the numbers of the Epoch Cycle do not suit his purpose; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 47. At this crucial point the text is corrupt. It says, “twenty cycles of 9,400 days” (九千四百日 之二十周), which makes little sense. Zhang Huiyan quotes Dong Youcheng 董祐誠 (1791–1821) who suggests an emendation which changes si 四 to yi一 and omits the two characters ri zhi 日之, thus resulting in “9,120 cycles” (九千一百二十周). Dong explains: “Now if two hexagrams rule one year, then a line rules a month. The intercalary months are not counted so the number of the intercalary [months] are subtracted from the accumulated months. This is divided by 384, and the lines together with the periods of qi and the divisions of the new moon are all exhausted”; qtd. in Yiwei, 50. At first glance this may seem plausible; however, below I will argue that Dong Youcheng is mistaken and that the correct figure is 9,400. All editions of the Qian zuo du have 106,594,568, which is incorrect. In Zhang Huiyan’s Yiwei lüe yi eight characters are missing so his number of accumulated days appears to be 106,590,000, which, of course, also is incorrect. Dong Youcheng points out that the correct figure is 106,594,560; see Yiwei, 50f. Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 47f.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

72

Nielsen

according to “The Three Concordances Calendar.”101 In the ensuing calculations aiming at the construction of an epoch cycle, he turns back to the cycles of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” while starting from the figure 127/19. This is probably an attempt to demonstrate that the system of the Yijing about to be disclosed transcends even the calendars, which during the Han were changed several times, and thus to lay claim to greater continuity. This is, of course, possible only because while the two calendar systems differ as to the length of a lunation (2943/81 as opposed to 29499/940 days) and the length of a year (365385/1539 as opposed to 365¼ days), the number of lunations of a year is the same. To construct an epoch cycle, the author of the Qian zuo du wants to find, as it were, the ‘common denominator’ for the various cycles involved, so starting with an Era Cycle of seventy-six years, he first multiplies this by the sixty-four hexagrams and then by the sixty, which corresponds to a full cycle of stems and branches. However, the sequence in which these multiplications are performed may obscure the fact that seventy-six multiplied by sixty (= 3 × 20) results in the Epoch Cycle of 4,560 years of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar.” This is subsequently multiplied by the number of hexagrams resulting in sixtyfour Epoch Cycles of 291,840 years or 192 bushou, and by the end of this period the hexagrams, the lines, and the divination sticks have all returned to their starting point, having completed the various numbers of cycles. Unfortunately, the Qian zuo du is corrupt where the figure is given for the number of cycles the 384 lines have passed through, and, as explained in a previous note, Dong Youcheng 董祐誠 (1791–1821) emended this to the figure 9,120 by leaving out the intercalary months. The figure 9,120 corresponds to the number of cycles the hexagrams pass through during the same time and is based on the assumption that one year corresponds to two hexagrams, which again corresponds to twelve lines. However, the very motivation for the entire string of calculations is to include the intercalary months, to harmonize the pitch-pipes and the calendar, by constructing an epoch cycle within which the other cycles are contained, and to end up with a concordance of phase with all the cycles having returned to their starting points. Thus in a period of 291,840 years, the hexagrams pass through 9,120 cycles (= 291,840 ÷ 32), and the lines pass through 9,400 cycles (= 3,609,600 ÷ 384). The reason why the lines pass through 280 more cycles is that while thirty-two hexagrams correspond to 384 101

As noted above, in Eberhard’s opinion the Apocrypha do not rely on “The Quarter Remainder Calendar.” Instead they quote the constants of “The Calendar of the Great Beginning”—which, however, are essentially identical with those of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” because they both calculate the year to consist of 365¼ days; see Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 197 and 200.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

73

lines, thirty-two years, according to the calendar, correspond to 39515/19 months, so for every cycle of thirty-two years, the cycle of the lines falls short by almost twelve months (1115/19, to be precise). Therefore the lines must pass through an additional number of cycles so that after having completed 9,120 and 9,400 cycles, respectively, the hexagrams and the lines have returned to the starting point. As to the divination sticks corresponding to the days, the Qian zuo du clearly states (in spite of a minor error in the number of accumulated days) that the result is 9,253 cycles. This figure proves that the intercalary months are not to be disregarded as suggested by Dong Youcheng. The number of accumulated days is 105,594,560, which divided by the number of years, 291,840, results in 365¼, thus demonstrating that the original correspondence between the divination sticks and the days of a year (11,520 ÷ 32 = 360) has been improved to include the intercalary months. The divination sticks need not to go through as many cycles as the lines because they only fall short by 168 days in thirty-two years as compared to the 1115/19 months of the lines.102 In order to provide a useful system for divination purposes it was necessary to have a clear picture of the distribution of the sixty-four hexagrams in relation to the thirty-two-year cycle. The positions of the hexagrams and the hexagram lines are explained in some detail in the passage following immediately after the paragraph (translated above) ending, “Two hexagrams have twelve lines and [they cover] a period of one year.” Qian (# 1) is yang and Kun (# 2) is yin. They govern together while moving alternately. Qian’s correct [position] is in the eleventh month zi 子 102

In another passage the author of the Qian zuo du attempts to fit the five phases (wu xing 五行), into a similar scheme, and here, too, the intercalary months are included. One cycle of the five phases lasts 1,520 years, which corresponds to an Obscuration Cycle. The number of days allotted to each of the phases, 111,036 days, is divided by the cycles of the stems and branches to determine the designation of the day when the next phase takes over. The calculation 111,036 divided by sixty leaves a remainder of thirty-six, meaning the second phase starts on a gengzi 庚子 day (combination number thirty-seven of the total of sixty); see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 62. If the total number of days allotted to the five phases (111,036 × 5 = 555,180 days) is counted through in the same manner, there is no remainder, which indicates that the whole system starts over again on a jiazi 甲子 day (combination number one) after having passed through 9,253 cycles (= 555,180 ÷ 60) of stems and branches. When operating with the five phases and the stems and branches, it is possible to obtain concordance phase within the span of one Obscuration Cycle, 1/192 of the 192 Obscuration Cycles, which the system of the Yijing demands. The fact that sixty is also 1/192 of 11,520 makes the result of 9,253 cycles possible.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

74

Nielsen

(branch # 1), moving left. Yang’s season [lasts for] six [months]. Kun’s correct [position] is in the sixth month wei 未 (branch # 8), moving right.103 Yin’s season [lasts for] six [months]. Assisting and following [each other] they complete the year, and when the year ends, the next follows in Zhun (# 3) and Meng (# 4). When Zhun and Meng govern a year, Zhun is yang and its correct [position] is in the twelfth month chou 丑 (branch # 2). Its lines move left, and by parting the seasons they govern six branches. Meng is yin and its correct [position] is in the first month yin 寅 (branch # 3). Its lines move right, and they also part the seasons to govern six branches. When the year ends, they are followed by the next hexagrams. The yang hexagrams are considered in correct [positions] in their branches, and their six lines move to the left, parting the branches and governing six branches. When the yin hexagrams are in similar positions to the yang hexagrams, they retreat one branch and these are considered their correct [positions]. The lines [of the yin hexagrams] move to the right, parting the branches and governing six branches. Only the hexagrams Tai ䷊ (# 11) and Pi ䷋ (# 12) are both in correct [positions] in their branches. They are both alike in their branches and move left accompanying each other. Zhong fu (# 61) is yang, and its correct [position] is in the eleventh month zi. Xiao guo (# 62) is yin, and its correct [position] is in the sixth month. They are modeled on Qian and Kun. After a period of thirty-two years, there is a cycle, and the sixty-four hexagrams, the 384 lines, and the 11,520 divination sticks repeat [the cycle] following the correct [positions].104 The following discussion of the actual positions and movements of lines and hexagrams should be viewed as occurring in a diagram of a circular arrangement of months and branches correlated with the compass points (see figure 2.1). The movements of the hexagrams within the diagram—whether they move left or right—have generated much confusion among scholars. The directions are explained by the commentary on the Ji lan tu: “East is left, west is right, south is in front, and north is behind.”105

103

104 105

See the treatise on pitch-pipes and calendars in the Han shu, vol. 4, 961, where Qian’s nine in the first line is correlated to the eleventh month and Kun’s six in the first line is correlated to the sixth month, and both the numbers nine and six are taken as models for the length of certain pitch-pipes; see also Fung, History, vol. 2, 118ff. Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 44f. Ibid., 122. See also Fung, History, vol. 2, 27n2 and 123n1.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

75

Figure 2.1 Diagram of a circular arrangement of months and branches

Figure 2.2 Diagram of the Lines and Branches 爻辰圖

As to the movements of Qian and Kun, Zhang Huiyan refers to Hui Dong’s 惠棟 (1697–1758) Yao chen tu 爻辰圖 [Diagram of the Lines and Branches] (see figure 2.2). Qian is in the correct [position] in zi (branch # 1) and moves left [from] zi [through] yin (# 3), chen (# 5), wu (# 7), shen (# 9) [to] xu (# 11). Kun is in the correct [position] in wei (# 8) and moves right [from] wei [through] you (# 10), hai (# 12), chou (# 2), mao (# 4) [to] si (# 6).106 Although even a cursory glance at the diagram reveals that both Qian and Kun move clockwise through the branches, it may be argued that Qian, going from 106

Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 40.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

76

Nielsen

north towards east, moves left, while Kun, going from a south-western point towards west, moves right. This only takes into account the initial movements of the hexagrams, however, and describes only a quarter of their orbits. When, for example, Qian moves on from east towards south, is it still moving left? If, on the other hand, the clockwise movement through branches three, five, seven, nine, and eleven is described as moving left, then, taking a less narrow view, the clockwise movement by Kun from branches eight through ten, twelve, two, four, and six cannot logically be described as moving right. Zhang Huiyan sums up some of the confusion as to what is left and what is right with regard to the diagram: [Hui Dong] introduces the order of the mutual production of the twelve pitch-pipes of the Zhouli 周禮 [Rites of Zhou] with Zheng [Xuan’s] commentary as evidence for this.107 He says that Master Zhu [Zhen’s]108 exposition of the diagram, [which considers the counter-clockwise sequence] wei (# 8), si (# 6), mao (# 4), chou (# 2), hai (# 12), you (# 10) to be moving right, is wrong. Now, I say this is not the case. When the book [referring to the Qian zuo du] says of Tai and Pi, “They are both alike in their branches and move left accompanying each other,” then it may be inferred that the remaining hexagrams are said to move left and right without following each other. Hui [Dong] says, that Kun is in the correct [position] in wei (# 8). If [moving counter-clockwise] from si (# 6) towards mao (# 4) is moving left, how can Pi, being in the correct [position] in shen (# 9), [moving clockwise] from you (# 10) towards xu (# 11) be considered moving left? Meng is in the correct [position] in yin (# 3). If, as in Hui [Dong’s] practice, it should [move clockwise] from chen (# 5) towards wu (# 11), how can this be considered moving right? In all the talk of left and right everyone just speaks according to his own position. As to the 107

108

This refers to the chapter Chun guan zong bo 春官宗伯 [The Patriarch of the Ancestral Affairs of the Spring Office] of the Zhouli in which the commentary (attributed to Zheng Xuan) describes the correlations between the twelve pitch-pipes and the twelve lines of Qian and Kun. Furthermore, Zheng Xuan correlates the twelve pitch-pipes to the vital forces of the twelve branches; see Wang Yunwu, Zheng zhu Zhouli, 151f. Zheng Xuan’s correlations are consistent with those mentioned in the Yueling 月令 [Monthly Observances], which is included in Huainanzi 淮南子 [The Huainan Masters], Lü shi chunqiu 呂氏春 秋 [The Springs and Autumns of Mister Lü], and Liji 禮記 [The Record of Rites]. Hui Dong also refers to Wei Zhao’s 韋昭 (d. 273) commentary on Guo yu 國語 [The Discourses of the States], which contains identical correlations; see Hui, Zhouyi yao chen tu, 3, and Guo yu, vol. 1, 133n10. Zhu Zhen 朱震 (1072–1138) played a significant role in recording the transmission of the various diagrams that circulated among Song scholars; see Nielsen, Companion, 344f. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

77

positions of the twelve pitch-pipes, “when Qian and Kun are united together, they are all produced.”109 Moreover, “three to Heaven and two to Earth” of the Yijing [refers to] the positions of the six lines.110 Therefore, alternating and accompanying each other is not necessarily the same as this. The eight trigrams and the six positions of The Fire Pearl Forest111 [have] Qian in zi (# 1), yin (# 3), chen (# 5), wu (# 7), shen (# 9) [to] xu (# 11), and Kun in wei (# 8), si (# 6), mao (# 4), chou (# 2), hai (# 12), you (# 10). It is based on this.112 Thus the movements and positions of the hexagrams are conceived of as projections on to a cosmic diagram and not on to the cosmos itself. The Ji lan tu interpretation of the directions suggests an orientation towards the south, which means moving to the left is moving from west to east. If, for example, Qian was understood as some kind of imaginary projection on the firmament, an observer would be facing south and expect Qian to move from west through south to east or, in terms of branches, from shen (# 9) through wu (# 7) to chen (# 5), that is to say, counter-clockwise. This is not the case, however, because the diviner only pictures the movements and positions as they occur on a diagram, which he can position in front of himself. Therefore, it is equally possible for Qian to move from west to east through north. Consequently, moving left seems to be moving clockwise and moving right seems to be moving counterclockwise as in Zhang Huiyan’s Er gua jian shi er zhi liu chen tu 二卦閒時治六 辰圖 [Diagram of Two Hexagrams Parting the Seasons to Rule Six Branches] (see figure 2.3).113 In spite of Zhang Huiyan’s research, which may be based on Song scholarship represented by Zhu Zhen, modern Chinese studies of the subject has completely failed to see the significance of this. For example, Fung Yu-lan’s explanation is identical with Hui Dong’s,114 and in the Yixue da cidian 易學大 109

This is a quotation from the Qian zuo du where it refers to the production of the hexagrams from the two trigrams Qian and Kun; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 25. Here it most likely is meant to refer to the two hexagrams’ indications of the positions of the pitch-pipes as described by Zheng Xuan and Wei Zhao. 110 This is a quotation from Shuo gua 說卦 [Discussing the Trigrams]; see Gao, “Zhouyi” da zhuan, 608. It is not quite clear what Zhang Huiyan means by this. 111 The bibliographical chapter (Yi wen zhi 藝文志) of the Song shi 宋史 [The History of the Song Dynasty] mentions a work by the title Liushisi gua huo zhu lin 六十四卦火珠林 [The Sixty-four Hexagrams and the Fire Pearl Forest], but no author is identified; see Song shi, vol. 15, 5265. 112 Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 40f. 113 Ibid., 43. 114 Fung refers to the treatise on pitch-pipes and calendars of the Han shu in his interpretation and says: “In the ch’ien hexagram, its first line dominates the eleventh month, its Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

78

Nielsen

Figure 2.3 Diagram of Two Hexagrams Parting the Seasons to Rule Six Branches 二卦閒時治六辰圖

辭典 [The Great Encyclopaedia of Studies of the Changes] the articles, diagrams,

and tabulations all reproduce the same unsatisfactory exposition.115 This explanation is reproduced in Zhouyi cidian 周易辭典 [The Encyclopaedia of the Changes of Zhou],116 as well as in new comprehensive studies by leading Chinese Yijing scholars such as Liao Mingchun 寥名春 and Xu Qinting 徐芹 庭.117 These scholars base their interpretations exclusively on the interpretations attributed to Zheng Xuan and Wei Zhao. Additional evidence for Zhu Zhen’s 朱震 (1072–1138) and Zhang Huiyan’s interpretation may, however, be adduced from the Qian zuo du itself, namely, the statement, “when the yin hexagrams are in similar positions as the yang hexagrams, they retreat one branch” (emphasis added). The commentary on this passage states: “The yin hexagrams and the yang hexagrams having similar positions means that if they in similar months are positioned opposite each other, it is the yin hexagrams that retreat one branch.”118 Zhang Huiyan quotes Dong Youcheng who gives an example of how this works: “Qian is in zi (# 1) and Kun is in wu (# 7) but as wu is opposite zi Kun retreats to a correct [position] in wei (# 8).”119 Zhang Huiyan further states that Kun moves counter-clockwise (from left to right), so when Kun retreats, it should be in the opposite direction, second line the first month, its third line the third […]”; Fung, History, vol. 2, 123. The passage of the Han shu also states, “The first month is Qian’s nine in the third [line],” which is somewhat disturbing as it implies that the second line is in the twelfth month; see Han shu, vol. 4, 961. 115 See Zhang, Yixue, 436ff. The diagram on page 437 has mistakenly been rotated 90° counter-clockwise, and there is a mistake in the position of you 酉 where the number three should be two to maintain consistency in the arrangement. 116 See Zhang, Zhouyi cidian, 6f., plates 5 and 6, and 158f. 117 See Liao, Kang, and Liang, Zhouyi yanjiushi, 100f; Xu Qinting, Yixue yuanliu, vol. 1, 405f. 118 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 45. The commentary has ri 日 for yue 月, which is corrected in Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 39. 119 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

79

and this is exactly what the movement from wu (# 7) to wei (# 8) is. If Kun moves clockwise, as argued by Fung Yu-lan and others, the movement from wu (# 7) to wei (# 8) could never be construed as retreating. The only exception to the rule of alternating and retreating are the hexagrams Tai and Pi. The commentary explains: That only Tai and Pi are both in correct [positions] in their branches means that the hexagram sequence is not applied. [According to the hexagram sequence] the Tai hexagram should be in the correct [position] in xu (# 11) and Pi should be in the correct [position] in hai (# 12). Xu is the location of Qian’s substance, and hai is the month when Kun is waxing and waning. Tai and Pi [have both] Qian and Kun [trigrams], so the substance and the qi become mutually disordered by them (that is to say, the branches xu and hai), and therefore [Tai and Pi] avoid them and are both in correct [positions] in their branches. This means Tai is in the correct [position] in the seventh month. The six lines are all either Tai obtaining the Qian [trigram] of Pi or Pi obtaining the Kun [trigram] of Tai. These branches move to the left, which means that [the positions of] Tai from the first month to the sixth month are all yang lines, and [the positions of] Pi from the seventh month to the twelfth month are all yin lines. As to Tai and Pi, each one follows the other.120 As Zhang Huiyan points out, the commentary is mistaken about the positions of the yin and yang lines. The yang lines occur from the tenth to the third month, and the yin lines occur from the fourth to the ninth month, as in Zhang Huiyan’s Tai Pi ge zhen qi chen zuo xing xiang sui tu 泰否各貞其辰左行相隨圖 [Diagram of Tai and Pi Both Being in the Correct [Positions] in Their Branches and Moving Left Following Each Other] (see figure 2.4).121 The thirty-two-year cycle of the sixty-four hexagrams starts with Qian and Kun, which are said to be in their correct positions in the branches corresponding to the eleventh and six months, respectively. It is further said that the hexagrams Zhong fu (# 61) and Xiao guo (# 62) are modeled on Qian and Kun, and that the yin hexagrams retreat if they are in similar positions to the yang 120 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 45. 121 Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 38 and 43. The tabulations in Zhang Qicheng, Yixue, 438, and in Liao, Kang, and Liang, Zhouyi yanjiushi, 100f., agree with Zhang Huiyan’s diagram although their misinterpretations of left and right movements compel them to note that Tai moves to the left and Pi moves to the right—in spite of the Qian zuo du’s clear statement that, “[they] move left accompanying each other.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

80

Nielsen

Figure 2.4 Diagram of Tai and Pi Both Being in the Correct [Positions] in Their Branches and Moving Left Following Each Other 泰否各貞其辰左行相隨圖

hexagrams. When the first year has passed, Qian and Kun are followed by Zhun (# 3) and Meng (# 4), which are in their correct positions in the twelfth and first months. From this it may be inferred that the third year has Xu (# 5) and Song (# 6) in the second and third months, and the fourth year has Shi (# 7) and Bi (# 8) in the fourth and fifth months. In the fifth year Xiao guo (# 9) and Lü (# 10), skipping the sixth month because that is already occupied by Kun, are in their correct positions in the seventh and eighth months. The sixth year is ruled by Tai (# 11) and Pi (# 12), which should according to logic be in the ninth and tenth months but, for the reasons explained above, are in the first and seventh months, instead. This introduces some disorder in the sequence, but the general idea seems to be that the hexagrams occur in the same sequence as in the received edition of the Zhouyi. Table 2.1 月

Tabulation of the Consultation Chart 次

十一月 十二月 正 月 二 月 三 月 四 月 五 月 六 月 七 月 八 月 九 月 十 月 十一月

六 十 卦 次 序

《屯》 《小过》 《需》 《豫》 《旅》 《大有》 《鼎》 《桓》 《巽》 《归妹》 《艮》 《未济》

《谦》 《蒙》 《随》 《讼》 《师》 《家人》 《丰》 《节》 《萃》 《无妄》 《既济》 《蹇》

《睽》 《益》 《晋》 《蛊》 《比》 《井》 《涣》 《同人》 《大畜》 《明夷》 《噬嗑》 《颐》

《中孚》 《升》 《渐》 《解》 《革》 《小畜》 《咸》 《履》 《损》 《损》 《困》 《大过》

《复》 《临》 《泰》 《大壮》 《夬》 《乾》 《姤》 《遯》 《否》 《贲》 《剥》 《坤》

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

81

Figure 2.5 Diagram of the Sixty-four Hexagrams’ Correct Branches 六十四卦貞辰圖

Zhang Huiyan has a Liushisi gua zhen chen tu 六十四卦貞辰圖 [Diagram of the Sixty-four Hexagrams’ Correct Branches], but unfortunately he does not explain the underlying principles (see table 2.1).122 The positions and correlations of the hexagrams are identical to those mentioned by the Qian zuo du but the results of the above attempt to reconstruct a sequence based on this information are different. Behind the apparent lack of method of distribution, which allocates only two hexagrams to the branch si (# 6) and ten hexagrams to wei (# 8), a certain order may be observed. When considered in relation to the compass points, the diagram divides into four groups with three branches and sixteen hexagrams in each. Elsewhere in the Qian zuo du an occasional reference to a correlation between a hexagram and a month occurs; thus it is said that Tai (# 11) is the hexagram of the first month,123 Yi (# 42) is also said to be the hexagram of the first month,124 Sheng (# 46) is said to be the hexagram of the twelfth month,125 and Gui mei (# 54) the hexagram of the eighth month.126 When these correlations are checked against Zhang Huiyan’s diagram, it is only Tai that fits. If, however, these correlations are checked against the tabulation of hexagrams and months occurring in the Ji lan tu, it is only Gui mei that does not fit.127 The tabulation of the Ji lan tu correlates sixty hexagrams with the twelve months arranged in an even distribution of five hexagrams per month (see figure 2.5).128 122 Zhang, Liushisi gua; see YJJC, vol. 161, n.p. 123 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 29 and 35. 124 Ibid., 29. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid., 35. 127 Ibid., 140. 128 This tabulation also occurs in Zhang Shanwen, Zhouyi cidian, 30, table 3. See also Fung, History, vol. 2, 107. Fung’s tabulation (in which the hexagrams are indicated by numbers)

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

82

Nielsen

Figure 2.6 Illustration of the Diagram of the Sixty-four ­Hexagrams’ Correct Branches

The remaining four hexagrams, Kan (# 29), Li (# 30), Zhen (# 51), and Dui (# 58) are so-called chun gua 純卦, ‘pure hexagrams,’ which are composed of identical trigrams, in this case the four trigrams that represent the four compass points in the Hou tian tu 後天圖 [The Later Heaven Diagram]. The twenty-four lines of these four hexagrams are correlated with the twenty-four solar periods.129 On closer inspection it becomes clear that Zhang Huiyan’s Diagram of the Sixty-four Hexagrams’ Correct Branches is based on the Ji lan tu’s tabulation of the correlations between the sixty hexagrams and the twelve months. Zhang’s diagram is divided into three concentric rings, the innermost of which contains the names of the twelve branches corresponding to the twelve months (see figure 2.6).130 The middle ring, which has six empty slots, contains the names of the following ten hexagrams: Qian (# 1), Kun (# 2), Tai (# 11), Pi (# 12), Kan (# 29), Li (# 30), Zhen (# 51), Dui (# 58), Zhong fu (# 61), and Xiao guo (# 62). The outer ring contains the remaining fifty-four hexagrams, and the hexagrams belonging to a particular branch are divided into two groups by a short vertical line. For example, in branch number one, zi, the hexagram Gen (# 52) is separated from three other hexagrams. Within each branch, those hexagram names that appear on the left side of the short vertical line belong to the hexagrams that

129 130

has two mistakes: in the sixth month hexagram number thirty should be number ten, and hexagram number thirty-eight should be number thirty-three. See, for example, Zhang Shanwen, Zhouyi cidian, 31ff., table 4, and Fung, History, vol. 2, 114ff. This diagram is taken from Zhang Qicheng, Yixue, 440, but corresponds to that of Zhang Huiyan. It is reproduced here for its greater clarity. It should be noted, however, that the hexagrams Dui (# 58) and Xun (# 57) have been moved to locations that differ from Zhang Huiyan’s diagram. I shall comment on that shortly.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

83

retreat one place. In other words, these are the yin hexagrams that originally would have been in a position similar to that of the corresponding yang hexagram.131 It may therefore be assumed that these yin hexagrams share certain features that will lead to a definition of that term as well as to a clear understanding of what tong wei 同位, ‘similar positions,’ means. There are various conflicting ways to determine whether a hexagram is yin or yang.132 The fourteen hexagrams that have been set apart in Zhang Huiyan’s diagram seem to have only one thing in common: they each occur as the second hexagram of the pair they belong to in the Zhouyi. So it seems that the yang hexagrams are the first of a pair (like Qian ䷀, the quintessential yang hexagram), and yin hexagrams are the second (like Kun ䷁, the quintessential yin hexagram). In Zhang Qicheng’s diagram (see figure 2.6) the hexagrams Da you (# 14) and Xun (# 57) have been added to this group of fourteen hexagrams for the following reasons: Furthermore, Dui (# 58) being correct in the xu (branch # 11) month is a mistake; it should be correct in you (branch # 10). Xun (# 57) is correct in the you month, and it retreats one place, so it should be moved inside the xu month below the hexagram Bi (# 22). Da you (# 14) should be correct in the wei (branch # 8) month and placed before Gou (# 44).133 While Da you (# 14) fits the description of a yin hexagram given here, Zhang Qicheng’s rearrangement, as it appears in his diagram, merely amounts to changing the position of Da you within the three hexagrams positioned to the right of the vertical line. As I shall attempt to demonstrate shortly, the text above is correct when it says Da you should be placed before Gou (# 44). This can only mean that Da you should be placed on the left side of the vertical line. Grouping Xun (# 57) with the yin hexagrams, on the other hand, upsets the entire system because Xun, being the first hexagram of the pair Xun and Dui, is a yang hexagram. Apparently Zhang Qicheng finds it necessary to redefine the nature of Xun and have it retreat from branch number ten to number eleven.134 131

132 133 134

According to Zhang Qicheng, Yixue, 439, these short vertical lines were added by a certain Shen Shaoxun 沈紹勳 of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). In Zhang Qicheng’s diagram (figure 2.6) under the branch xu 戌, the two hexagrams Guan (# 20) and Bi (# 22) should be located on the left side of the vertical line, and under the branch si 巳 there should be no line at all. See ibid., 395. The more common ways are based on the nature of the trigrams or the lines. Ibid., 439–440. By recognizing that the clockwise movement of the yin hexagrams through the branches is retreating, Zhang Qicheng, of course, contradicts the interpretations of the movements

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

84

Nielsen

The motivation for this seems to be that it allows him to position Dui (# 58) in branch number ten, which corresponds to due west, but why that should be important remains to be explained. Comparing Zhang Huiyan’s and Zhang Qichang’s diagrams of the thirtytwo-year cycle of the Qian zuo du with the Ji lan tu’s tabulations of the corre­lations between the months and the hexagrams (see figure 2.6) clearly shows that the former is based on the latter. Starting in branch number one, zi, in the circular arrangement, the name of the hexagram Gen (# 52) appears on the left side of the vertical line in the outer ring, indicating that it is a yin hexagram that has retreated one place (moved one place clockwise through the branches). This means Gen should have been correct in branch number twelve, hai, corresponding to the tenth month, and this is exactly the position of Gen in the Ji lan tu arrangement. Moving on to branch number two, chou, in the diagram based on the Qian zuo du, the name of the hexagram Fu (# 24) appears on the left side of the vertical line, indicating that it has retreated from branch number one, zi, corresponding to the eleventh month, which is the position of Fu in the Ji lan tu tabulation. In a similar manner the remaining twelve hexagrams of Zhang Huiyan’s diagram can be traced to their correct positions according to the Ji lan tu correlations. In the case of Da you (# 14) mentioned above, in the diagram based on the Qian zuo du it appears in branch number eight, wei, whereas its position in the Ji lan tu arrangement is in branch number seven, wu. This seems to confirm Zhang Qicheng’s reclassification of Da you as a yin hexagram.135 The hexagrams placed to the right of the vertical lines on the outer ring in Zhang Huiyan’s diagram are without exception correlated with the exact same branches and months in the Ji lan tu. For example, in the thirty-two-year cycle the three hexagrams Yi (# 27), Jian (# 39), and Wei ji (# 64) all occur in branch number one, zi, which corresponds to the Ji lan tu arrangement. As to the ten hexagrams in the middle ring of Zhang Huiyan’s diagram, there are some irregularities. The four hexagrams Kan (# 29), Li (# 30), Zhen (# 51), and Dui (# 58), of course, do not occur in the Ji lan tu tabulation. Tai (# 11) and Pi (# 12), which are in branches number three, yin, and number nine, shen, respectively, also 135

of, for example, Qian and Kun, he subscribes to elsewhere; see ibid., 438. The retreating movement of the yin hexagrams is in all fifteen cases considered as proceeding clockwise, which, of course, supports Zhang Huiyan’s interpretation of left and right movements discussed earlier. This is not surprising, though, for even if the diagram did not originate with Zhang Huiyan, it is at least reproduced by him to back his own point of view. That Zhang Qicheng, on the other hand, also reproduces this diagram without noticing that it contradicts his interpretations elsewhere does not inspire much confidence in his work.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

85

occur in these branches in the Ji lan tu. The pair Zhong fu (# 61) and Xiao guo (# 62), which according to the Qian zuo du is modeled on Qian and Kun, is in branches number one, zi, and number eight, wei, in Zhang Huiyan’s diagram but in the Ji lan tu Xiao guo is in branch number three, yin. Finally, Qian and Kun, which in Zhang Huiyan’s diagram are in branches number one, zi, and number eight, wei, are in branches number six and number ten in the Ji lan tu. It thus seems clear that the two systems differ only in the few cases where the Qian zuo du has precise directions as to the positions of the hexagrams whereas when specific information is lacking, Zhang Huiyan’s diagram is based on the correlations of the Ji lan tu. Whether or not this was the intention of the author of the Qian zuo du will remain undecided. Zhang Huiyan’s diagram does not shed any light on the meaning of ‘similar positions.’ The Qian zuo du commentary clearly states that ‘similar positions’ means ‘positioned crosswise’ but there is only one example among the fifteen cases where the yin hexagram retreats one position: the hexagram Sun (# 41) is in branch number seven, wu, and Yi (# 42) is in branch number one, zi, so Yi retreats one position to branch number two, chou. It seems that when whoever composed Zhang Huiyan’s diagram (by copying the correlations of the Ji lan tu) encountered a pair of hexagrams in which both are correlated to even or to odd branches, he would move the pair’s second hexagram one branch in a clockwise direction. This could not only be interpreted as the yin hexagram retreating but would also facilitate the alternation of the hexagrams as prescribed by the Qian zuo du. The correlations between the hexagrams and the months and branches, as these appear in Zhang Huiyan’s diagram, are thus for the greater part not based on the Qian zuo du but on the Ji lan tu. It is therefore in the latter work that the rationale behind these correlations should be searched for. Fung Yu-lan has described the system, which allocates five hexagrams to each month or branch.136 Each of the five hexagrams correlated to a particular month is given a title: Dafu 大夫 (Great Officer), Qing 卿 (Minister), Gong 公 (Duke), Zhuhou 諸侯 (Feudal Prince), and Tianzi 天子 (Son of Heaven). As Fung Yu-lan demonstrates, the twelve hexagrams bearing the title Son of Heaven symbolize the fluctuation of yin and yang during the course of a year starting in branch number one: ䷗䷒䷊䷡䷪䷀䷫䷠䷋䷓䷖䷁

136

See Fung, History, vol. 2, 107ff. For the Ji lan tu, see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 158ff.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

86

Nielsen

The organization of the rest of the hexagrams as well as their correlations to titles, months, and branches lack a corresponding systematization.137 Thus, having presented how the thirty-two-year cycle of the Qian zuo du was pictured by later scholars, basing themselves on the sparse information of the text, as an arrangement that would fit in a diagram, it is necessary again to turn to the Ji lan tu to get an idea of the actual application of this hexagram cycle to divination. It will soon become apparent, however, that the author of the Qian zuo du shares the assumptions and ideas expressed in the Ji lan tu although the latter relates them to a different thirty-two-year cycle of hexagrams. In fact, the Ji lan tu has several examples of schemes that correlate the hexagrams with months and branches.138 A prominent position among these is taken by a tabulation of hexagrams in pairs forming a veritable divination manual complete with all the figures needed to apply the hexagrams to predictions of future events. The first two entries of this divination manual go: 1. Qian. The generation line is in xu (branch # 11),139 and the first line is in zi (branch # 1). Kun. The generation line is in you (branch # 10), and the first line is in wei (branch # 8). The two [hexagrams’] total divination sticks are 360. Divided for each, Qian has 216 and Kun has 144. The two [hexagrams’] total lineage is 1,440.140 Divided for each, Qian has 768 and Kun has 672. 2. Zhun. The generation line is in yin (branch # 3), and the first line is in yin (branch # 3). 137 138

139

140

See also Fung, History, vol. 2, 470ff., for Shao Yong’s 邵雍 (1011–1077) development of this arrangement. See Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 133ff., where the hexagrams are enumerated in the traditional order but only about one third of the correlations with the months agree with those mentioned above. This probably refers to the system attributed to Jing Fang 京房 (ca. 76–37 bce) in which the governing line in a hexagram is referred to as the generation, shi 世. Jing Fang’s edition of the Zhouyi is supposed to have been arranged according to the positions of these lines within the hexagrams; see for example Xu Mao, Jing shi Yi, 83; and Nielsen, Companion, 1ff. and 129ff. The word translated as ‘lineage’ is gui 軌, which originally meant ‘wheel track’ and, by extension, the distance between the wheels. Gui further developed the meanings ‘rule’ and ‘law,’ and it was also used to describe the tracks the heavenly bodies move along. The commentator on the Huainanzi, Gao You 高誘 (ca. 168–212), glosses gui as dao 道, meaning ‘route,’ ‘path’ (and not principle); see Huainanzi, ZZMJ, vol. 85, 258.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

87

Meng. The generation line is in xu (branch # 11), and the first line is in si (branch # 6). The two [hexagrams’] total divination sticks are 336. Divided for each, Zhun has 168 and Meng has 168. The two [hexagrams’] total lineage is 1,408. Divided for each, Zhun has 704 and Meng has 704.141 Although the correlations between the branches and the hexagrams in this tabulation are different from those of the thirty-two-year cycle of the Qian zuo du, the two cycles seem to have been used in the same manner. At least, the author of the Qian zuo du is also familiar with figures referred to as the ‘total lineage’ and attempts to explain the concept: Confucius said: The one who considered 760 [years] to be the generations’ lineage was Yao. Obtaining Heaven’s origin by means of the jia zi is the art of inference. The one who considered the reversal of six and eight as well as nine and seven to be the generations’ lineage was King Wen. Reckoning the hexagram lines’ four [designations] is the art of numbers.142 The commentary explains in greater detail: The jia zi constitute an Era Cycle starting on the first day of the eleventh month. Each Era Cycle is seventy-six years so the generations accumulate 1,520 years after which they start over again. Thus, a period of seventy-six years [begins] early in the morning on the first jia zi day of the eleventh month. Yao considered this to be one yin and one yang so he divided it down the middle. This deduction is regarded as the lineage system.

 In the Yijing there are four images, and King Wen used them in his [art]. He arranged six in the north to represent water, he arranged eight in the east to represent wood, he arranged nine in the west to represent metal, and he arranged seven in the south to represent fire. Thus he makes it complete providing one hexagram line and adjusting the four operations.143 From this, then, the figures 141 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 144. 142 Ibid., 54. 143 Si ying 四營, the four operations, are mentioned in Xi ci 1.8, where the divination procedure is described, and they are usually understood as 1) Dividing the forty-nine divination sticks into two bundles; 2) Removing one stick; 3) Counting through (dividing) the rest by four; and 4) Placing the remainder between the fingers. See Han Kangbo’s 韓康伯 (4th century) commentary in Kong, Zhouyi zheng yi, 729.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

88

Nielsen four multiplied by eight, four multiplied by nine, four multiplied by seven, and four multiplied by six are produced. As to the lines, if doubling them, every hexagram on average obtains 720 years. The talk of reversal (literally, going and coming) means that outside (above average) is the yang [figure] and inside (below average) is the yin [figure].144

The author of the Qian zuo du further states: As to the method [of calculating the time of] one lineage enjoying the state, the yang [principle] is enthroned by means of nine and seven. Nine and seven means four multiplied by nine, four multiplied by seven. The yin [principle] is enthroned by means of six and eight. Six and eight means four multiplied by six and four multiplied by eight. When the yang [principle] loses the throne, it is thirty-six, and when the yin [principle] loses the throne, it is twenty-four.145 And the commentary explains: Four multiplied by nine is thirty-six, and four multiplied by seven is twenty-eight. The total is sixty-four. Four multiplied by six is twenty-four, and four multiplied by eight is thirty-two. The total is fifty-six. This is King Wen reckoning the hexagram lines to be one generation. Altogether it is 720 years.146 As to the years and the lineage, this is the number of years on the throne. When enthroned, the [values] of the static and the changing [hexagram lines] are simply combined, and for the virtuous, they are doubled, therefore the lineage is 720.147 The Ji lan tu spells it out most explicitly in the paragraph preceding the tabulation of the thirty-two hexagram pairs of the divination manual: The Art of the Sixty-four Hexagrams says: The yang line is nine, and the yin line is six. The Art of the Lineage says: The yang line is nine and seven, and the yin line is eight and six. If the six positions of Qian had old yang lines 144 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 54. 145 Ibid., 50. 146 Zhang Huiyan explains, “When King Wen received the Mandate, it corresponded to [the hexagrams] Xian (# 31) and Heng (# 32); the lineages of both Xian and Heng are 720”; Yiwei, 63. 147 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 50.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

89

of [value] nine, then multiplying thirty-six by the six lines results in 216. [If the six positions] had young yang lines of [value] seven, then multiplying twenty-eight by the six lines results in 168. Adding the above two figures results in 384. Doubling this gives 768. If the six positions of Kun had old yin lines of [value] six, then multiplying twenty-four by the six lines results in 144. [If the six positions] had young yin lines of [value] eight, then multiplying thirty-two by the six lines results in 192. Adding the above two figures results in 336. Doubling this gives 672. The two lineage numbers of Qian and Kun added are 1,440. All the yang lines take sixty-four as the rule.148 This is multiplied and the result is doubled. All the yin lines take fifty-six as the rule.149 This is multiplied, the resulting figure of which is doubled.150 From the above it is clear that the lineage is calculated on basis of the numerical designations of the hexagram lines and the number of divination sticks they are based on. The method of obtaining the lineage associated with a certain hexagram may be expressed in a formula where ‘A’ is the number of yin lines of the hexagram and ‘B’ is the number of yang lines: 2 × [A × (4 × 6 + 4 × 8) + B × (4 × 7 + 4 × 9)] For example, in the case of the hexagram Fu (# 24) ䷗ the calculation is: 2 × [5 × (4 × 6 + 4 × 8) + 1 × (4 × 7 + 4 × 9)] = 688 In the extreme case of Qian and Kun, which are composed entirely of yang or yin lines, half of the calculation inside the brackets is dropped. For example, in the case of Qian: 2 × [6 × (4 × 6 + 4 × 8)] = 768 The combinations of yin and yang lines of the sixty-four hexagrams make the following lineage numbers possible: 672, 688, 704, 720, 736, 752, and 768. To apply these figures to a dynasty, it is necessary to determine which hexagram ruled the year when the dynasty was founded. This operation, which amounts to freezing the thirty-two-year cycle of the hexagrams at a fixed point in time, 148 Sixty-four = (4 × 7 + 4 × 9). 149 Fifty-six = (4 × 6 + 4 × 8). 150 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 142f.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

90

Nielsen

requires a starting point, and this is where the concordance cycle is indispensable. If, as stated above, the beginning of the largest cycle can be ascertained, “the state of any of the smaller cycles, which by definition began at the same time, could be determined.”151 The paragraph on “The Art of Obtaining the Hexagrams that Govern the Year” in the Qian zuo du translated above is an example of how to do this calculation: The First Calendar had no [specific] name. Calculating the first Era Cycle was called Jia yin. The Art of Calculating the Hexagrams that Govern the Year says, when constantly using Jupiter to record the years, seventy-six [years] constitute one Era Cycle, and twenty Era Cycles constitute an Obscuration Cycle. Then, the accumulated [years gone by] are set up [on the calculating board in units of] the Obscuration Cycle’s number of years (= 1,520) to which is added [those years] that have [already] entered the Era Cycle’s number of years (= 76), and this is divided by thirty-two. The remainder that is less [than thirty-two] is, beginning with Qian and Kun, counted by two hexagrams to obtain each year. The final counting rod, then, [indicates] the hexagrams that rule the year.152 A weak point in this scheme reveals itself when it comes to calculating the beginning of the largest cycle or, in other words, the first year and thus the number of years that have passed from the origin of Heaven to a known point in time. This figure could not be based on astronomical or calendrical computations, rather it was the result of what Sivin has referred to as ‘literary numerology,’ which means the figure had to be decided on by the authors of the Apocrypha.153 In two Apocrypha belonging to the Chunqiu 春秋 [Springs and Autumns] tradition, it was decided that the known point in time should be set to the year roughly corresponding to 481 bce, the year the mythical beast, the qilin, was captured, an event that signaled the end of the Springs and Autumns Period and foreboded the death of Confucius.154 The authors of the Apocrypha decided that in the year approximately corresponding to 481 bce, 151 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 9. 152 Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 46. 153 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 9. 154 The two Apocrypha have survived in fragments only but are known by the titles Ming li xu 命歷序 [The Sequences of the Charge and the Calendar] and Yuan ming bao 元命包 [The Inclusion of the Original Charge]; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 4, pt. 2, 118ff., and vol. 4, pt. 1, 25ff. See also Sivin, “Cosmos,” 22; Eberhard and Müller, “Contributions,” 228f.; and Tjan, Po hu t’ung, vol. 1, 107. In modern historiography the Springs and Autumns Period is usually considered to end in 476 bce.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

91

2,760,000 years had elapsed since the creation of the world, and this was copied into the treatise on the pitch-pipes and calendars of the Hou Han shu, which also cites the Qian zuo du as a source.155 Having formulated this time span, or during the process of so doing, it became necessary to relate the figure to the calendrical computations. In the case of the Qian zuo du which operates with King Wen’s reception of the mandate as the fixed point in time and a time span of 2,759,280 years, the concordance cycle as calculated above corresponds to sixty-four Epoch Cycles, Yuan 元. It was also demonstrated above that the numerology of the Qian zuo du is based on the constants of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar,” which has an Epoch Cycle of 4,560 years, thus the concordance cycle or ‘the Great Year’ is 4,560 years multiplied by sixty-four resulting in 291,840 years. One Epoch Cycle corresponds roughly to 380 revolutions of Jupiter, so astronomical computations showed that an Epoch Cycle had begun in 1681 bce, and that the next would begin in 2879 ce.156 For example, if the years from 481 bce to 2879 ce are added to the fictitious 2,760,000 years, the result is 2,763,360, which divided by the number of years of the Epoch Cycle results in 606. Consequently, the year 481 bce is located somewhere in the 605th Epoch Cycle. Once this has been established, it is a matter of trivial arithmetic to find out which hexagram pair rules a certain year. For example, the 2,759,280 years of the Qian zuo du is divided by the number of years of the concordance cycle, which results in nine concordance cycles and a remainder of 132,720 years. The remainder is divided by the number of hexagrams of the hexagram cycle, thirty-two, which results in 4,147 hexagrams cycles and a remainder of sixteen years. The remainder is counted through from pair number one, Qian-Kun, which rules the first year, number two, ZhunMeng, which rules the second, and so on until the pair which rules the sixteenth 155 See Hou Han shu, vol. 6, 3038. In addition to the two Apocrypha mentioned in the previous note, the Hou Han shu says that the Qian zuo du also has this figure. The present editions of the Qian zuo du do not have the 2,760,000 years. However, Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 66, include a fragment attributed to the Qian zuo du culled from the Lu shi 路史 [The Grand History], compiled by Luo Bi 羅泌 (12th century), which does have an interesting figure. The fragment says that 2,759,280 years had elapsed from the origin of Heaven until King Wen received the mandate: ibid., 48. From this figure it may be inferred that 720 years elapsed from the time King Wen received the mandate to the capture of the qilin, which dates the former event to 1201 bce. As mentioned earlier, the year King Wen received the mandate is ruled by the hexagrams Xian (# 31) and Heng (# 32), which both have a lineage of 720 (see note 146 above). However, the Zhou dynasty did not end in 481 bce but lasted until the Qin conquest in 256 bce. 156 Sivin, “Cosmos,” 22.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

92

Nielsen

year is arrived at: Xian (# 31) and Heng (# 32).157 By looking it up in the divination manual, or calculating it himself, the diviner can now determine the lineage associated with the year 1201 bce when King Wen supposedly received the mandate. For both hexagrams the number is 720, and the figures discussed earlier seem to suggest that the hexagram that actually ruled the month of the enthronement should be pinpointed, thus making the lineage 720, but the Qian zuo du is not clear on this point. In fact, the information in the Qian zuo du on the actual application of the thirty-two-year cycle is rather sparse whereas the Ji lan tu, mostly due to later interpolations and appended commentaries, abound with examples some of which are as late as 820 bce. I shall here limit myself to one example involving the hexagram cycle, the lineage, and stems and branches; an example for which there is also support in the Qian zuo du. The Epoch Cycle of “The Quarter Remainder Calendar” is analyzed in the Qian zuo du as composed of three Obscuration Cycles, and one Obscuration Cycle is composed of twenty Era Cycles. This, in effect, means that the Epoch Cycle is composed of sixty Era Cycles, which makes the Epoch Cycle compatible with a cycle of stems and branches. Thus to find the stem and branch for a particular year, it is only necessary to divide the 2,759,280 years by the number of years in an Epoch Cycle, which, of course, results in the 605 Epoch Cycles mentioned above and a remainder of 480 years. The remainder is divided by the number of years of the Era Cycle, which is seventy-six, resulting in six Era Cycles and a remainder of twenty-four years. Because there is concordance of phase between the Era Cycles, the stems and branches, and the Epoch Cycles, every time an Epoch Cycle starts anew, the first year of the first Era Cycle of the 480 years is a jia zi (stem # 1 and branch # 1) year. The first year of the second Era Cycle is a geng chen (stem # 7 and branch # 5) year, the first year of the third Era Cycle a bing shen (stem # 3 and branch # 9) year, and so on. Thus following the sexegenary cycle counting through the Era Cycles, the last year of the remainder of twenty-four, which corresponds to the year 1201 bce, is a bing xu (stem # 3 and branch # 11) year.158 Having determined the stem and branch of any particular year in question as well as the hexagram pair that rules the year in which the dynasty was founded, and thus the lineage number, the diviner can proceed. If, for example, 157 158

See Zhang Huiyan, Yiwei, 52. See ibid. Zhang Huiyan arrives at a different solution but he does not explain the obscure method by which he counts through the sexagesimal cycle. It can be inferred that the method is somehow based on intervals of thirty-nine years but how it relates to the present calculations is uncertain.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

93

the divination is concerned with forecasting the events of the fifty-second year of the dynasty, the lineage number is divided by fifty-two, and the remainder is counted through by the sexegenary cycle to find the stem and branch in question.159 Actually, it is only the stem that is of interest in the last operation. The ten stems are correlated to various, mostly disastrous, events that have played significant roles in China’s history: Jia (stem # 1) and yi (stem # 2) signify famine; bing (stem # 3) and ding (stem # 4) drought; wu (stem # 5) and ji (stem # 6) resurgence; geng (stem # 7) and xin (stem # 8) war; and ren (stem # 9) and gui (stem # 10) floods.160 Thus the stem arrived at indicates which of the above occurrences may be expected for the year under consideration. The above extensions and developments amount to a full-scale update of what the author of the Qian zuo du must have seen as a somewhat antiquated cosmology in the Xi ci and the Shuo gua. He elaborates on the ideas, clarifies moot points, and systematizes the divinatory procedures and techniques, which are frequently not made explicit in the Xi ci and the Shuo gua. This undertaking mirrors the development of the Yijing cosmology from the third century bce to the first century ce when the Qian zuo du was composed. One intriguing aspect of the relationship between the Xi ci and the Shuo gua on the one hand and the Qian zuo du on the other is that whereas the former, probably during the second century ce, had become part of the canon, the latter was among the corpus that was repeatedly proscribed beginning in the third century ce. As the Ji lan tu and the repeated bans on the Apocrypha attest, such politically oriented prognostication techniques based on the Yijing were popular during the Later Han and in the centuries preceding the Tang dynasty. Especially the Sui Emperors seem to have feared these texts. Although details of the actual employment of such cycles are sparse, I have elsewhere shown how the thirty-two-year cycle might have played a part in the ‘psychological’ warfare between the contenders in the power struggle following the downfall of Wang Mang.161

159

This is how the method is described in the Ji lan tu; see Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 150 and 154. 160 See Qian zuo du in Yasui and Nakamura, Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1, pt. 1, 54, and the Ji lan tu in ibid., vol. 1, pt. 1, 150 and 154. 161 Nielsen, “Calculating the Fall,” 105ff.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

94

Nielsen

Works Cited

Abbreviations

YJJC see Yan Lingfeng 嚴靈峰, comp. Wuqiubei zhai “Yijing” jicheng 無求備齋易經集 成 [The Complete Collection of the “Classic of Changes” in the Wuqiubei Studio]. 195 vols. Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975. ZZMJ see Zhongguo zixue mingzhu jicheng 中國子學名著集成 [The Complete Collection of China’s Masters and Famous Works]. 100 vols. Taibei: Zhongguo zixue mingzhu jicheng bianyin jijinhui, 1978.

Sources

Barrett, T.H. “Lieh tzu.” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 298–308. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1993. Bodde, Derk. “The Chinese Cosmic Magic Known as Watching for the Ethers.” In Studia serica Bernhard Karlgren dedicata, edited by Søren Egerod and Else Glahn, pp. 14–35. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959. Bruce, Percy. “The I wei: A Problem in Criticism.” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 61 (1930): 100–107. Chao, Tze-chiang. “The Cosmogonic Significance of the Yi-wei in the Exegeses of the Yi-ching.” Early China 1 (1975): 28. Chen Li 陳立. Bai hu tong shu zheng 白虎通疏證 [Explanation and Verification of the Discussions in the White Tiger (Hall)]. ZZMJ vol. 86. Chen Pan 陳槃. “Gu Chen Wei Shu Lu jie ti 7 古讖緯書錄解題七 [Examining the Ques­ tions of the Old Prognostications, Apocrypha, Documents, and Registers 7].” In Jiang Gongshi shi zhounian jinian lunwenji 蔣公逝世周年紀年論文集 [A Collection of Essays Commemorating the Anniversary of Jiang Gongshi], pp. 693–724. Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1976. Cheng, Anne. Étude sur le confucianisme Han: L’élaboration d’une tradition exégétique sur les classiques. Paris: Institut des hautes études chinoises, 1985. Ciyuan: Xiudingben 辭源：修訂本 [Etymological Dictionary: Revised Edition]. 4 vols. Xianggang: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1979. DeWoskin, Kenneth J. Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Ding Peiren 丁培仁. “Yi Qian zuo du sixiang chulun 易乾鑿度思想初論 [An Initial Discussion of the Thinking of Opening the Regular System of the Hexagram Qian of the Classic of Changes].” In “Zhouyi” yanjiu lunwenji 周易研究論文集 [A Collection of Essays of Studies of the “Changes of Zhou”], edited by Huang Shouqi 黃壽棋 and Zhang Shanwen 張善文, vol. 3, pp. 504–514. Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 1990.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

95

Dobson, W.A.C.H. Late Han Chinese: A Study of the Archaic-Han Shift. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964. Dull, Jack L. “A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (Ch’an-Wei) Texts of the Han Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Washington. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1966. Eberhard, Wolfram, and Robert Henseling. “Beiträge zur Astronomie der Han-Zeit, I.” Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jahrgang 1933, Philo­ sophisch-Historische Klasse (1933): 209–229. Eberhard, Wolfram, and Rolf Müller. “Contributions to the Astronomy of the Han Period III: Astronomy of the Later Han Period.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 1, no. 2 (1936): 194–241. Eberhard, Wolfram, Rolf Müller, and Robert Henseling. “Beiträge zur Astronomie der Han-Zeit, II.” Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jahr­ gang 1933, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (1933): 937–979. Fung, Yu-lan. 1952. A History of Chinese Philosophy. 2 vols. Translated by Derk Bodde. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952–1953. Gao Heng 高亨. “Zhouyi” da zhuan jin zhu 周易大傳今注 [A Modern Annotation of the Great Commentary of the “Changes of Zhou”]. Shandong: Qi Lu shushe, 1980. Gao Heng 高亨. “Zhouyi” gu jing jin zhu 周易古經今注 [A Modern Annotation of the Old Classic of the “Changes of Zhou”]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984. Graham, Angus C. Book of Lieh-tzu. London: Murray, 1960. Graham, Angus C. “The Date and Composition of the Liehtzyy.” Asia Major 8 (1960–1961): 139–198. Graham, Angus C. “Chuang-tzu”: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book “Chuang-tzu”. London: Allen and Unwin, 1981. Guo yu 國語 [Discourses of the States]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988. Han shu 漢書 [The Documents of the Han Dynasty]. 12 vols. Comp. by Ban Gu 班固. Reprint. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. Han Zhongmin 韓仲民. Bo “Yi” shuo lüe 帛易說略 [A Cursory Explanation of the Silk Manuscript of the “Changes”]. Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 1992. Henderson, John B. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Ho, Peng Yoke. The Astronomical Chapters of the Chin shu: With Amendments, Full Translation, and Annotations. Paris: Mouton, 1966. Hou Han shu 後漢書 [The Documents of the Later Han Dynasty]. 12 vols. Comp. by Fan Ye 范曄. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982. Huainan zi 淮南子 [The Huainan Masters]. ZZMJ vol. 85. Hui Dong 惠棟. “Zhouyi” yao chen tu 周易爻辰圖 [Diagram of the Lines and Branches of the “Changes of Zhou”]. YJJC vol. 146. Hulsewé, A.F.P. “The Two Early Han I Ching Specialists called Ching Fang.” T’oung Pao 72 (1986): 161–162.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

96

Nielsen

Jinshu 晉書 [The Documents of the Jin Dynasty]. 10 vols. Comp. by Fang Xuanling 房玄 齡. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974. Kong Yingda 孔穎達. “Zhouyi” zheng yi 周易正義 [The Correct Interpretation of the “Changes of Zhou”]. YJJC vol. 6. Liao Mingchun 廖名春, Kang Xuewei 康學偉, and Liang Weixian 梁韋弦. “Zhouyi” yanjiushi 周易研究史 [A History of Studies of the “Changes of Zhou”]. Changsha: Hunan chubanshe, 1991. Liu Xiuming 劉修明. “Jing, Wei yu Xi Han wangchao 經緯與西漢王朝 [The Classics and the Apocrypha and the Western Han Dynasty].” Zhongguo zhexue 中國哲學 [Chinese Philosophy] 9 (1983): 81–102. Loewe, Michael. “Pai hu t’ung.” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 347–356. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China; Institute of East Asian Studies, 1993. Lü Kai 呂凱. Zheng Xuan zhi Chen Wei xue 鄭玄之讖緯學 [Zheng Xuan’s Studies of the Prognostication and Apocrypha]. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1982. Lynn, Richard John. “The Classic of Changes”: A New Translation of the “I Ching” as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Mansvelt Beck, B.J. The Treatises of Later Han: Their Authors, Sources, Contents and Place in Chinese Historiography. Leiden: Brill, 1990. Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954. Nielsen, Bent. A Concordance to the “Qian zuo du” 乾鑿度索引. East Asian Institute Occasional Papers 9. Copenhagen: East Asian Institute, University of Copenhagen, 1992. Nielsen, Bent. “The Qian zuo du: A Late Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220) Study of the Book of Changes, Yijing.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Copenhagen, 1995. Nielsen, Bent. A Companion to “Yijing” Numerology and Cosmology: Chinese Studies of Images and Numbers from Han (202 BCE–220 CE) to Song (960–1279 CE). London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Nielsen, Bent. “Calculating the Fall of a Dynasty: Divination Based on the Qian zuo du.” Zhouyi Studies 6, no. 1 (2009–2010): 65–107. Nylan, Michael. The Canon of Supreme Mystery: A Translation with Commentary of the “T‘ai hsüan ching”. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Seidel, Anna. “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R.A. Stein, edited by Michel Strickmann, vol. 2, pp. 291–371. Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 1983. Sivin, Nathan. “Cosmos and Computation in Early Chinese Mathematical Astronomy.” T’oung Pao 55, no. 1–3 (1969): 1–73. Song shi 宋史 [The History of the Song Dynasty]. 40 vols. Comp. by Tuotuo 脫脫 (Toghto). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature

97

Sui shu 隋書 [The Documents of the Sui Dynasty]. 6 vols. Comp. by Wei Zheng 魏徵. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982. Swanson, Gerald. “The Great Treatise: Commentary Tradition to the Book of Changes.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Washington. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1974. Tjan Tjoe Som. Po hu t’ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall. 2 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1949–1952. Wang Yaochen 王堯臣 et al., comps. Chongwen zongmu 崇文總目 [The General Catalogue of the Glory of Literature]. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1967. Wang Yunwu 王雲五. Zheng zhu “Zhouli” 鄭注周禮 [Zheng’s Annotations to the “Rites of Zhou”]. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1967. Wilhelm, Richard. “I Ching” or “Book of Changes”. Translated by Cary F. Baynes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Xiao Tong 蕭統. Wen xuan 文選 [Anthology of Literature]. 3 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. Xu Mao 徐昴, comp. “Jing shi Yizhuan” jian 京氏易傳箋 [An Annotation to “Mr. Jing’s Commentary on the Changes”]. YJJC vol. 173. Xu Qinting 徐芹庭. Yixue yuanliu 易學源流 [The Origin and Development of Studies of the Changes]. 2 vols. Taipei: Guoli bianyiguan, 1987. Yan Lingfeng 嚴靈峰, comp. Wuqiubei zhai “Yijing” jicheng 無求備齋易經集成 [The Complete Collection of the Book of Changes in the Wuqiubei Studio]. 195 vols. Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975. Yasui Kōzan 安居香山, and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八. Chōshū isho shūsei 重修緯 書集成 [The Complete and Revised Collection of the Apocryphal Texts]. 6 vols. Tokyo: Kabushiki-gaisha shuppansha, 1971–1985. Yasui Kōzan, and Nakamura Shōhachi. Isho no kinoteki kenkyū 緯書の基礎的研究 [Studies of the Fundamentals of the Apocryphal Texts]. Tokyo: Kan Gi bunka kenkyūkai, 1976. Yong Rong 永瑢, ed. Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 [The Critical Catalogue of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries]. 4 vols. Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1933. Zhang Huiyan. Yiwei lüe yi 易緯略義 [A Summary of the Meaning of Apocrypha of the Changes]. YJJC vol. 161. Zhang Qicheng 張其成, ed. Yixue da cidian 易學大辭典 [The Great Encyclopaedia of Studies of the Changes]. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1995. Zhang Shanwen 張善文, ed. “Zhouyi” cidian 周易辭典 [The Encyclopaedia of the “Changes of Zhou”]. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1992. Zhang Zhan 張湛. “Lie zi” Zhang Zhan zhu 列子張湛注 [Zhang Zhan’s Commentary on “Master Lie”]. ZZMJ vol. 64. Zhong Zhaopeng 鐘肇鵬. “Zhouyi Qian zuo du de zhexue sixiang 周易乾鑿度的哲學思 想 [The Philosophical Thinking of the Opening the Regular System of the Hexagram

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

98

Nielsen

Qian of the Changes of Zhou].” In “Zhouyi” yanjiu lunwenji 周易研究論文集 [A Collection of Essays of Studies of the “Changes of Zhou”], edited by Huang Shouqi 黃 壽棋 and Zhang Shanwen 張善文, vol. 3, pp. 272–293. Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 1990. Zhongguo zixue mingzhu jicheng 中國子學名著集成 [The Complete Collection of China’s Masters and Famous Works]. 100 vols. Taipei: Zhongguo zixue mingzhu jicheng bianyin jijinhui, 1978.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

99

Chapter 3

The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China Paul W. Kroll Unlike scholars who work on medieval Europe, Sinologists have yet to define clearly or convincingly the developments that mark the transition from what is generally recognized as the “late antique” (ca. 25–200 ce) to the “early medieval” (ca. 200–600) period in China, or from the “early medieval” to the “late medieval” (ca. 600–900). An attempt to identify distinguishing characteristics might include the gradually diminishing place in refined culture of mantic arts. I say this in full recognition of the wide range of late medieval texts on divination recovered at Dunhuang 敦煌, now usefully catalogued by scholars under the direction of Marc Kalinowski.1 But very few of those texts are reflected elsewhere in the received literature of the medieval period. The Dunhuang materials seem to come from and be meant for a somewhat lower, or more popular, level of culture. It is possible that the relative lack of comments regarding divination in medieval literary and historical texts from the scholar-official class is a distortion that hides an acceptance of matter-of-fact occurrence. It is also possible—given the much greater textual representation of almost every other area of elite activity—that divinatory practices held an increasingly minor or perfunctory position in the typical scholar-official’s life. Perhaps the situation could be compared with the massive presence of mystery or science-fiction novels in the present-day world but their relative lack of effect on the professional (though perhaps not the personal) life of the more highly educated. The likelihood of the latter possibility is furthered by the indifferent placement of divination as a topic in the “order of knowledge” presented in medieval Chinese encyclopedias, as we shall see shortly. Still, we must be careful about the implications of this. We do not want to imagine that medieval China was on its way to becoming a civilization of rational skeptics. I am far from suggesting this. Indeed, it is not difficult to find various examples of divination 1 See Divination et société dans la Chine médiévale, ed. Kalinowski. Kalinowski’s work is so admirable that it pains me to say I am not convinced by his argument on p. 20 which attempts to blur the distinction between the admittedly “popular” manuscripts from Dunhuang and their counterparts (when they can occasionally be identified) from the learned tradition.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_005

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

100

Kroll

practices continuing with vigor well into the early modern age. While the high culture of the medieval era seems to trend away from divination as a prominent aspect of life, it is still an element to be reckoned with. Certain important events may have often elicited a resort to divination, perhaps more in the nature of a confirming than a deciding act. An example is the reported casting of yarrow stalks by the scholar-official Chen Zi’ang 陳子昂 (659–700?) when being harried by a local district magistrate; the hexagram obtained (which is not named) led him to lament that Heaven was offering no aid to him and that he would soon perish.2 Complication, rather than simplicity, is normally the rule in human existence. In what follows, I attempt a first-level examination of the subject, offering a rough and somewhat impressionistic survey of selected mantic arts as illustrated in medieval literary texts and in official practice.3 Two qualifications must be registered at the outset. First, we must always be aware that what remains to us of medieval textual culture is a scant portion of the original output. It is hardly representative in terms of quantity. All general characterizations and specific claims can therefore only be provisional. Second, it is imperative to realize that the array of medieval texts we do have depends fundamentally on what later scholars deemed worthy of interest and hence preservation. Thus, the surviving corpus of texts is not necessarily representative in terms of quality, either. This latter point is in some ways more important, and more easily slighted, than the more evident former point. The texts we have of early medieval times (ca. 200–600 ce) are those that later medieval scholars (ca. 600–900) chose to read and copy, within the bounds of their own priorities. And of course the textual production of late medieval times was itself subject, in its own selection for preservation, to the critical judgments of scholars from the subsequent, “early modern” period. These conditions are present and unavoidable in any historical study relating to manuscript culture. But this has ever been so, and does not render such inquiry invalid. A respectful awareness of limitations is, however, required. Preliminaries duly noted, let us begin with a brief glance at the survival into medieval times of the apocryphal, prognosticatory texts of the chenwei 讖緯 2 See Xin Tang shu, 107.4077, which says that Chen was in prison when he made this divination, dying thereafter. This is based on an account in the “Separate Biography” (biezhuan 別傳) of Chen, written by his friend Lu Cangyong 盧藏用; see Xinjiao Chen Zi’ang ji, 255. 3 An hypothesis that might be worth exploring, but which I hazard with some caution, is that the growing influence of Buddhism and Daoism among the literocracy of medieval times, both of which religions emphasize in different ways the importance of one’s own actions for what befalls one in this life or an afterlife, might lessen the intellectual need—though not the psychological desire—to foretell the future.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

101

tradition.4 These works, which proliferated during the Han period (206 bce– 220 ce) as “weft” (wei) complements to the classical, “warp” (jing 經) texts, are often said to have been devalued in the early medieval era and then largely eradicated in the early seventh century under the Sui dynasty. However, Lu Zongli has convincingly shown in his recent book that this narrative is far from true.5 While there were nine recorded bans on such literature, starting in 268, these had relatively little effect. We can trace an unbroken lineage of chenwei study from the Han all the way into the Tang dynasty (618–907). As emperors sought from time to time to deny the use of chenwei documents—so liable to be interpreted as prophesying a change of rulers—to ambitious princes, nobles, generals, and religious fanatics, they regularly made use themselves of the texts to justify and bolster their own sovereignty. Beyond this, there seems to have been a practical distinction between the prophetic (chen) texts and the apocrypha (wei). The former were both catalyst and target of political disquiet and accordingly became the focal point of proscriptions. The latter—able to be regarded as supplements and commentaries to the traditional canon— were in large measure exempted from censure.6 This wei literature even enjoyed a certain cachet among scholars and bibliophiles, who continued to peruse it with impunity. One of many such examples is Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501– 531), Crown Prince Zhaoming 昭明太子 of the Liang dynasty and renowned compiler of the Wen xuan 文選 anthology, who was noted by contemporaries as a devotee of the apocrypha, even though he is now usually seen as an advocate of orthodox, refined literature.7 To take another, somewhat later instance, we find a staggering amount of quotations from “weft” texts strewn throughout the Tang Kaiyuan zhan jing 唐 開元占經. This mammoth compendium of astronomological lore was compiled at the Tang court during the first decade of the reign of Xuanzong 玄宗 (685–762, r. 712–756), the era traditionally extolled as the pinnacle of Tang— indeed of all medieval Chinese—culture. Its author was Gautama Siddhartha 瞿曇悉達, a third-generation (that is, sincized8) Indian savant who was serving 4 See also Nielsen’s contribution in this volume. 5 See Lu, Power of the Words, from which much of the information in the rest of this paragraph is drawn. 6 Although not exhaustive, the six-volume collection of fragments of “weft” texts, compiled by Yasui Kōzan 安居香山 and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, Chōshu isho shūsei, tsuketari kōkan sakuin 重修緯書集成，附校勘索引, permits a depth of research in this area that was scarcely possible previously. 7 See Liang shu, 8.170. As we shall see, he was not the only member of his family to have such interests. 8 Though still not sinicized enough, evidently, to adopt a Chinese name.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

102

Kroll

the Tang, as had his father and grandfather before him, in the position of astronomer-royal.9 It was in 714 that he received the emperor’s order to compile the work.10 The central presence of the word zhan 占 in its title indicates that the focus here is on the interpretation of celestial phenomena as “omens,” rather than on the scientific recording of observational astronomy (although the book contains more than a little of such material, which has been mined by modern scholars of astronomical history). What might, however, be overlooked is that the omen material must have been accessible in the imperial archives—another indication of the staying power of the chenwei tradition at court. Yet, the ambiguous attitude of the Tang court toward such texts is also revealed in a comment found in the Tang liu dian’s 唐六典 description of the astronomical bureau, where we read: “The [bureau’s] apprentice-observators must not consult writings pertaining to omens; the propitious signs and adverse peculiarities that they perceive are to be made known and reported to the throne in a sealed envelope, disclosure of which will result in punishment” 觀生不得讀占書，所見徵祥災異密封聞奏，漏泄有刑.11 This restriction and warning applied only to astronomers in training, of whom, according to another statement, there were supposed to be ninety in the bureau at any time. Presumably, graduating to higher levels of competence and responsibility would permit increased access to the broad range of material that was culled by Gautama Siddhartha for his compendium. References to “omen-taking from the stars” (zhan xing 占星) by private individuals outside the court regarding questions of personal welfare, and thus less 9

10

11

Two of his sons were also to hold court positions: one headed a subdepartment of the astronomical bureau (sitian dongguan zheng 司天冬官正) and authored a work on calendrics (for which, see Xin Tang shu, 59.1547), the other served as an assistant in the office of affairs of the ancestral house (zongzheng cheng 宗正丞). The tomb inscription of the former was discovered in 1977 and provides information about the family to supplement the meager gleanings from official sources. The best survey of Siddhartha’s work and his family history is Bo Shuren’s 薄樹人 introductory essay to Tang Kaiyuan zhan jing. On Indian astronomers and calendar experts at the Tang court, see Needham, S­ cience and Civilisation in China, vol. 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth, 202–203. We do not know its date of completion, although Needham, 175, says “soon after 718.” Siddhar­tha’s death in 724 (or 723) is the terminus ante quem. At the same time the compilation was ordered, in 714, there was a slight reorganization in the astronomical bureau and the director’s title was changed from taishi ling 太史令 to taishi jian 太史監; see Tang liu dian, 10.302. The description of the bureau in the Xin Tang shu monograph on officialdom is based on a still later reorganization in 758 and so does not match up with that in Tang liu dian; see Rotours, Traité des fonctionnaires, 208 n3. Tang liu dian, 10.303. Cf. Rotours, 209 n1.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

103

fraught with dynastic implications, are not rare in Tang poetry. The close relation of this with other types of fate prediction in the Tang, such as extrapolative numerology and hemeromancy, was noted thirty-some years ago by Edward H. Schafer, who also remarked the importance of Buddhist—or at least Indic— influence on Tang forms of calendar wisdom.12 Much interesting work has been done and will surely continue to be done in this area of mantic practices. But omens in traditional China, as Michael Loewe has proposed, might be seen to occupy a different category than divination. In his words, “Divination comprised a deliberate search by man for the answers to questions and included the artificial production of signs for the purpose. […] Omens are seen in the phenomena or portents of nature that are obvious to all, and that are of sufficient size and strength to demand explanation.”13 Accepting this distinction in principle, though acknowledging, as Loewe also cautioned, that it cannot be maintained rigidly, we may better understand the tendency in medieval usage to exclude omen-taking from the common compound term for “divination,” namely bushi 卜筮, which points specifically to the two oldest and most developed methods, to which we now turn. Throughout the Nanbeichao and Tang periods the three most respected methods of divination for the literate elite were those of cheloniomancy (bu 卜),14 milfoil sortilege (shi 筮) tied to the sixty-four hexagrams15 of the Yijing 易 經, and manipulation of the so-called cosmic-board16 (shi 式).17 We shall comment on the last of these later. The first two take prime place in medieval times. This is evident, among other indicators, in the fact that the contents of the subsections devoted to divination in the two most influential encyclopedias (leishu 類書) from the Tang are taken up entirely with the practices of bu 卜 and shi 筮. The compound term bushi is indeed the relevant subsection’s head12 Schafer, Pacing the Void, 57–59, though his whole chapter on “Astrology” is relevant. “Extrapolative numerology” is Schafer’s rendering of shushu 術數 (elsewhere, “projective calculation”) and “hemeromancy” is his suggestion in place of Nakayama’s “hemerology” or Needham’s “chronomancy”—“since the one seems too broad in scope and the other inexact.” 13 Loewe, “China,” 38–39. 14 Adopting Kalinowski’s coinage for turtle-shell divination. “Plastromancy” or even “pyroplastromancy” will not do, because it was not just plastrons but also carapaces that were used. 15 Or, to speak more precisely, double-trigrams. 16 Or cosmogram. See Kalinowski, “The Notion of ‘Shi 式’ and Some Related Terms in QinHan Calendrical Astrology,” for the most up-to-date discussion of the various kinds of shi-devices. 17 See also Steavu’s contribution in this volume.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

104

Kroll

ing in the first of these encyclopedias, the Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚. A variant of it, buce 卜筴 (ce specifically signifying the milfoil, or yarrow, stalks), is used in the second encyclopedia, the Chuxue ji 初學記. It is worth noting that, although leishu are usually referred to in English as “encyclopedias,” their essential purpose is not to present comprehensively the various branches of knowledge by means of synoptic articles, but rather to assemble significant quotations and passages from earlier texts, arranged in ordered fashion, as an aid to the acquisition of traditional learning and to literary composition. The term “commonplace book,” favored by an increasing number of scholars, more accurately describes their format. However, the arrangement of topics in leishu is carefully done and is expressive of a general order of knowledge, with topics of more importance (for the intended, literate users) preceding those of less consequence. Plants and animals, for example, regularly bring up the rear, while matters relating to celestial phenomena, the calendar, the configurations of earth, the emperor and the hierarchy of the court are placed first. We may thus draw some approximate conclusions about how the compilers envisaged the world in which they functioned. The Yiwen leiju, a work compiled by committee at the behest of the first Tang emperor, was completed late in 624. It consists of one hundred juan or chapters, into which are disposed forty-six general categories which are themselves divided into 727 subsections. Appearing only six years after the dynasty’s founding, it may be seen as effectively culminating the early medieval centuries, in terms of its literary scope. Its subsection on divination occurs within the larger category of “skillful techniques” (fangshu 方術). This is the thirty-first of Yiwen leiju’s forty-six general sections, following immediately after categories devoted to boats and carriages, foodstuffs, eating and drinking utensils, and arts and crafts (such as archery, calligraphy, painting, and different kinds of games). One has the impression that the “skillful techniques” among which divination is included do not rank very high in the broad scheme of things. This section is placed relatively late in the Yiwen leiju, constituting chapter seventy-five out of the hundred that make up the encyclopedia. It includes five subsections—on the practices of “nurturing life” (yang sheng 養生), on divination, on somatomancy (xiang 相), on the diagnosis and treatment of illness (ji 疾), and on medicine (yi 醫). The divination subsection18 begins by quoting from the ritual classic Liji 禮記 [Record of Rites] definitions of bu 卜 as referring

18

Yiwen leiju, fu suoyin leishu shizhong, 75.1285–1286.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

105

to gui 龜, turtle-shell divination,19 and shi 筮 as referring to ce 筴, diviningstalks, and then quotes the statement that the wise kings of the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) did not fail to employ these two techniques when serving the spirits of heaven and earth or fail to heed their results in selecting appropriate days for important activities. Citing the third-century Gu shi kao 古史考 [Studies in Ancient History] of Qiao Zhou 譙周 (ca. 200–270), it then attributes the invention of milfoil sortilege to the culture-hero Pao Xi 庖犧 (otherwise Fu Xi 伏犧), noting that later this art was perfected by Shaman Xian 巫咸 in the Shang dynasty. Then come three passages illustrating divination use in historical incidents, taken from Mu tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳,20 Zuo zhuan 左傳,21 and Shiji 史記.22 Nearly three times as long as this general material is the following selection of three texts, quoted in whole or in part: Yu Chan’s 庾闡 (287–340) “Treatise on the Milfoil and the Turtle” (“Shigui lun” 蓍龜論), Yan Yanzhi’s 顏延之 (384– 456) “Great Admonition on Milfoil Sortilege” (“Da shi zhen” 大筮箴), and Xiao Yi’s 蕭繹 (502–555;23 r. Liang Yuandi 梁元帝, 552–555) preface to the Yi Donglin 易洞林, a memoir on milfoil divination by Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324).24 All three of these pieces make for interesting reading, not only as comments on divination, but also for their literary polish in different genres. We owe the preservation of all three to their inclusion in the Yiwen leiju, whence they were copied more than a millennium later by Yan Kejun 嚴可均 (1762–1843) into his Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen 全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文, the most comprehensive collection of pre-Tang prose writings. One can only 19

20 21 22 23

24

Although it is common for scholars to refer to “tortoise-shell divination,” David N. Keight­ley showed many years ago that it was turtle—not tortoise—shells that were used in divination from Shang times, and presumably later as well. See his Sources of Shang History, 9. For original source, see Mu tianzi zhuan, 5.4b. For original source, see “Chunqiu” “Zuozhuan” zhu, 597–598 (Wen gong 13); tr. Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 5: The “Ch’un Tsew” with the “Tso Chuen”, 264. Shiji, 127.3218. Xiao Yi’s year of death and the accession of his son as the last Liang ruler is usually given as 554. This is incorrect. Xiao Yi died on the day Chengsheng 3.xii.19 (see Liang shu, 5.135), which correlates with 27 January 555. This kind of year-off mistake is unfortunately common, owing to the fact that the Chinese luni-solar year does not align precisely with the Western calendar and to the laziness of scholars in not making the necessary adjustment. If it seems a small matter, think of how you would feel to lose, say, twenty-seven days of life. On the Donglin (Cavern Forest [of the Book of Changes]), see Pease, “Kuo P’u’s Life and Five-Colored Rhymes,” 20–22.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

106

Kroll

wonder how many other works on such subjects may have been lost, by not being selected for quotation this way. The excerpt given from Yu Chan’s treatise begins with assertions that remind one of the xuanxue 玄學 essays so current in his day and for two generations preceding: After material things are brought forth, there are images (or symbols). After there are images, there are numerical appetencies.25 After there are numerical appetencies, benign and malign tendencies abide in them. The milfoil plant is the chief item for looking into numerical appetencies, but is not something that is made real by the divine spirits. The turtle is the basic substance for disclosing ominous signs, but it is not something that is brought into being by unearthly presences.26 夫物生而後有象。有象而後有數。有數而後吉凶存焉。蓍者尋數之 主，非神明之 所存。龜者啟兆之質，非靈照之所生。

Yu Chan goes on to discuss his two types of divination as means by which one may communicate with the spirits and by which the spirits “stimulate and give rise to the hexagrams and ominous signs” 感興卦兆. The passage eventually concludes by likening the milfoil’s and turtle’s relation to the subtle messages of the spirits with the Zhuangzi’s famous analogy of the fish-trap’s and rabbitsnare’s relation to their respective quarries, which was originally intended to suggest the expedient association between words and meaning.27 This analogy was often used in xuanxue discourse to mirror the relationship between word (yan 言) and image (xiang 象) and ultimately image and idea (yi 意).28 Yu Chan says:

25

“Numerical appetencies” is meant to suggest the mysteriously inherent properties of numbers that carry information about fate, the implications of which may reveal themselves in such corollaries as the lines of a hexagram and may be “read” by those who have the requisite skill. In this sense, shu is something like a cosmic DNA. “Numerology” as used today is too pale and debased a word to convey the full meaning of shu in this context. 26 Here the term lingzhao 靈照 (“unearthly presences” or “unearthly radiances”) is used as an elegant synonym of shenming 神明 (“divine spirits” or “divine luminaries”) in the preceding sentence, just as the verbs—cun (“made real”) and sheng (“brought into being”)— attached to these two terms are synonymous. 27 See “Zhuangzi” jishi, 26.944. 28 As in Wang Bi’s (226–249) influential “Ming xiang” 明象 analysis, in his Zhouyi lüeli 周易 略例; see Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 591.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

107

It is the same as with the fish-trap which, although it captures the fish, is not the fish; or the rabbit-snare which, although it captures the rabbit, is not the rabbit. In this way one uses the image to search out the subtle message, and when the message is found, then the image may be forgotten. So, the milfoil is used to search out the spirit, and when the spirit is thoroughly understood, then the milfoil may be dispensed with. 亦猶筌雖得魚，筌非魚也 ; 蹄雖得兔，蹄非兔也 . 是以象以求妙 ; 妙得 則象忘。蓍以求神 ; 神窮則蓍廢。

In other words, one should not make a fetish of the tangible instrument of divination. One must always look behind what seems to present itself as “reality”—this being a tenet that was fundamental to the whole xuanxue project (and one that also fit well, and would be melded with, Buddhist notions of the world that were becoming more widespread in fourth-century China). Yan Yanzhi, in his “Great Admonition,” writes in verse and has a different concern than Yu Chan. He explains in his prefatory remarks that once while he was reading in the Yijing and so thinking about divination, a friend came to seek his help in deciding whether to accept an official appointment that would take him away from home. Yan Yanzhi performed a milfoil divination for him on this question, resulting in a most inauspicious forecast. Yan then wrote the “admonition,” warning his friend that he cannot ignore the milfoil’s prophecy with impunity. The poem is in twenty-two tetrametric lines. In the first half of the poem, Yan weaves a skein of images naming the hexagrams tongren 同人 (no. 13, “Fellowship”29), yu 豫 (no. 16, “Contentment”), kui 睽 (no. 38, “Con­ trariety”), and gou 姤 (no. 44, “Encounter”),30 as well as using phrases from the explanation of the “Fifth Yang” line of tongren and from the Xici 繫辭 commentary. In the second half of the poem, Yan then discusses the meaning of the divination directly: 慶在坤宮

29 30

31

Felicity resides in the palace of kun,31

I adopt the hexagram names as given by Richard John Lynn in his The Classic of Changes, A New Translation of the “I Ching” as Interpreted by Wang Bi. Yan Yanzhi actually refers to this hexagram as yu 遇, the synonym by which it is defined in its tuan 彖 commentary; here he calls it yu because the word occurs in rhyme position and gou does not fit the rhyme-scheme he is using, while the synonymous yu does. The trigram kun, made up of three broken lines, represents pure yin 陰, the earth, and is auspicious, the perfect complement of pure yang 陽 as represented in the three unbroken lines of the trigram qian 乾. Doubled, it is the second of the sixty-four hexagrams.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

108

Kroll 災在坎路 不出戶庭 獨立無懼 違此而動 投足失步 無惰爾儀 靈骨有矩 無曰余逆 神筴不豫 南人司箴 敢告馳鶩

But calamity resides on the road of kan.32 “Go not out from doorway and courtyard,”33 But stand alone and have no fear. Act in opposition to this, And taking steps, you shall lose your footing. Be not careless of your proper behavior, For the sacred shell has its rules.34 Do not say, “I will go against it,” For the divine stalks play no tricks.35 Let a “man of the south” heed this warning, And he may dare speak of “racing on the way.”36

32

The trigram kan, made up of an unbroken line between two broken lines, represents water, a sink-hole, unremitting toil, and is indicative of danger. Doubled, it is the twentyninth hexagram and one of the most inauspicious of all. 33 Quoting from the explanation of the “First Yang” line of hexagram jie 節 (no. 60, “Control”). 34 The “sacred shell” refers to the plastron of the turtle as used in divination. Although Yan’s divination did not include the turtle-shell, he uses the image as a synonymous counterpart of the “divine yarrow stalks” that he employed and which are mentioned in a parallel position two lines later. For the last word of this line Yiwen leiju reads zhi 知 (M.C. trje, level-tone), which is semantically acceptable (“… the sacred shell has its knowledge”) but does not agree with the rhyme-scheme of the poem which is in deflected-tone M.C. –ux or –uh. I suspect an understandable graphic error here for ju (M.C. kjux) 矩, “carpenter’s square > rule(s), principles,” which would fit both semantically and phonologically, and I emend accordingly. 35 Here buyu 不豫 is used as in “Yanzi chunqiu” jishi, 3.204 (see comment of Su Yu 蘇輿 on 207 n18), and in Xunzi jishi, 4 (sect. 8).118. 36 This couplet contains two explicit allusions, one of which carries another reference, brought together in a rather involved way. The first allusion is to Lunyu, 13.22: “The Master said, ‘The men of the south have a saying that, “A man who is without constancy cannot function as either a shaman or a doctor.” How excellent! Someone who is not constant in his moral power will be put upon with shame.’ The Master [also] said, ‘This [comment] merely has to do with one paying no attention to the prophecy.’” 子曰南人有言曰 人而無恆不可以作巫醫。善夫。不恆其德或承之羞。子曰不占而已矣。This is a com­pli­cated analect that itself contains a buried reference to hexagram 32 (heng 恆) of the Yijing, the explication of the third line of which says “Someone who is not constant in his moral power will be put upon with shame,” to which the xiang commentary to the line adds “One who is not constant in his moral power will be without acceptance anywhere.” The second allusion is from Sima Xiangru’s 司馬相如 (179–117 bce) Dui Shu fulao 對蜀父 老 [Response to the Elders of Shu], in a passage where Sima Xiangru speaks admiringly of how the emperor “races on his way to include and embrace everyone indiscriminately and longs zealously to form a triad and so join with Heaven and Earth” 馳鶩乎兼容并包

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

109

Like so much of Yan Yanzhi’s writing, whether in verse or prose, this piece displays his consummate command of classical texts. Here we are involved deeply in the world of the Yijing and its commentaries. The exhortation not to dismiss the divination reminds us in part of the well-known Zuo zhuan anecdote regarding Duke Wen of Zhu’s 邾文公 divination about moving the site of his capital, which is itself quoted earlier in this subsection of Yiwen leiju. Whether Yan Yanzhi developed his “admonition” from that inspiration or truly was assisting a questioning friend hardly matters at this remove. The third of the literary works quoted in Yiwen leiju, Xiao Yi’s preface to Guo Pu’s memoir of Yijing divination, tells us less about divinatory practice than about Xiao Yi’s own occult interests from an early age. He says that in his boyhood he was much taken with “star texts” (xing wen 星文) and other esoteric studies before becoming absorbed in the Yijing. We know from other sources that, among the many works he left behind on a wide variety of subjects were a ten-juan subcommentary on the Yijing (Zhouyi jiangshu 周易講疏), a twelvejuan book on milfoil divination (Shi jing 筮經), and a three-juan appreciation of the cosmic-board (Shi zan 式贊).37 Buddhism held a dominant place at the Liang court, thanks to the predilections of its long-reigning first emperor, Xiao Yi’s father (Wudi 武帝, r. 502–550), who also issued at least one strict ban on the possession and transfer of chenwei texts.38 Yet there was no difficulty for the princes Xiao Yi and (as mentioned earlier) his short-lived brother Xiao Tong to indulge their private interests in a range of divinatory texts and practices. When we move ahead a century to the Chuxue ji encyclopedia, compiled during the heyday of emperor Xuanzong’s 玄宗 (r. 712–756) Kaiyuan 開元 reign-period (713–742), we see upon examining its subsection on divination certain differences from Yiwen leiju in placement, form, and content. At thirty 而勤思乎參天貳地 (Shiji, 117.3051). When we put all of this together, Yan Yanzhi is saying that his friend, a “man of the south” (that is, of the Eastern Jin regime), must harken to the divination that has been performed, rather than forfeit his moral integrity by ignoring the prophecy and joining the ranks of officialdom. If he can only stay true to himself in this way, he will be able at some later time to further the emperor’s goals in full freedom of action. 37 Liang shu, 5.136. The three-juan Donglin 洞林 that is included in the list of Xiao Yi’s writings at the end of his “basic annals” must actually be Guo Pu’s work, to which Xiao Yi added a preface. A curious fact of his personal history is that Xiao Yi suffered in his youth from an eye ailment and eventually became blind in one eye. Much personal information is included in his work called Jinlouzi 金樓子 [Master of the Golden Tower], especially the “Zi xu” 自序 [“Account of Myself”] chapter; see Jinlouzi jiaojian, 14.1343–69. 38 Lu, Power of the Words, 55–57.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

110

Kroll

rather than a hundred chapters, Chuxue ji is significantly smaller than Yiwen leiju and it was meant particularly as a learning aid for Xuanzong’s sons (hence the title, Records for Primary Studies).39 Although it is not a capacious work, the care with which its materials were selected and organized by the team of scholars assigned to the task of compilation has long been recognized as exceptional and is a major reason why it has been preserved when many other Tang enyclopedias have not.40 Its chief innovation is that, besides groups of descriptive quotations and literary excerpts, such as Yiwen leiju contains, it adds to each entry a section of shidui 事對 or “items in parallel.” This features a collection of paired two-character (or occasionally longer) phrases drawn from texts pertaining to the relevant topic and meant for ready use in one’s own compositions; each pair is followed by explanatory glosses. These phrases and attached notes encapsulate considerable information and are themselves an elementary education in the topic at hand. The Chuxue ji is divided into twenty-three general categories, with 313 subsections. Its overall organization is similar to that of Yiwen leiju. But its subsection on divination,41 which is in the twentieth chapter, appears in a much different local environment than it does in Yiwen leiju. Instead of in the division of skills and games, here we find it in the category designated “Government Management” (zhengli 政理). This contains eleven subsections, of which divination represents the eighth. It follows those on imperial amnesties (she 赦), reward and bestowal (shangci 賞賜), tribute and offering (gongxian 貢獻), recommendation and promotion (jianju 薦舉), assignments and commissions (fengshi 夆使), furloughs (jia 假), and medicine (yi 醫), and precedes those on punishment and penalty (xingfa 刑罰), confinement (qiu 囚), and imprisonment (yu 獄). One may note that divination is the last of what might be termed the ameliorative actions of government, before one moves to retributive actions. It is also noteworthy that divination is the only one of the eleven subsections to include no literary excerpts, only descriptive quotations and paired phrases. The descriptive quotations, which are so organized as to read like a connected essay, offer in all but one instance material different from that used in Yiwen leiju. The first citation comes from an apocryphal text, followed by two 39 See Da Tang xinyu, 9.137. 40 For a survey of these, see Hu Daojing, Zhongguo gudai de leishu, 77–115. The relative brevity of Chuxue ji must also have factored into its preservation, especially when compared with somewhat earlier Tang compilations of several hundred juan, or even a thousand (for example, Wensi boyao 文思博要). 41 Chuxue ji, 20.486–88.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

111

from Liji, one from Baihu tong 白虎通 [Comprehensive Discussions from the White Tiger Hall], and two lengthy quotations from the now lost Hongfan wu­xing zhuan 洪範五行傳, a Western Han text that applied five-phases (wu­­ xing 五行) theory to the “Hongfan” chapter of the ancient Shangshu 尚書 [Classic of Documents]. The first of the two quotations from this latter text includes tabulations of six kinds of turtles for divination, four classes of turtle divination, three base-texts for milfoil divination (the mysteriously named Lianshan 連山 and Guicang 歸藏 in addition to the Yijing), and nine names of legendary milfoil diviners.42 There are a dozen pairs of matched phrases in the shidui section, deriving from many classical and apocryphal sources as well as from Nanbeichao literary works. It will be useful to look into a few examples. We find pairs such as “counsel from the spirits” (shen shen 神諗) and “announcements from the images” (xiang gao 象告), and are informed that the first phrase comes from a passage in Chen Lin’s 陳琳 (d. 217) “Fu on the Great Expanse” (Da huang fu 大荒賦)—viz., “We avail ourselves of turtle and milfoil for favorable fortune,/ Ask counsel from the spirits for propitious felicity” 假龜筮以貞吉，問神諗以 休祥,43 and that the second phrase comes from Yijing—viz., “The eight trigrams are used for announcements from their images” 八卦以象告, along with Han Kangbo’s 韓康伯 (d. ca. 385) added comment that “one uses the images to announce good and ill fortune to man.”44 A more elliptical pair, based on narratives, is “Kong blanched” 孔愀 and “Yan laughed” 顏笑. The first of the phrases, it is explained, refers to a story from Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語 in which Confucius made a milfoil divination and received the hexagram bi 賁 (no. 22, “Elegance”). At this he blanched and looked unsettled. When his disciple Zizhang 子張 asked why he should be uneasy, considering that bi is an auspicious hexagram, Confucius replied that being composed of the trigram for “fire” below that for “mountain,” it was not a “proper aspect” (zheng se 正色).45 The matching phrase calls up an anecdote 42

43 44 45

Some of this information comes from chapter 24 of the Zhouli 周禮, on the office of the “Great Diviner” (da bu 大卜). That chapter also includes comments on interpreters of dreams and of atmospheric phenomena. See Biot, Le “Tcheou-Li” ou “Rites de Tcheou”, 2: 69–85. For Chen Lin’s fu as reconstructed from various sources, see Jian’an qizi ji, 2.46–47. The quote comes from the Xici commentary, B.11. For the original source, see Kongzi jiayu, 2 (sect. 10).5a. The anecdote reminds one of Confucius’s distaste for the mixing and hence debasement of “proper colors” (also zheng se; but the term essentially means “the proper appearance” of things); see, for example, Lunyu, 17.16.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

112

Kroll

recorded in the now lost Chongpo zhuan 衝波傳,46 in which Confucius asks his disciples to divine regarding their colleague Zigong 子貢 whom he has sent on a mission to another state but who has yet to return. The hexagram ding 鼎 (no. 50, “Cauldron”) is obtained, and the disciples all agree that Zigong will not arrive, because “there are no downward feet” 無下足.47 The favored and most apt student Yan Hui 顏回 can barely stifle a laugh and says that “The reason ‘there are no feet’ is that he is arriving aboard a boat.” And indeed Zigong arrived by boat the next day. A final example of these often laconic but heavily weighted phrases is “differentiating between lesser and greater” (ji xiao da 齊小大) and “discriminating between honored and lowly” (cha zun bei 荖尊卑). If we are too quick to interpret without reference to earlier texts, the opening graphs in these phrases may lead us astray. Here the first phrase is identified as coming from the Yijing passage which says “Differentiating between the lesser and the greater is something preserved in the hexagrams” 齊小大者存乎卦,48 to which is added the important gloss of Han Kangbo that the graph 齊 is here equivalent to bian 辯, “differentiate” (instead of having its usual, antonymous sense of “to make uniform, regularize,” and is to be read ji instead of as usual qi). The parallel second phrase of this pair is specified as being from the Zhouli tu 周禮圖, which is an apocryphal text, and which is quoted here as saying, “Grandees and above put to their service crack-divination along with that of milfoil; for knights, it is only the milfoil; this is the discrimination between the honored and the lowly” 大夫 以上事卜且筮，士則但筮 , 尊卑之差.49 The use of the graph cha 荖 here as a variant for cha 差 is as uncommon as the variant meaning of qi in the first phrase. The other nine doublets provided by Chuxue ji are equally interesting in their content, but this is not the place to examine them all. We have so far rather neglected the fact that divination was promoted in Chuxue ji to the category of “governmental management” which, while not in the first echelon of general topics, is a significant step up from Yiwen leiju’s “skillful techniques.” The reason for this change may have to do with the fact 46

This work, whose title means “An Account of Breasting the Waves” and which seems to have gathered stories about Confucius and his followers, similar to those in the betterknown Kongzi jiayu, is quoted in many medieval sources through to the tenth century but is not extant today. 47 They are taking the explanation of the hexagram’s first, yin line that “The cauldron’s toes are upturned” 鼎顛趾 as indicating Zigong is in his grave, with his feet turned upward. 48 The original source is the Xici commentary, A.3. The meaning of “lesser” and “greater” is usually interpreted as the qualities of yin-yang, respectively, that are present in the hexagrams. 49 The Zhouli tu [Rites of Zhou, Diagrammed] is not extant today.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

113

that by Xuanzong’s time there had come to be a well-established and wellstaffed Bureau of Divination at the Tang court. In this the Tang differed from the southern dynasties of the Nanbeichao period, which had no such office, the Tang following instead the model of some of the northern regimes.50 Our information about the staffing and working of this office comes largely from the Tang liu dian, a work referred to earlier. Completed in 739, this is a comprehensive account of the Tang bureaucracy at the height of Xuanzong’s reign, though in places the picture it presents is a somewhat idealized one and need not be accepted as exact in every detail.51 There is, however, no reason to doubt the gist of what it says about the “Bureau of the Grand Diviner” (Taibu shu 太 卜署). This was one of twelve bureaus (shu) that operated under the Office of the Grand Recurrences (Taichang si 太常寺), the general office that was responsible for most of the court’s ceremonial and sacrificial activities.52 The Taibu shu was headed by a Director Grand Diviner (taibu ling 太卜令) and two Vice-Directors (cheng 丞). The director’s rank (zheng bapin xia 正八品 下, or 8a2) was on the twenty-fourth rung and eighth grade of the thirty-rung, nine-grade Tang bureaucratic ladder. This was just between the ranks of a magistrate and an assistant magistrate of one of the 1,500 districts (xian 縣) that made up Tang local government—in other words, not a distinguished position.53 This was also decidedly below the rank of the two Directors of the Astronomy Department (taishi ling 太史令), which was on the fourteenth rung and fifth grade of the hierarchy (cong wupin xia 從五品下, 5b2); but then the Astronomy Department was a unit under the more prestigious office of the Imperial Library. The comparatively low rank of the taibu ling reflects the standing of the divination bureau as a more subsidiary organ of government. It was nevertheless considered a necessary bureau at the Tang court, as the following description makes clear: “The taibu ling has charge of the various methods of divination54 so as to prophesy regarding matters pertaining to the activities of the state and [imperial] family; the vice-directors assist in this 50 See Tong dian, 25.697, for a cursory view of divinatory offices from Qin to Tang. For the Han in particular, see Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times, 22. 51 See Rotours, “Le T’ang Lieou tien décrit-il exactement les institutions en usage sous la dynastie des T’ang?” 52 The Taichang si was itself one of nine special service agencies (all designated si). 53 The Xin Tang shu monograph on officialdom places the director a bit more highly, on the twenty-second rung and seventh grade (cong qipin xia 從七品下, 7b2), owing to bureaucratic changes effected after 739. Xin Tang shu, 48.1245; Rotours, Traité des fonctionnaires, 344 n2. 54 As is obvious from what follows immediately, bushi 卜筮 is here used pars pro toto for four different kinds of divination.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

114

Kroll

regard” 太卜令掌卜筮之法以占邦家動用之事，丞為之貳. We are then told: “The first [of the methods of divination] is called the ‘turtle-shell’ (gui 龜), the second is called that of ‘fivefold signs’ (wuzhao 五兆),55 the third is called the Changes (Yi 易), the fourth is called the ‘cosmic-board’ (shi 式).”56 It is of interest to realize that the first three of these methods are precisely those that were enumerated a hundred years earlier, in an edict promulgated by Tang Taizong 唐太宗 (r. 626–649) shortly after he forcibly took the throne from his father, the Tang’s founding emperor, as being the only methods that private individuals should be permitted to use. These methods and these alone were officially approved.57 The three leading positions in the bureau seem to have been more or less honorary appointments.58 There were also two Diviners-in-Chief (bu zheng 卜 正), whose bureaucratic rank was at the very bottom of the hierarchy (cong jiupin xia 從九品下, 9b2), but who apparently possessed the practical knowledge of divination techniques. We see this from the following passage: When there is to be a state sacrifice, the taibu ling leads out the prophe­ siers, the diviners-in-chief, to divine for the [auspicious] day, outside the

55

The character wu 五 must have dropped out of the text at this point, as shortly afterward, in describing the four methods, the term wuzhao 五兆 is explained as a method of sortilege that uses thirty-six divining-stalks (instead of the forty-nine used in standard Yijing practice) to yield a figure which is interpreted according to five-phases (wuxing 五行) analysis. This method is actually more related to turtle-shell than to Yijing divination, which probably explains its sequential placement in this list. Kalinowski has described in detail this very interesting and rather complex method, drawing important information from Dunhuang manuscripts. See his “La Divination par les nombres dans les manuscrits de Dunhuang,” 43–49, and “Cléromancie,” in Divination et société, 308–313. However, there are virtually no references to wuzhao divination apart from the comments in Tang liu dian and the few relevant Dunhuang manuscripts. 56 Tang liu dian, 14.412. 57 See Tang huiyao, 44.797. The dating of this decree is obviously indicative of Taizong’s anxiety regarding popular perceptions of his recent usurpation. For a French translation, see Kalinowski, “Introduction générale,” in Divination et société, 29, though Kalinowski seems to assume that this edict was issued by Gaozu 高祖. 58 The Director Grand Diviner also played a role, at the head of a troupe of young boys, in the da nuo 大儺 ceremony to expel malevolent spirits on the last day of the year. And at the close of the ceremony, when the demons were thought to have been successfully banished from the palace, it was the taibu ling’s responsibility to ritually slaughter a rooster at the main gateway of the palace and at the four main gates of the capital to be offered in appeasement to the expelled spirits. Tang liu dian, 14.414.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

115

southern gate of the Imperial Shrine. An order is given to the turtle which, when heated, will prophesy about it. […]  As to the protocol for divining about great affairs of state, it is the same as that for divining about the day. 凡國有祭祀，則率卜正占者卜日於太廟南門之外。命龜既灼而占之。 。。。若卜國之 大事，亦如卜日之儀。59

Almost any recurring sacrifice, important ceremony, or large-scale undertaking could require divination to decide on an appropriate day or to forecast the outcome. Examples in Xuanzong’s reign would include, among many other events, whether or not to carry out the grand feng 封 sacrifice at Mount Tai 泰山 and then on what day,60 or when to move the court from Chang’an to Luoyang, or vice versa, or when to visit the Huaqing gong 華清宮 resort complex on Mount Li 驪山. Unfortunately, we have no more precise comments about the work conducted at the bureau. We do know, according to Tang liu dian, that its personnel roster had a surprisingly large number of additional staff members, besides the five important positions already mentioned. This roster included twenty divination instructors (bushi 卜師), fifteen shaman instructors (wushi 巫師),61 two Erudites of divination (bu boshi 卜博士), two assistant teachers (zhujiao 助教), and forty-five students of divination (bushisheng 卜筮生). None of these individuals were part of the mainstream bureaucracy, except for the two Erudites who were, like the diviners-in-chief, ranked 9b2, at the bottom of the hierarchy. Even if not all of these positions were regularly filled, one can imagine that the bureau was a reasonably busy place. Another point of minor interest is that we know where that place was, in both Chang’an and Luoyang. In Chang’an the dozen bureaus of the Taichang si occupied the first building on one’s right (that is, to the east) after entering the “imperial city” (huangcheng 皇城, which housed the offices of government) at the north side of Chang’an through the 59 60

61

Tang liu dian, 14.413. See Kroll, “Four Vignettes from the Court of Tang Xuanzong,” 15. In this case it was determined (in January 725) that the appropriate date for the sacrifice would be a full eleven months later. Presumably, these are shamans who would give instruction about their particular usage of the methods employed in the bureau (and not general “instructors in shamanism”). They might have had a role to play as exorcists in, for example, the year-ending da nuo ceremony, noted previously. However, I cannot help wondering if wu 巫 here is a miswriting of shi 筮. The latter would make for the usual pairing of milfoil with tortoise-shell divination and require us to take bu 卜 in bushi 卜師 in its more literal sense.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

116

Kroll

Vermilion Bird Gate (Zhuque men 朱雀門).62 The building next door to the Taichang si on its eastern side sheltered the Imperial Shrine. In Luoyang the Taichang si was placed in the southernmost area of the “eastern city” (dongcheng 東城), a compound attached to the eastern side of both the “imperial city” and the “palace city” (where the imperial family resided).63 But what we most want to know, and unfortunately have no knowledge about, is what the staff of the divination bureau did on a day-to-day basis. If one wished to take a different tack than the one we have done so far in examining the representation of mantic arts in medieval China, or to enlarge our perspective and expand the scope of this study, we could look into the many narrative accounts of mantic practice from these centuries. A starting point would be the biographies of occult experts recorded in Hou Han shu 後漢書64 and San guo zhi 三國志 and extending through to, for instance, the relevant chapters in the two late-tenth-century encyclopedias, Taiping yulan 太平御覽 and Taiping guangji 太平廣記. It may be significant that the majority of such accounts in the largest of these compilations, the Taiping yulan, are of individuals from the pre-Tang centuries. Perhaps this is another hint about a development, or rather a gradual desuetude, from the early medieval to the late medieval period. Such accounts, whether completely factual or not, tell us something about the use of mantic arts in different quarters of society. A thorough canvassing of medieval poetry would also produce items of interest, but not as many as the prose narratives. Let us conclude this brief survey by saying something about the fourth of the methods used in the Tang divination bureau, viz. the cosmic-board, and cite its critical appearance in a particular Tang poem. The cosmic-board is a diviner’s instrument that has become better known in the past fifty years, owing to archaeological recoveries of examples of it from Han-dynasty tombs.65 Its use and further development in later times is known. But, when compared with the divination methods of cheloniomancy and especially milfoil sortilege, the references to it in medieval texts are relatively few. In the Tang liu dian 62 See Tang liangjing chengfang kao, 1.14; Hiraoka Takeo, Chōan to Rakuyō, map 12. Looking south, the Vermilion Bird Gate presided over the capital’s broadest thoroughfare, the Vermilion Bird Avenue (Zhuque jie), which divided the eastern and western sides of the city. 63 Tang liangjing chengfang kao 5.140; Chōan to Rakuyō, map 28. 64 On which, see the excellent book of Ngo Van Xuyet, Divination, magie et politique dans la Chine ancienne. 65 See Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4: Physics and Physical Technology, part 1: Physics, 261–66; Loewe, Ways to Paradise, 76–80; Harper, “The Han Cosmic-Board”; Cullen, “Some Further Points on the Shih”; Harper, “The Han Cosmic-Board: A Response to Christopher Cullen”; also Kalinowski’s recent article cited in n. 15 above.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

117

passage that describes the four methods used at the Taibu shu, we learn that there were three types of cosmic-board used in the Tang, each requiring a different interpretive approach: “The first is called the cosmic-board of the Thunder Lord, the second is the cosmic-board of the Grand Unity, both of which are forbidden to be kept in private households, and the third is the cosmic-board of six ren, which may be used alike by gentlemen and commoners” 一曰雷公式，二曰太一式，並禁私家畜，三曰六壬式，士庶通用之.66 The restrictions here remind us of the continual attempts, largely unsuccessful, to limit the consultation of prophetical chenwei texts. A long passage follows, on the proper construction of the board (it is best to use maple wood for the “heaven” disk and heartwood of jujube for the “earth” plate) and on the disposition and identification of its various markings. With regard to the three different methods mentioned here, Kalinowski has noted that the method of the “Thunder Lord” is called from Song times onward by the term dunjia 遁甲, though this might in fact refer to a different method completely. He has commented in some detail on the six-ren method, but finds no trace of the Taiyi 太 一 (or 太乙), “Great Unity,” method in any of the Dunhuang manuscripts.67 By far the most interesting reference I know of in medieval literature to divination by cosmic-board and also by turtle-shell occurs in a long poem by Lu Zhaolin 盧照鄰 (ca. 635–ca. 683), who is celebrated in literary history as one of the “Four Elites of the Early Tang” (chu-Tang sijie 初唐四傑). This is not the place to rehearse the particulars of his life and works, which I have commented on elsewhere68 and hope to say more about in the future. But to understand the passage in question we must know that the poem in which it appears, titled “Text to Resolve Illness” (Shi ji wen 釋疾文) was one of the last poems—perhaps the very last—that Lu wrote. It is in the sao 騷 style recalling that of Qu Yuan’s 屈原 famous poem “Li sao” 離騷 (Encountering Sorrow), and, at over 3,600 characters, it is one of the longest and most difficult poems in medieval literature. When Lu composed this piece he was living on Mount Juci 具茨, about fifty miles southwest of Luoyang, in the valley of the Ying 潁 River. He had removed himself here in 682, having spent the previous seven or eight years in seclusion on Mount Taibo 太白山 and on Mount Dong Longmen 東龍 門山. By this time he had given up his official career because of an ever66

67 68

Tang liu dian, 14.413. On the six-ren board, see Loewe, Ways to Paradise, appendix three, 206–208; and especially Kalinowski, “Les Instruments astro-calendériques des Han et la méthode liu ren.” Kalinowski, “Hémérologie,” in Divination et société, 227–28. For example, Kroll, “The Memories of Lu Chao-lin”; “Tamed Kite and Stranded Fish”; “Aid and Comfort.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

118

Kroll

worsening condition of rheumatoid arthritis of the extremities that had left him with both feet crippled and one hand palsied. In the end it was too much for him, and he would drown himself in the Ying River. Lu’s “Shi ji wen” is divided into three major parts, in which he seems intent on telling all he knows and on justifying his life. The passage that concerns us is in the concluding third of the poem,69 where Lu Zhaolin is considering his final circumstances and wondering whether and how to go on. At this point in the poem he is in a daze, absorbed in images of celestial flight like those in “Li sao.” And then, 忽若夢兮有覺 與巫陽兮相會 巫陽為予兮挈龜 龜告予兮雙支 朱雀搖而金躍 青龍發而火馳 蛇登棲兮雞入穴 雲北走兮水西垂 巫陽曰 反兮覆 兆不吉

Suddenly as if in a dream and yet awake, I was brought together with Shamaness Yang.70 For my sake she scorched the turtle-shell, And the turtle announced for me by a branching pair:71 “Vermilion Bird trembles, with metal leaping up; Azure Dragon comes out, with fire racing forth. Serpent ascends to its den, Cockerel enters a cave; Clouds run to the north, Water spills westward.”72 Shamaness Yang said: “Turn it this way or that, The omen is inauspicious.”

We may note that the turtle-shell divination here is not a simple answer but a rather complicated statement about the celestial phenomena which, at least at this remove, requires a goodly amount of interpretation—much of it uncer­-

69 See Lu Zhaolin ji jianzhu, 5.289–90; Lu Zhaolin ji jiaozhu, 5.286–90. 70 See “Zhao hun” 招魂 [“Summons to the Soul”], Chu ci buzhu, 9.197, with the second-century commentator Wang Yi 王逸 identifying Wu Yang as a shamaness. It is she who attempts different ways in “Zhao hun” to summon back the soul of the king of Chu. The “branching pair” refers, of course, to the pattern of lines produced on the shell. 71 72 These four lines are replete with astrological references, which can be explicated in different ways (see commentaries) but all of which are ill-omened. Here I simply note the identifications of the astral bodies mentioned, as they are most likely to be understood in this context (some have other identifications in other contexts): Vermilion Bird here refers to the constellation Quail Fire 鶉火 in our Hydra. Azure Dragon here refers to the planet Saturn. Serpent correlates with the constellations Barrens 虛 and Steep Roof 危 in our Aquarius. Cockerel refers to the constellation Winnowing Basket 箕 in our Sagittarius. Clouds correlates with the constellation Net 畢 in our Pleiades. Water refers to the planet Mercury.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

119

tain—to yield a forecast. Shamaness Yang is, however, quite definite that this divination is inauspicious. The poet refuses to accept the truth of the divination and again drifts off into a heavenly ramble, which extends for the poem’s next thirty lines. At this point the shamaness addresses him once more. She advises that he take another divination, this time from a cosmic-board. The method to be used is that of Taiyi, which, as we have seen, was supposedly forbidden to private individuals and is one that has left almost no trace in the medieval texts that have come down to us. Lu Zhaolin’s description of it is thus all the more precious. Taiyi is the Pole-star, and in this method it is the spirit of Taiyi that holds the central position and is thought of as manipulating the board. 巫陽曰 左招搖兮右天駟

Shamaness Yang said: “With Brandishing Battler to the left, Heaven’s  Quadriga to the right,73 太乙之居兮無不利 In the placement of Grand Unity everything is of  advantage. 其道也 And as for its method: 楓為天兮棗為地 Let maple make Heaven, let jujube make Earth;74 盍往從之兮導君意 Should you not wend and follow as it guides  milord’s thought?” 太乙方握髯低眉 Taiyi then smoothed his whiskers and lowered his  brows, 右手拄頤 With his right hand propped his chin. 或以日臨命 Now he used the day-sign in taking stock of fate, 以歲加時 And now used the year-star to manipulate the  time.75 再轉兮再考 Twice he revolved the board, twice examined it; 三命兮三推 Thrice called up fate, thrice inferred from it. 華蓋微明兮 “Flowered Canopy shines but faintly,76 73

74 75 76

Brandishing Battler is a star in our Boötes, which is considered as an extension of the Northern Dipper’s handle and is symbolic of warfare. On the opposite side of the Pole-star is the constellation of Heaven’s Quadriga, also called “Chamber” 房, made up of stars in our Scorpio. We have seen it said in Tang liu dian, which postdates this poem, that the two parts of the cosmic-board should be made of these woods. That is, he adjusted the heaven-plate of the board to bring it into accord with the present time. Flowered Canopy is a constellation made up of stars in our Cassiopeia; symbolically it provides shelter for the Son of Heaven.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

120

Kroll 君子居貞之位 太陽陰主兮 天人厄運之期

As the nobleman resides in a steadfast position. For greater yang to be under the rule of yin77 Is an appointment of Heaven and Man for thwarted  fortune.”

Which is to say, the heaven-given light of the person in question is being dimmed by the encroaching shade of earth’s forces. This is a disappointing, even frightening, sentence. The implication of the term “thwarted fortune” (e yun 厄運) may include a suggestion of early death. Like his response to the divination of the turtle-shell, Lu Zhaolin stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this unfavorable forecast as well. He proceeds to argue skeptically that: 若夫一氣鴻蒙 萬化緇黧 此星精與木局 又何足以知之

“As to the integral pneuma, it is a vast opacity, And the myriad permutations are veiled in murk.78 This astral phantom and a gameboard made of  wood,79 How could they be able to know of them at all?”

Shamaness Yang now reappears and tells Lu Zhaolin of Taishang Laojun 太上 老君 (Lord Lao, Most High), the deified Laozi, whose untainted abode is in the

heavens. Taishang Laojun then suddenly arrives and greets Lu Zhaolin as a long-lost companion, indeed a “banished transcendent”80 and over the next ninety lines of the poem convinces Lu that it is now time for him to leave this sullied, inconstant world and return above, to his true home. But the ending of the poem does not concern us at present. What we choose to remark is the tortured involvement with divination of this late-seventh-

77 “Greater yang” here represents the “nobleman,” the emperor, and the individual whose fate is being prognosticated. 78 The “integral pneuma” is the all-encompassing qi that existed at the beginning of time, and the “myriad permutations” are the countless phenomena into which it continually develops. 79 When the poet refers to Taiyi as xingjing 星精, literally an “astral essence,” he is using jing in the sense of “wraith, eidolon, ectoplasmic entity, uncanny being,” as the word is used to refer to the often malefic spirits that haunt certain locales on earth with which they have centuries-old connections. In this context, “essence” would be too thin a rendering. The poet wants here to see the Pole-star’s spirit as just a ghost, as he wishes to regard the potent cosmic-board as just a wooden plaything. 80 Some sixty years before the characterization came to be associated famously with the poet Li Bo 李白 (701–762).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

121

century poet, as he contemplates his own death. How he portrays this adds a rather more personal slant to our preceding survey, which has concentrated on official documents and court practice. We might even ask where Lu Zhaolin acquired his knowledge of astrological divination, assuming the level of detail shown here was not common lore for seventh-century men of letters. The likely, virtually certain, answer is that Lu learned the techniques from Sun Simiao 孫思邈 (?581–682?), the famous physician and expert in occult traditions under whose care he had placed himself around 673 in Chang’an, when the first serious grip of his disease took hold. Lu’s removal from the capital to Mount Taibo shortly afterward was for the purpose of remaining near to Sun, when the latter returned briefly to his early residence on that mountain, owing to an illness of his own. Lu Zhaolin stayed on at the mountain for several years, even after Sun left again, continuing to follow the medical regimen that Sun had taught him. But medicine was closely related to other fields of natural philosophy, largely through the connection of “sympathetic correspondences,” and Sun Simiao was a specialist in many of them. Lu Zhaolin’s own testimony, in the preface he wrote to a fu 賦 poem on “The Blighted Pear Tree” (“Bing lishu fu” 病梨樹賦) in 673 describes some of Sun’s attainments this way: “In calculating the motions of the heavenly bodies, in his measuring [the alternations of] Masculine and Feminine, in the cleverness with which he [prepares elixirs by] subliming minerals, in the skill with which he cleanses intestines [that is, performs surgery], he is the peer of Gan De, Luoxia Hong, Master Anqi, and Bian Que” 其推步甲子，度量乾坤，飛鍊石之奇，洗胄腸之妙，則其甘公、洛下 閎、安期先生、扁鵲之儔也.81 Lu Zhaolin was such an avid disciple of Sun Simiao that we can be sure he applied himself to all of the master’s special arts. We should not, however, overlook the fact that the speaker of the poem refuses to accept, or at least questions, the fate forecast for him both by the turtle-divination and that of the cosmic-board. The answers provided by divinatory means are not accepted in blank credibility, but are regarded only as possible outcomes. Whether they shall prove to accord with reality may ultimately be no more than coincidence. We can assume that this attitude was not unique to Lu Zhaolin but was the common view of those of his class and education. Otherwise, the events as portrayed in the poem would appear so 81

The translation is that of Nathan Sivin, from his Chinese Alchemy, 104–105, with WadeGiles romanization changed to Pinyin. Gan Gong (= De 德) was a third-century bce astronomer, Luoxia Hong a second-century bce calendrical expert, Anqi a reputed “transcendent” (xian 仙) of the second-century bce, and Bian Que the most famous of preimperial physicians. For the Chinese text, see Lu Zhaolin ji jianzhu 1.25; Lu Zhaolin ji jiaozhu 1.23–24.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

122

Kroll

different from the norm as to be illogical. Indeed, Lu’s response is a very human one to bad news: he tries to call into doubt the omniscience of the prophecy. Here perhaps is an appropriate point at which, for the time being, to leave the topic of mantic arts, precisely where they must always and can only thrive—in the realm of inescapable human uncertainty.

Works Cited

Bielenstein, Hans. The Bureaucracy of Han Times. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980. Biot, Édouard. Le “Tcheou-Li” ou “Rites de Tcheou”. 2 vols. Paris: L’Imprimérie Nationale, 1851. “Chu ci” buzhu 楚辭補注 [“The Lyrics of Chu”, with Annotations Supplemented]. Edited by Hong Xingzu (1090–1155). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. Chuxue ji 初學記 [Records for Primary Studies]. Compiled by Xu Jian 徐堅 (659–729) et al. Rpt. Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1976. “Chunqiu” “Zuozhuan” zhu 春秋左傳注 [The “Zuo Commentary” to the “Spring and Autumn Annals”, Annotated]. Edited by Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981. Cullen, Christopher. “Some Further Points on the Shih.” Early China 6 (1980–81): 31–46. Da Tang xinyu 大唐新語 [New Anecdotes of the Great Tang Dynasty]. Compiled by Liu Su 劉肅 (fl. 807). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984. Harper, Donald. “The Han Cosmic-Board.” Early China 4 (1978–1979): 1–10. Harper, Donald. “The Han Cosmic-Board: A Response to Christopher Cullen.” Early China 6 (1980–1981): 47–56. Hiraoka Takeo 平岡武夫. Chōan to Rakuyō 長安と洛陽 [Chang’an and Luoyang]. Kyoto: Jimbunkagaku Kenkyūsho, Kyoto University, 1956. Hu Daojing 胡道靜. Zhongguo gudai de leishu 中國古代的類書 [Chinese Encyclopedias from Premodern Times]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982. Jian’an qizi ji 建安七子集 [Collected Works of the Seven Masters of the Jian’an Era]. Edited by Yu Shaochu 俞紹初. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005. Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書 [The Old History of Tang]. Compiled by Liu Xu 劉煦 (887–946) et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. Kalinowski, Marc, ed. Divination et société dans la Chine médiévale: Étude des manuscrits de Dunhuang de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de la British Library. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2003. Kalinowski, Marc. “La Divination pars les nombres dans les manuscrits de Dunhuang.” In Nombres, astres, plantes et viscères: Sept essais sur l’histoire des sciences et des tech-

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

123

niques en Asie orientale, edited by Isabelle Ang and Pierre-Etienne Will. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des hautes études chinoises, 1994. Kalinowski, Marc. “Les Instruments astro-calendériques des Han et la méthode liu ren.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 72 (1983): 309–419. Kalinowski, Marc. “The Notion of ‘Shi 式’ and Some Related Terms in Qin-Han Calendrical Astrology.” Early China 35–36 (2012–2013): 331–60. Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1978. Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語 [Anecdotes of Confucius and his School]. In Baizi quanshu 百子 全書. Kroll, Paul W. “The Memories of Lu Chao-lin.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109 (1989): 581–92. Kroll, Paul W. “Tamed Kite and Stranded Fish: Interference and Apology in Lu Chao-lin’s fu.” T’ang Studies 15–16 (1997–1998): 41–77. Kroll, Paul W. “Four Vignettes from the Court of Tang Xuanzong.” T’ang Studies 25 (2007): 1–27. Kroll, Paul W. “Aid and Comfort: Lu Zhaolin’s Letters.” In The History of Letters and Epistolary Culture in China, edited by Antje Richter, pp. 829–852. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Legge, James. The Chinese Classics, vol. 5: The “Ch’un Tsew” with the “Tso Chuen”. 1893; rpt., 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960. Liang shu 梁書 [History of the Liang]. Compiled by Yao Cha 姚察 (533–606) and Yao Silian 姚思廉 (d. 637). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973. Loewe, Michael. “China.” In Oracles and Divination, edited by Michael Loewe and Carmen Blacker, pp. 37–62. Boulder: Shambhala, 1981. Loewe, Michael. Ways to Paradise: The Chinese Quest for Immortality. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979. Lu Zhaolin ji jianzhu 盧照鄰集箋注 [Collected Works of Lu Zhaolin, with Comments and Annotations]. Edited by Zhu Shangshu 祝尚書. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994. Lu Zhaolin ji jiaozhu 盧照鄰集校注 [Collected Works of Lu Zhaolin, Collated with Annotations]. Edited by Li Yunyi 李雲逸. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Lu, Zongli. Power of the Words: Chen Prophecy in Chinese Politics, AD 265–618. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. Lynn, Richard John. The Classic of Changes, A New Translation of the “I Ching” as Inter­ preted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1994. Mu tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳 [Biography of Mu, Son of Heaven]. In Han Wei congshu 漢魏叢書. 1592 edition. Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1959.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

124

Kroll

Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4: Physics and Physical Technology, part 1: Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1962. Ngo, Van Xuyet. Divination, magie et politique dans la Chine ancienne: Essai suivi de la traduction des “Biographies des Magiciens” tirées de l’‟Histoire des Han postérieurs.” Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976. Pease, Jonathan. “Kuo P’u’s Life and Five-Colored Rhymes (An ‘Immortal’ Chin-Dynasty Writer and Diviner, 276–324).” M.A. thesis. Univ. of Washington, 1980. des Rotours, Robert. Traité des fonctionnaires et Traité de l’armée, traduits de la Nouvelle Histoire des T’ang (chap. xlvi–l). 1948; rev. ed. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1974. des Rotours, Robert. “Le T’ang Lieou tien décrit-il exactement les institutions en usage sous la dynastie des T’ang?” Journal asiatique 263 (1975): 183–201. Schafer, Edward H. Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1977. Shiji 史記 [Records of the Grand Historian]. Compiled by Sima Tan 司馬談 (ca. 180–110 BC) and Sima Qian 司馬遷 (ca. 145–ca. 86 BCE). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959. Sivin, Nathan. Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968. Tang huiyao 唐會要 [Essentials of Tang Administrative History]. Compiled by Wang Pu 王溥 (922–982). 1956; rpt. Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1974. Tang Kaiyuan zhan jing 唐開元占經 [Canon of Astrological Divination from the Kaiyuan Era of Tang]. Compiled by Gautama Siddhartha 瞿曇悉達 (d. 723?). Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1989. Tang liangjing chengfang kao 唐兩京城坊考 [A Study of the Two Tang Capitals, Organized by Walls and Wards]. Compiled by Xu Song 徐松 (1781–1848). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Tang liu dian 唐六典 [The Sixfold Canons of Tang Bureaucracy]. Compiled by Li Linfu 李林甫 (d. 752) et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992. Tong dian 通典 [Comprehensive Canons of Administrative History]. Compiled by Du You 杜佑 (734–812). Beijing: Xin Hua shudian, 1988. Wang Bi ji jiaoshi 王弼集校釋 [Collected Works of Wang Bi, Collated with Explications]. Edited by Lou Yulie 樓宇列. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980. Xinjiao Chen Zi’ang ji 新校陳子昂集 [Collected Works of Chen Zi’ang, Newly Collated]. Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1964. “Yanzi chunqiu” jishi 晏子春秋集釋 [“Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan,” with Collected Explications]. Edited by Wu Zeyu 吳則虞. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962. Yasui Kōzan 安居香山, and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, eds. Chōshu isho shūsei, tsuketari kōkan sakuin 重修緯書集成，附校勘索引 [Revised Compendium of Apocrypha, with Comparative Collations and Index]. 6 vols. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971–1992.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China

125

Yiwen leiju, fu suoyin leishu shizhong 藝文類聚，附索引類書十鍾 [Encyclopedic Gathering of Texts Arranged by Category, with Index and Other Encyclopedias]. Compiled by Ouyang Xun 歐陽 (557–641) et al. 1965; rpt. Taibei: Wenguang chubanshe, 1974. Xin Tang shu 新唐書 [The New History of Tang]. Compiled Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007– 1072) et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. “Xunzi” jishi 荀子集釋 [The “Xunzi”, with Collected Explications]. Edited by Wang Xianqian 王先謙 (1842–1918). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988. “Zhuangzi” jishi 莊子集釋 [The “Zhuangzi”, with Collected Explications]. Edited by Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩 (1844–1896). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

126

Durand-dastès

Chapter 4

Divination, Fate Manipulation, and Protective Knowledge in and around The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl, a Popular Myth of Late Imperial China Vincent Durand-Dastès The story of the wedding of Peach Blossom Girl is a rather peculiar comic and magic narrative of late imperial China, first appearing at the end of the Yuan dynasty and afterwards continually retold and restaged. Its protagonist is a divine fortune-teller named Zhougong 周公 (literally, “the Duke of Zhou”) who descends into the world to open a soothsayer shop. As his predictions never fail, the gods get worried that Zhougong may disclose too many heavenly secrets, and so they send against him a teenage girl, Peach Blossom (Taohua nü 桃花女). An equally gifted diviner but also a magician, she allows several ­people doomed to die by Zhougong to escape with their lives. Angered and humil­iated, Zhougong decides to get rid of his young opponent in a rather original way: he asks her to marry into his household, but secretly uses beforehand all his divining science to choose the most inauspicious day and directions of space for the bridal cortege, hoping for Peach Blossom to fatefully perish. The girl, however, not only succeeds in avoiding the deadly trap, but she eventually further humiliates and overcomes Zhougong. Before turning to the interpretation of the tale, let us first dwell for a while on a weird detail in its publication history. In 1848, a vernacular novel (tongsu xiaoshuo 通俗小説) version of the story was published in sixteen chapters by a printer named Lianyi Tang 聯益堂 under the title Yinyang douyi shuo chuanqi 陰陽鬥異說傳奇 [Marvelous Tale of the Fight of Magic between Yin and Yang]. It contained two prefaces. One, anonymous and undated, comments briefly on the novel. The other, however, is strangely unrelated to the book’s contents: signed by a scholar-official named Qiu Yuexiu 裘曰修 of Xichang 西昌 (jinshi in 1739), it was originally a preface to a 1750 pediatric treatise by Chen Fuzheng 陈復正 (zi Feixia 飛霞) titled Youyou jicheng 幼幼集成 [Complete Work on

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_006 Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

127

Children’s Diseases]1. The presence of a preface to a medical treatise at the opening of a vernacular novel has puzzled the few scholars who commented on this book. Could this mean that Qiu Yuexiu was the author also of the novel? Or could it have been written by Chen Fuzheng himself?2 My own hypothesis is that some narratives concerned with fate and ways to influence it were consid­ered so powerful that they became assimilated to texts preserving therapeutic or exorcistic knowledge. We will come to this at the end of the chapter. 1

Divination and the Vernacular Narratives

What can the Chinese vernacular novel of the Ming-Qing period tell us about the mantic arts of late Imperial China and, beyond that, about the Chinese conception of fate? In many respects, tongsu xiaoshuo narratives are fated stories: not only is karmic causality widely employed in the novels as a narrative device, but prophecies and stellar or dream divination frequently occur at important moments in the tales. Characters are physically depicted according to the principles of physiognomony, and many heroes are shown to have divinatory skills.3 To take only one famous example, let us look briefly at what happened to the history of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo 三國, 220–265 ce), the period of the famous civil war that put an end to the glorious Han dynasty, when it was adapted to the format of a vernacular novel. As early as the Yuan dynasty, the Sanguo zhi pinghua 三國志平話 [Story of the Records of the Three Kingdoms], one of the first examples of vernacular historical narrative retracing the Three Kingdoms war, had already injected an important amount of fated causality into the story, explaining the fall of the Han by means of the reincarnations of Han Xin 韓信, Peng Yue 彭越, and Ying Bu 英布, the betrayed and murdered companions of the dynasty’s founder, Liu Bang 劉邦. Divine justice allows them to return as Cao Cao 曹操, Liu Bei 劉備, and Sun Quan 孫權, the future rulers of the three kingdoms of Wei 魏, Shu 蜀, and Wu 吳, simply in order for them to take revenge by dismantling the glorious Han empire that they had 1 The book was first published in 1750 by the Dengyun Ge 登雲閣 in Guangdong. Chen Fuzheng, Youyou jicheng, 3. 2 As bibliographer Wang Guoliang states soberly, “[i]t should not have been put there without reason or cause” Kong fei wu yuan wu gu 恐非无缘无故; Wang Guoliang, “Yinyang douyi shuo chuanqi (yinyang dou) si juan shiliu hui,” 493. 3 On the mantic arts in Chinese ancient novels in general, see Wan Qingchuan, “Gudai xiaoshuo yu zhanbu shu.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

128

Durand-dastès

helped to found—while Liu Bang is to be reincarnated as the last, weak emperor of the dynasty, and thus obliged to witness in this role the end of his own great enterprise.4 One may also mention the portrayal in the later “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (Sanguo zhi tongsu yanyi 三國志通俗演義) of the strategist Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 as a diviner with supernatural foresight, a wise reader of heavenly signs, and, occasionally, a sorcerer who is able to manipulate fate. 2

The Diviner and His Tutelary Patrons

Zhuge Liang is, of course, not the only tongsu xiaoshuo character to be depicted as performing divination or manipulating fate; in fact, there is hardly a wise strategist in historical novels who is not also a master of the magical and mantic arts.5 On a lesser level, here and there in vernacular novels, an ordinary diviner may be called on to explain an illness, to ensure the success of an adventurous enterprise, or to foretell the happy or unhappy outcome of an event. For example, in two roughly contemporary novels, written towards the end of the sixteenth century, we find scenes in which a diviner, before practicing divination, invokes the blessings of the tutelary patrons of his art. The first appears in chapter 4 of Tieshu ji 鐵樹記 [The Story of the Iron Tree], the vernacular hagiography of the Daoist immortal Xu Xun 許遜 (or ‘Perfected lord’ Xu zhenjun 許真君). A fortune-teller is called upon to predict the gender of the unborn baby of a rich man. The diviner claims to be a disciple of the Master of the Valley of Demons (Guiguzi 鬼谷子), and is nicknamed the “devil’s guess” (guitui 鬼推). After lighting an incense stick, he begins to mutter the following incantation: I bow respectfully in front of the gods of the Six ding, may the trigrams of King Wen bear a numinous answer! […] If one asks with a sincere heart, the Trigrams shall be responsive! Burning carefully a stick of perfect incense, I pray respectfully to the patriarchs of the Eight Trigrams: Fuxi, Yu the Great, King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius: the five Great Saints!  The Seventy two sages guarding the Way of Confucianism; Master of the Valley of Demons; Master Sun Bin; Master Guan Lu; Master Yan Junping; Master Mu Xiu, Li Yan; the Divine generals of the Six ding and 4 See Zhizhi xinkan quanxiang Pinghua Sanguo zhi juan shang, 373–374. 5 See the chapter on the strategist in Ji Dejun 纪德君, Ming Qing lishi yanyi xiaoshuo yishu lun.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

129

Six jia within the Trigrams; Thousand Li Eye; Favorable Wind Ear; the boy who reports on the trigram; the lad who launches the trigram; all the divinities pacing the void; and the Magistrate of the altar of the city walls of our prefectural province. May they all descend to inspect today’s divination!6 虔叩六丁神，文王卦有靈。(…) 人有誠心，卦有靈感。謹焚真香，虔 請八卦祖師，伏羲、大禹、文王、周公、孔子，五大聖人，孔門衛道 七十二賢、鬼谷先生、孙膑先生、管輅先生、嚴君平先生、穆修李挺 先生、卦中六丁六甲神將，千里眼、順風耳，報卦童子，掷卦童郎， 虚空過往一切神祗，本省城隍社令，咸望降臨，鋻今卜筮。

The second extract is from Chapter 35 of the well-known masterwork Xiyou ji 西遊記 [The Journey to the West]. In a short scene, Monkey King Sun Wukong, yielding a calabash, imagines playfully for a while that he is a diviner: He shook the gourd, producing immediately a noise within. He said: “It is exactly like the sound of the tube used for divination! So let’s do some divination! I’ll ask when my Master will be able to exit from this place.” Just see: He kept on waiving the gourd, muttering at the same time: “King Wen of the Zhouyi, Confucius the Saint, Master Peach Blossom Girl, Master of the Valley of Demons!”7 把那葫蘆摇摇，一發響了。他道： “ 這個象發課的筒子響，倒好發 課。等老孙發一課，看師傅什麽时時才得出門。” 你看他手里不住的 摇，口里不住的念道 “周易文王、孔子聖人、桃花女先生、鬼谷子先 生。”

Those two sequences, though differing in length and tone, follow the same pattern: before proceeding, a diviner invokes divinities to help him. We are provided with a small pantheon of the tutelary spirits of divination—according not to the literary tradition, but to the popular lore of the Ming period. Those divinities are of two kinds: some are remote beings, tutelary patrons of divination or diviners of ancient ages; others, only mentioned in the Iron Tree episode, are more familiar divinities, called upon to assist the actual divination about to take place. Among the latter, we find the local gods of the place, heavenly inspectors, the child gods whose responsibility it is to look at the trigrams 6 Deng Zhimo, Tieshu ji, 481–482. 7 Wu Cheng’en, Xiyou ji, 447–448.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

130

Durand-dastès

that are to be used to read fate, or important figures such as the gods of the six ding and jia, a “set of spirits represent[ing] the animation of certain positions in the cycle of time” who may be summoned for prognosticatory as well as protective purposes.8 Some ritual texts explain how to dispatch those spirits on errands in order “to be informed of all matters under heaven.”9 There is little doubt, for instance, that Thousand li Eye and Favorable Wind Ear—the pair of martial guardians renowned respectively for their supernatural far-reaching sight and acute hearing who are called upon just after the six ding and jia—are to be used here in a similar role to that of divine spies. Let us now turn to the tutelary figures summoned in both novels. First there are those taken from the group known as the “Nine sages” (jiusheng 九聖), They actually form something of a genealogy of sages, beginning with the “Three Emperors” (sanhuang 三皇) Fuxi 伏羲, Shennong 神農, and the Yellow emperor 黄帝, and continuing with the wise rulers Yao 堯 and Shun 舜, their successor Yu the Great 禹, the founders of the Zhou dynasty, King Wen 文王 and the Duke of Zhou 周公, and, finally, Confucius 孔子. These tutelary figures of Chinese civilization are represented here because the “Nine Sages” have traditionally been associated with the gradual composition of the Yijing 易經 or Zhouyi 周易 [Classic of Changes], the divinatory classic of the Zhou dynasty. Still, the first extract mentions only five of them—Fuxi, Yu the Great, King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius—while the second lists only King Wen and Confucius.10 Next come the names of famous diviners of the past, among whom the only one to be mentioned in both extracts is Guigu zi 鬼谷子, the “Master of the Valley of Demons.” This very shadowy figure of the Spring and Autumn period is said to have lived in seclusion in the place from which he took his sobriquet, and legend has it that he taught his disciple, Sun Bin 孫臏, the next name in the Iron Tree diviner’s list, the art of strategy. He has been venerated at the popular level as the patriarch of physiognomy (xiangshu 相術) and is also associated with astrological methods of divination.11 Guan Lu 管輅 (209–256), the next figure mentioned in the Story of the Iron Tree extract, was a member of a group of diviners working for the Wei king, Cao 8 Campany, To Live, 73. 9 Ge Hong, Baopuzi neipian j. 11; qtd. in ibid., 75. 10 The chenwei 讖緯 tradition of prognosticary treatises even linked the “Nine Sages” with the composition of the diagrams associated with the Zhouyi, the “Yellow River Chart” (Hetu 河圖) and the “Luo River Writing” (Luoshu 洛書); see Zhong Zhaopeng, Chenwei lunlüe, 70–71. 11 See Sakade Yoshinobu, “Guigu zi,” 460–461; Kohn, “A textbook of physiognomony,” 256n6, respectively.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

131

Cao. Another diviner associated with physiognomy treatises, he is also the hero of a well-known medieval tale in which he saves a man who was fated to die young by telling him how to oblige the Northern and Southern polar stars so that they will grant him an extension of life.12 Yan Junping 嚴君平, a Han dynasty man, is reported to have refused to embark on an official career and led the life of a fortune-teller in Chengdu instead; he was a specialist of the Yijing.13 “Master Mu Xiu Li Yan” actually refers to two different men, Li Zhicai 李之才 (?-1045, Zi Yanzhi 挺之) and Mu Xiu 穆修 (979–1032), also specialists of the Yijing but in the Song period, who were involved in the transmission of the Wuji tu 無極圖 [Diagram of the Ultimateless] and Xiantian tu 先天圖 [Diagram Preceding Heaven] from Chen Tuan 陳摶 (d. 989) to Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077), and thus are important figures in Neo-confucianism.14 3

Holy Patrons of Divination in Vernacular Narratives

Since, as I have pointed out earlier, these famous figures of the past constitute a kind of popular pantheon of holy diviners, it is unsurprising to find some of them appearing in the cast of characters of Ming-Qing novels or ballads. The Master of the Valley of Demons seems to have been particularly inspiring: he appears in many vernacular genres, from plays of the Yuan dynasty to tongsu xiaoshuo and modern folktales. For instance, the novel Sun Pang dou zhi yanyi 孫龐鬥智演義 [The Battle of Wits between Sun and Pang], printed in 1636 and also known as Qian Qi guo zhi 前七國志 [Former Annals of the Seven Kingdoms],15 tells how Sun Bin 孫臏 and Pang Juan 龐涓, originally friends, go to seek guidance in the supernatural and martial arts from the Master of the Valley of Demons in his mountain abode. When it turns out that Guigu zi favors Sun Bin, Pang Juan jealously destroys the heavenly books (tianshu 天書) given to Sun by Guigu zi and leaves. What follows is the well-known, long and pitiless fight between the two former friends.16 Pang Juan is eventually killed by Sun Bin, and the latter disappears from the world to return to his master in the Valley of Demons.

12 13 14 15 16

See ibid., 234; Sou shen ji, juan 3. See Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement, 93–96. See Arrault, “Les diagrammes.” A modern edition was published under the title Qian Hou Qi guo zhi. Already object of a splendid narrative by Sima Qian in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji 史记).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

132

Durand-dastès

In this story, we find the theme of the celestial book as both a divinatory and military treatise (bingshu 兵書), whose possession allows its owner to become a divine strategist or even the founder of an empire. Another theme, one that is closely related to the tongsu xiaoshuo lore on divination, is the dangerous disclosure of heavenly secrets: Heaven will sometimes punish too brilliant diviners when they use their abilities to disclose facts that should have remained hidden. This theme appears in the Dong Yong 董永 story cycle, which, depending on the version, features in the role of the holy diviner either Sun Bin or Yan Junping, i.e., two of the characters who appear in the incan­ tation of the Story of the Iron Tree. The story relates how the weaving maid, a celestial goddess, is married to the deserving Dong Yong in order to bear him a son. After that deed is done, she returns to Heaven, but, once grown up, the son—who in some versions of the story is none other than the philosopher Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179–104 BCE)—tries to find her. He is given a clue by Sun Bin (or Yan Junping): he has to await the moment where seven heavenly maidens will fly from the sky in the guise of birds to bathe in a pond, and then steal the ­feathered garment of the seventh: she is his mother. The young boy does as prescribed, but his mother, obliged to appear naked before her son, is enraged and decides to punish the fortune-teller for lightly disclosing her secret: she sends him a bottle concealing a magic fire that will eventually burn his heavenly book.17 4

The Zhougong and Taohua Nü Cycle

One also finds these two themes—the heavenly book given to or stolen by a mortal and the concern of Heaven to prevent secrets from being disclosed by too clever diviners—in the story which is the main subject of this paper, that of Zhougong and the Peach Blossom Girl. Before finally turning to the core of the Zhougong-Taohua nü story, however, some information concerning the cultural and literary background of its two main protagonists will be provided, both of whom appear in the diviner’s incantation quoted above. One, Zhougong 周公, the “Duke of Zhou,” ranks among the most illustrious figures of Chinese culture. The historical Duke of Zhou lived in the eleventh century bce and was 17

In some versions, the fire even blinds the unfortunate Yan Junping. The story is often quoted to explain why fortunetelling became so difficult and unreliable afterwards, or why diviners are often blind. On the various versions of this story, which appears first in the mid-sixteenth century short story collection Qingping shan tang huaben 青平山堂話 本 [Vernacular Short Stories from the Clear and Peaceful Studio], see Idema, Filial Piety.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

133

the son of King Wen 文 and the brother of King Wu 武, the founders of the Zhou dynasty. He was especially revered by Confucius and became the incarnation of perfect government; having always refused to claim power for himself, he was ascribed a total lack of selfishness. Among many other things, this Confucian saint has been linked to divination, especially in the later popular tradition. How was this connection established? As we have seen, Zhougong is counted among the “nine sages” involved in the composition of the Zhouyi, as he is supposed to have authored the yaoci 爻辤 sentences in it. But tradition also has him involved in the composition of another classic, the Zhouli 周禮 [Rites of Zhou], and he appears as a character in the calendrical and cosmological treatise Zhoubi suanjing 周髀算 經 [The Gnomon of Zhou]18—although it is only in late medieval times that his name begins to be linked with divinatory treatises other than the Zhouyi. Among the Tang dynasty manuscripts found in the grotto-library of the Dunhuang monastery, for example, one counts several books claiming to transmit the mantic techniques invented by the Duke of Zhou: Zhougong jiemeng 周公解夢 [Explanation of Dreams by the Duke of Zhou], a method of oneiromancy, or dream divination Zhougong bufa 周公卜法 [Method of Divination of the Duke of Zhou], a treatise on cleromancy, or divination by casting lots Zhougong wugu fa 周公五鼓法 [Method of the Five Drums of the Duke of Zhou], which belongs to the field of hemerology, that is, the science of choosing auspicious and inauspicious moments in time Zhougong Kongzi zhanfa 周公孔子占法 [Method of Divination of Con­ fucius and the Duke of Zhou], a treatise on auguromancy, or bird divination19 While most of these texts were no longer transmitted after Tang times, the oneiromantic treatise enjoyed a long period of popularity, being printed and reprinted, with constant transformations, from Song times to the present day.20 Exactly why Zhougong was associated with mantic techniques has been the subject of conflicting interpretations. The theory of his alleged authorship of an extremely popular book on dream interpretation may originate from the fact that he was reputed to have written the oldest dream classification in the 18 Cullen, “Chou pi suan ching,” 33–38. 19 On the different divination treatises claiming to transmit the techniques invented by Zhougong, see Kalinowski, Divination et société. 20 Smith, Fortune Tellers and Philosophers, 252–253.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

134

Durand-dastès

Chinese tradition, which figures in the Zhouli.21 But it may also have been influenced by the famous quote from Lunyu 論語 [The Analects], where the aging sage complains that he is so old and rapipdly decaying that he no longer dreams of the Duke of Zhou.22 However, as far as the tongsu xiaoshuo is concerned, the link between Zhougong and divination rests mainly in his connection with the extremely important Yijing technique of trigram computation. As the early seventeenth century novel Han xiangzi zhuan 韓湘子傳 [The Story of Han Xiangzi] beautifully expresses, Zhougong is close to being the very impersonation of Trigrams divination: Some day, the great limit will be just above your head. Then, can your loving son or tender daughter replace you in death? Even with money, it is impossible to buy a medicine to combat impermanence. Even if you had the Venerable Lord Li’s elixir, the face of the Buddha Śākyamuni, the literary skills of Confucius, the divinatory abilities of the Duke of Zhou [literally: “the yin, yang, and eight trigrams of the duke of Zhou”], the magical recipes of the famous physicians Bian Que and Cang Gong— each and every one of them has perished!23 有一日大限臨在你頭上，那一個親的兒，熱的女，替得你無常？有錢 難買不死方，有錢難買不無常。你就有李老君的丹，釋迦佛的相，孔 夫子的文章，周公八卦陰陽，盧醫扁鵲仙方，他也一個個身亡。

As to the Peach Blossom Girl, although she likewise appears in the Xiyou ji’s incantation among the tutelary figures of the mantic trade, she, of course, cannot match the grand figure of the Duke of Zhou, being a considerably less important character in the theater of Chinese culture. Besides, she is rooted not in the noble Confucian tradition, but in the popular realm of exorcism and eroticism: one of the first connotations of peach blossom is erotic, and as early as the Tao zhi yao yao 桃之夭夭 poem of the Classic of Poetry, the blossoming peach tree heralds the time for love and weddings. From the sky, the Peach Blossom star (taohua xing 桃花星) influences human destiny by driving man and woman towards lust. And in the caves of the immortals, Peach Blossom fairies (taohua xian nü 桃花仙女) are the heroines of love encounters with wandering mortals. In chapter eight of the seventeenth century novel Guilian meng 歸蓮夢 [The Dream of the Return to the Lotus], for example, the male hero 21 22 23

Diény, “Le Saint,” 147n48. Lunyu 論語, “Shu er 述而,” 7:5. See Yang, “Lunyu” shizhu, 67. See Dièny, “Le saint.” Yang Erzeng, The Story of Han Xiangzi, 231, with a few modifications.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

135

is led back towards the woman he loves through a dream encouter with an erotic female immortal called the Peach Blossom Goddess (taohua nüshen 桃 花女神).24 The other connotation refers to the exorcistic virtues of peach tree wood— but most of the allusions to a “Peach Blossom Girl” that we find in Ming-Qing novels seem to derive directly from her appearance as a powerful diviner and magician in the story of her conflict with Zhougong. To be sure, she is listed in chapter nine of the late Ming period novel Qi yao pingyao zhuan 七曜平妖傳 [The Quelling of the Sorcerers by the Seven Planets] alongside a group of wellknown female magicians, such as Hu Yonger 胡永兒, the heroine of the earlier novel San Sui pingyao zhuan 三遂平妖傳 [The Quelling of the Sorcerers by the Three Sui], female generals of the Yang family, or Liu Jinding 劉金錠, the magician-heroine of a cycle about the founder of the Song dynasty. In all other cases, however, she is mentioned together with Zhougong—either as his archenemy, as in the eighteenth-century Yesou puyan 野叟曝言 [A Country Codger’s Words of Exposure], or, interestingly, as his complementary divine fortuneteller, as in the 33rd tale of the seventeenth-century short-story anthology Erke paian jingqi 二刻拍案驚奇 [Second Series of Amazing Tales] . Let us now turn to the story itself. Because it belongs basically to an oral cycle and figures prominently in performance genres, from “precious scrolls” (baojuan 寳卷) ballads to local operas, I choose to call it a “popular myth.” However, it has surfaced twice in the print culture world of Late Imperial China: first in a Yuan dynasty zaju play, Taohua nü pofa jia Zhougong 桃花女破 法嫁周公 [Peach Blossom Breaking the Magic Marries Zhougong], printed in the Ming period in the Yuan qu xuan 元曲選 [Selected Theater Plays of the Yuan Dynasty],25 and again in the already-mentioned tongsu xiaoshuo published in 1848.26 Aware of the dangers of attempting to characterize the ZhougongTaohua nü story as a whole, which would indeed reveal many variations and contradictions,27 I will focus here on the latter version of the story, the only one 24 Gui lian meng, 93–95. 25 The zaju play is generally attributed to Wang Ye 王曄, zi Rihua 日华, a rather obscure playwright from fourteenth-century Hangzhou. There is also a version of the play among the sixteenth-century Maiwangguan 脉望館 manuscripts, with some textual differences from the Yuan qu xuan version. 26 On the history of the versions of the Zhougong-Taohu nü tale, the most comprehensive work of which I am aware is the master’s thesis of Liu Huiping 劉惠萍, Taohua nü dou Zhougong gushi yanjiu. 27 Neither of these two works, being rather crude in style, can be ranked among novels or dramas written by and for the literati. On the differences in tone and meaning among the great oral cycles, see Idema and Haiyan, Meng Jiangnü.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

136

Durand-dastès

existing within the xiaoshuo format, that is, 1848’s Taohua nü yin yang dou chuanqi 桃花女陰陽鬦傳奇 [Story of the Peach Blossom Girl’s Fight of yin against yang], or Yinyang douyi shuo chuanqi 陰陽鬥異說傳奇 [Marvelous Tale of the Fight of Magic between Yin and Yang].28 Let me first present a summary of the story: During his ascesis on Mount Wudang 武當, the god Zhenwu 真武 cuts open his own stomach in order to purify his bowels. Distracted by the extreme pain, he discards the sword he has used when he ascends to Heaven. The forgotten sword, whose contact with Zhenwu has enabled it to take human shape, ascends to Heaven too, where it becomes the lad keeping the trigram box of Lord Laozi 老子. One day, the boy escapes to descend to earth and is born into the family of a Shang 商 dynasty minister. Succeeding to his father’s post, he becomes known by the name of Zhougong. Soon, detered by the lack of virtue of the Shang king, he resigns from his high position at court and decides to lead the life of a simple fortuneteller. Since, during his stay with Laozi, he has studied the Tiangang zhengjue 天罡正訣 [Secret Principles of the Stars of the tail of the Big Dipper], a heavenly book on divination and magic, Zhougong soon becomes a very famous diviner whose predictions never fail. But Heaven, worrying that he may thus disclose too many secrets of fate, sends against him a female immortal named the Peach Blossom Girl. The girl is none other than the avatar of Zhenwu’s sword sheath. She is born as the daughter of a benevolent old couple and, now a teenager, has never left the inner quarters of their home. The action takes a dramatic turn when she twice helps people, whose imminent death Zhougong had predicted, to escape with their lives. Not that the predictions were innacurate: the two men should indeed have died, but the Peach Blossom Girl taught them some white magic that permitted them to dodge their fate. 28

The earliest edition dates from Daoguang 28 (1848). It seems to have originally been carved by a publisher named Lianyi tang 聯益堂, whose priting blocks were then bought by a Cantonese publisher named Danguitang 丹桂堂. This original edition is kept by Beijing tushuguan and the British Library. The book was republished in 1866 and 1894, as well as in other undated late Qing editions. The Daoguang edition was photographically reproduced in the 1980s by Zhonghua shuju for its Guben xiaoshuo congkan 古本小説叢 刊 [Collection of Ancient Editions of Novels] and the 1866 edition was included in the Shanghai guji chubanshe collection, Guben xiaoshuo jicheng 古本小説集成 [Compendium of Ancient Editions of Novels]. The 1894 edition has been republished in modern typography in the book Ming Qing shenhua xiaoshuo xuan 明清神話小説選 [Anthology of Mythological Novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties] (Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1988) under the title Taohua nü 桃花女 [Peach Blossom Girl]. An electronic version is also available on the website Handian guji 漢典古籍 [Ancient Classics of China]. All quotations from the tale refer to the 1988 Zhejiang guji edition, abridged as Taohua nü.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

137

Troubled and angered at being challenged by a simple girl, Zhougong decides to get rid of this unexpected opponent in an unusal and cunning way. He asks her to marry his son, but the marriage plan is actually a deadly scheme: Zhougong has used all of his fortune-telling skills to choose the most dangerous time and place for a marriage. Having to travel through places under the deadly influence of the most baleful stars—“evil gods” (xiongshen 凶神), or “murderous stars” (shaxing 煞星)—Taohua nü is doomed to perish. However, the girl cleverly employs so much magic and so many rituals that, on the day of the wedding, she arrives safely at Zhougong’s gate. She even succeeds in escaping the claws and teeth of the potent White Tiger star, waiting in ambush in the wedding chamber, and has him kill Zhougong’s daughter instead. To add to his humiliation, Zhougong cannot but beg for the girl’s mercy to bring his daughter back to life. Although he eventually succeeds in killing her by means of black magic, using a branch of the peach tree where her “basic fate” (benming 本命) dwells, the poor diviner cannot prevent her organizing her own resurrection. Unable to defeat each other, the two enemies then engage in such a terrible fight that it shakes heaven and earth—and attracts the attention of Zhenwu. The god recalls that the two enemies were originally his sword and sheath, stops their fight, and restores them to their place in his retinue of heavenly marshals. 5

Duel of Diviners, Duel of Magicians

Both Zhougong and the Peach Blossom Girl display brilliant divinatory skills in this story, but their mantic arts differ in both form and purpose. Zhougong, a former high official, has decided to become a diviner in order to provide guidance to the common folk. As he says at the beginning of his career: Although unable to lead my sovereign back to the right ways and in no position to sacrifice my person for the sake of the country, can I spend my life as a mere commoner? Shouldn’t I seize this occasion to resign and live in seclusion in the capital by seeking a quiet place to live? Couldn’t I open a soothsayer shop to lead the people of my time? Be a leader in discussing the matters of Former Heaven, a chieftain in the analysis of the eight trigrams? Even if I cannot devote myself to my country and people, I’ll be thus able to be remembered for many centuries: wouldn’t that be fine? 我既不能匡君于正，又不能舍身為國，豈可同俗人一輩？我何不趁此 告职，隐居在這朝歌，尋一個僻静之處。開一卜市引導世人？作一個

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

138

Durand-dastès 講先天的班頭，剖八卦之領袖，雖不能為國威民，亦可流名萬載，豈 不是好？29

Unsurprisingly, when he begins his trade, Zhougong acts as a member of the elite. Although he will make a living out of it, his motivation in engaging in the mantic trade is also a moralistic and paternalistic one, and his tools will be those of a literatus: he sits sternly at a table covered with paper, ink, and brushes, and practices Yijing divination by selecting hexagrams from a trunk. Conversely, Taohua nü uses her body as a medium, counting fate on her fingers. As Richard Smith explains, in late imperial China, “popular mantic tech­­niques included a rudimentary system of counting on finger joints,” through which “even illiterates could determine the proper timing of a given enter­prise” and which was “much in vogue among the common people.”30 But there may be more to the Peach Blossom Girl’s exclusive use of finger counting: by stretching the fingers figures may be formed which can be not only a divinatory gesture but also have a direct magic efficiency. The hagiographic novel about the Fujian female deity Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑, for instance, shows how the goddess “by counting on her finger […] transformed the room into a map of the bagua, the divination trigrams.”31 As Brigitte Baptandier, who has studied the cult of this deity, observes, the hand constitutes in itself a diagram where the earthly branch and heavenly stems appear. It is used in astrology and in magic to calculate horoscopes and astral time.32 The divinatory gesture of the hands actually ressembles closely the mudrā that priests and exorcists draw on their fingers, with immediate efficiency.33 The use of this technique by the Peach Blossom Girl demonstrates both her divinatory skill and her ability to go further: not only to read fate, but also to change it. 6

The Challenged Order of Fate

Zhougong is not without his own ritual powers either. In several places in the novel, he bares his feet, undoes his hair, and, holding a sword, dances according to the pattern of the Northern Dipper constellation. This dance, in which 29 Taohua nü, chapter 1, 224. 30 Smith, Fortune Tellers and Philosophers, 87, 185, 198. For a contemporary description of this mantic technique, see Homola, “Jeux de mains.” See also Hayek’s contribution in this volume. 31 Baptandier, The Lady of Linshui, 76. 32 See ibid., 76 and 281n6. 33 See Baptandier, “Les mudrā.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

139

one may easily recognize the well-known “star pacing” (bugang 步罡) ritual, is widely performed by taoist priests and fashi 法師 exorcists, but the Zhougong of our novel never employs it to act against fate.34 Let us take as an example the first time he performs bugang in the story: a couple of days before, he has predicted the imminent death of his assistant, Peng Jian 彭剪—with sadness, but also without giving to the poor man the slightest hope of escaping his fate. It is only when he thinks that Peng Jian has died that he will perform the bugang exorcism near his unconscious body, and only to prevent the souls of his deceased aide from dispersing, thus permitting him to transmigrate into a good rebirth. When Peng Jian, not dead at all but only pretending to be asleep, suddenly rises, Zhougong at first thinks that he has seen a ghost.35 His shock is hardly surprising: Zhougong believes in the order of fate, and uses the exorcistic techniques that he commands only modestly to bend destiny in the best direction. Taohua nü does the opposite: she can read the decrees of fate as well as Zhougong, but does not shy away from correcting, or even reversing, the order of destiny. She is said to be able to “break” (po 破) or “reverse” (fan 反) the trigrams (gua 卦) of Zhougong’s divination, and, in order to do so, she resorts to rather transgressive methods. In the episode just quoted, it is she, of course, who helps Peng Jian to escape his fate. She instructs Zhougong’s assistant to hide in the temple of the three officers (Sanguan miao 三官廟) as in this very night, the seven stars of the Northern Dipper (Beidou xingjun 北斗星君) are said to come and call out the names of those doomed to die shortly. As instructed by Taohua nü, Peng Jian prepares offerings for the gods, waves a golden chain, and chants an incantation. This ritual binds the star-gods and even gives them a bad headache, thus obliging them to fulfill Peng Jian’s demands: he is given an extension of life by each of them, ending with a new promised lifespan of no less than 850 years; also, he will no longer be called Peng Jian, but henceforth be known as Pengzu 彭祖, the well-known Chinese Methuselah of ancient mythology.36 Peng Jian’s rescue is not the only one brought about by the Peach Blossom Girl in the story: she will save from death or even restore to life no less than five people, including Zhougong and herself. She does so by using various techniques, most of which involve acts containing a touch of transgression or inversion: placing old, dirty garments on the threshold of a house (a place that should be kept clean and pure), constraining or blackmailing the gods, or using

34 35 36

On the fashi, see Davis, Society and the Supernatural. Taohua nü, chapter 9, 263. Ibid., chapter 9, 262–263.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

140

Durand-dastès

“counterflowing water” (niliu shui 逆流水), that is, water taken from a river pressed upstream by the mounting seatide. 7

The Peach Blossom Girl—A Demonic Champion of Life?

When confronted with the unexpected challenge posed to him by Taohua nü’s actions, Zhougong uses two different methods. One, as we have seen, is to act as a diviner in a distorted way, selecting for the wedding ceremony the most lethal day, hour, and directions rather than the most propitious ones in order to ensure that the bride is killed instead of married. When that proves insufficient,37 he turns to another skill he possesses: exorcism. To explain why and how he does that, we must turn to a component of Zhou­gong’s character that I have so far only mentioned in passing. The Zhou­ gong of the story, while drawing very clearly on the mythology of the Duke of Zhou as a patron of the mantic arts, is also modeled on another eminent figure: the god Zhenwu. Not only is Zhougong an incarnation of this god’s weapon, but he also resembles him in many respects: from his first appearance in the human world, he is depicted as having a black face and a dark complexion— just like Zhenwu, the god of the northern parts of the sky, a direction associated with the colour black. As the story progresses, Zhougong acts less and less like a literati diviner, but is increasingly portrayed as a fashi exorcist: barefoot and bareheaded, wielding a sword. This is exactly the way in which Zhenwu, as one of the greatest exorcistic gods, is characterized in the iconography. And when Zhougong, failing to trap Taohua nü by arranging the deadly marriage, requires the aid of a powerful divinity, he chooses to call upon the “Black Killer,” Heisha 黑煞, another god whose ritual role as well as features in the iconography are extremely close to those of Zhenwu.38 In Chinese religion, a fashi exorcist may call upon a powerful martial god for a single purpose only: to get rid of a demonic being. Does this imply that the Peach Blossom Girl could be such a being? Sure enough, Taohua nü is the heroine of this tale (while poor Zhougong appears in turn as a villain or a fool), but hints of her unorthodox, unruly nature, linked to her femininity, are also quite 37

38

To counter the danger of the unfortunate wedding, Peach Blossom “invents” a set of rituals which are actually part of the traditional wedding ceremony. The story serves to explain the origin of those rituals. I will not dwell on this question, because it is not directly connected to divination and has been analyzed in several Chinese articles on the Zhougong-Taohua nü story. Taohua nü, chapter 11, 275.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

141

apparent. When Zhougong first tries to identify his opponent using his divinatory skills, he is warned that yin 陰 forces are dominating and that he will have to defeat a yinren 陰人, a term which refers to a female being, but also to a dangerous, malevolent creature.39 An even more signifiant episode, later in the story, shows Taohua nü summoning her own heavenly champion to resist Zhougong’s attack: she has a being called Hongsha 紅煞, the “Red Killer,” descend from the sky. This Red Killer, as the chromatic antithesis of the Black Killer, will actually neutralize the powerful exorcistic god: when confronting each other, the Black and the Red Killer decide to retreat to their heavenly abodes without fighting.40 Heisha is a well-known god, object of a cult since at least the Song dynasty, but the same cannot be said of Hongsha: no figure of this name appears among the gods of the Chinese pantheon.41 However, demonic beings called hongsha do appear in various circumstances; for instance, at weddings, where they represent the demonic forces threatening to destroy the smooth proceeding of the ceremony. This demonic force seems directly connected to a powerful and dangerous substance: the virginal blood soon to be shed. Quite a few of the rites performed at weddings are obviously designed to neutralize the evil forces of the “Red Killer” in order to ensure a happy outcome for the marriage. It has long been noted that female blood, shed during menstruation, birth, or defloration, gives women in China both “power and pollution.”42 What is remarkable about the Zhougong-Taohua nü story is the way in which this force is transformed, or almost sublimated, by the tale. Threatening and evil hongsha influences become the benevolent god Hongsha, lending a helpful hand to the very positive character of the Peach Blossom Girl. And yet they also serve as a reminder of her less-than-innocuous nature: to fight successfully against the yang order of fate, one needs a benevolent demon, it seems, a powerful character, gathering all of the frightful forces of the yin. Only then can such a towering figure as the Zhougong of the novel, modeled half on the highest Confucian Saint and half on one of the most powerful Taoist gods, be defeated. In other words, only a transgressive force can carry a rebellious spirit against the decree of fate. 39 40 41 42

Ibid., chapter 6, 249. Ibid., chapter 12, 278–281. On the cult of the Black Killer, see Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China, 67–86. See for example Ahern, “The Power.” On the power of female blood, see also Despeux, Immortelles, 215–219; Despeux and Kohn, Women in Daoism, 20–21, 195–196, and 223–227; and Cohen, “Magic and Female Pollution.” On virginal blood pollution, see De Pee, Text as Practice, 168–174; and Liu Ruiming, “Hunli zhong de ‘bisha’ minsu tanxi.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

142

Durand-dastès

Perhaps it is advisable to recall here the Xiyou ji episode from earlier, where Sun Wukong imagines for a while that he is a diviner: having invoked the very orthodox King Wen and Confucius, the “diviner” Monkey King summons the Peach Blossom Girl together with the Master of the Valleys of Demons. Isn’t it possible to detect here a discrete reminder of Taohua nü’s unorthodox, almost demonic nature? She and Sun Wukong—himself a problematic figure, a former demonic character now enrolled as a heavenly protector—appear to be kindred spirits. 8

A Tale for Extending Longevity

Exactly like the masterwork Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), the plays, ballads and novels that relate the story of Zhougong and Taohua nü are comedies: the way in which they depict a teenage girl poking fun at the prestigious name of the Duke of Zhou is indeed funny, and the brilliant story of the deadly fight taking the shape of a wedding is full of carnivalesque fantasy. But, again like in the Journey to the West, the comedy is not without religious seriousness. There are many indications that the story had a ritual function in late imperial Chinese society: for example, the theme is widely present on “precious scrolls,”43 a type of ballad, which was a well-known medium for the transmission of religious tales and myths; and in the world of local theater, the story of Zhougong and the Peach Blossom Girl was also frequently featured. Thus, in the Anhui province dramatic genre Huiju 徽劇, the Taohua nü story, closely following the plot of the novel I have analyzed, involved a large cast of “humans, gods, devils and buddhas.”44 It was staged at night, beginning at sunset to be played until dawn: this kind of representation is typical of the “Yin plays” (yinxi 陰戯), a kind of ritual theater involving the exorcism of ghosts and the resolution of tensions relating to matters of life and death. Interestingly, one of the two baojuan ballads about the story is entitled Yanshou baojuan 延壽寳卷 [The Precious Scroll of the Extension of Longevity]. This is what I believe the story is all about. In his fight against Taohua nü, Zhougong incarnates the order of fate, which can be read but cannot be changed. Like other clever diviners in vernacular literature, he basically has good intentions, but is in danger of being pursued by Heaven because he may 43

44

There seem to be two different baojuan about the Zhougong-Taohua nü story, namely numbers 1124 and 1125 of the Zhongguo baojuan zongmu 中國寳卷縱目 by Che Xilun 車 錫倫, one with seventeen and the other with three extant manuscript copies. Zhongguo xiqu zhi Anhui juan, 194.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

143

leak secrets that ordinary humans should ignore. The Peach Blossom Girl is initially sent by Heaven precisely to belie Zhougong’s too perfect predictions, but, paradoxically, in doing so, she will have to disobey the very decrees of fate and act in a transgressive manner in order to save humans facing an impeding death. This topos is in no sense an invention of the anonymous authors of the Taohua nü legend. Very early in Chinese religious history, the quest for longevity or immortality has included a certain degree of transgression. Immortality can be achieved through moral acts and patient practice, but also by means of rebellious or deceiving acts.45 Taohua nü, as a yin being, a popular diviner but also a magician and sorceress, incarnates this very desire to extend the limits of one’s allocated life span (ming 命). In the Taohua nü yin yang dou zhuan, the fight between the Peach Blossom Girl and Zhougong fails to reach a conclusion: interrupted, they are summoned by Zhenwu and enrolled among his heavenly marshalls. This seems to be a rather late development in the Zhougong-taohua nü cycle, corresponding to the inclusion of the pair in the god’s temple near the end of the Ming dynasty.46 By showing Zhougong and his young opponent take their places on each side of Zhenwu, as they are depicted in the temples of the exorcistic god, the story stresses the complementary nature of these two enemies. Also, in a way, their interrupted fight retains all of Zhenwu’s potential power and energy. In the Xuejiawan 薛家灣 village of Gansu 甘肃 province exists a community whose members practice the mantic and exorcistic arts as a traditional trade. They worship as their main tutelary god Zhenwu, whom they call their “infinite patriarch” (Wuliang zushi 無量祖師). Wuliang zushi is assisted by two other gods: one, “the patriarch of divination” (Suanming zushi 算命祖師), is Zhou­ gong, and the other, known as “the patriarch of release from evil influences” (Yasheng zushi 壓勝祖師), is the Peach Blossom Girl.47 Depending on the type of practice they intend to perform, diagnostic divination or therapeutic exorcism, the religious specialists of Xuejiawan will call on the help of either the Duke of Zhou or the Peach Blossom Girl. As Robert Campany has written about medieval China, “The whole point of ming was its ineluctability. The whole point of many esoteric and Daoist tenets 45 46

47

On these questions, see the excellent article by Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Corpse Deliverance.” See also Campany, “Living off the Books,” 129–150. Grootaers, “The Hagiography,” 144. In the zaju play, for example, the fight of the diviners and the marital confrontation were not yet so clearly linked with the mythology of Zhenwu. “Xuejiawan ren de zhiye jiqi xinyang xisu 薛家灣人的職業及其信仰習俗,” qtd. in Li Qiao, Hangye shen chongbai, 572–573.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

144

Durand-dastès

and practices was to alter or circumvent ming nevertheless.”48 The late imperial popular myth of the fighting “wedding” of Zhougong and the Peach Blossom Girl provides us with a delightful, picaresque illustration of this twosided vision of fate: the two characters impersonate respectively yang and yin, sword and sheath, order and disorder, resignation and hope, fated death and rebellious quest for longevity. It confirms the existence of an ordered fate, as well as the ever-tempting possibility to subvert it. 9

A Life-Extending Myth and Technical Books

Before concluding this short essay, let us recall the strange editorial feature we began with: couldn’t it be possible that, by the Daoguang era, the story was considered such a prophylactic and therapeutic myth that it would seem proper for it to be opened by the preface of a medical treatise? This would be rather impossible to prove with certitude. However, another book of late Qing times may offer us a hint that it could indeed have been the case. The book is entitled Guxian Taohua nü Zhougong jianglun zhenshu 古賢桃花女周公講論 鎮書 [Exorcistic Book of the Debates between the Ancient Saints the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl], but is also called in short Taohua zhen shu 桃花鎮書 [The Book of the Exorcism of Peach Blossom] (the term zhen 鎮 means literally “to repress, to contain,” but is often used to designate techniques for dominating evil forces). It is by a man named Wang Dongshan 王東山 and undated, but library and auctions catalogues generally estimate that it was published during the Qing dynasty.49 After recalling that “from the beginning of time, there has been first the women and only after the monarch, vassal, father and son, so among human relationships none is more important than marriage,”50 the book’s preface goes on evoking the divinatory skill of Zhougong and the exorcistic power of Peach Blossom. Then it sums up briefly the story of their fight, explaining that it was only with the help of her book of exorcistic spells that Taohua nü could save her life. There are no longer narrative elements, however, in the body of the book itself: it consists of a collection of fu 符 talismans with explanations for 48 49

50

Campany, “Living off the Books,” 141. A short look on the web shows that the book is not a rarity: it is often proposed for sale on auction websites. In September 2007, for example, it was sold for the relatively modest sum of 8800 yuan; see . Wang Dongshan, Guxian Taohua nü Zhougong jianglun zhenshu, 1a. The book was reprinted in 1917 by the Shanghai putong shuju 上海普通書局.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

145

their use.51 The texts are devised to help solving obstacles or averting misfortunes related to marriage or marital life (first juan), or to ward away maternal death, death in infancy, or problems related to begetting offspring in general (second juan). Interestingly, the Beijing library’s copy has been joined to two different short treatises which are also zhenshu 鎮書 aimed at different practical uses such as building houses or graves. In a way, this little book presents us with a sort of inverted mirror image to the Qiu Yuexiu preface to the Daoguang edition of the Yinyang dou zhuan novel: while in the latter case, the preface to a pediatric treatise introduces the Peach Blossom story, in the Taohua zhen shu the evocation of this very tale introduces a collection of fu talisman used for the protection of marital life and childbirth. Maybe this tiny piece of the history of a vernacular narrative, then, may help us to better understand the complex relationship between enter­ taining “fiction” (be it theater or vernacular novels) and ritual or technical knowl­edge in late imperial China.52

Works Cited

Ahern, Emily Martin. “The Power and Pollution of Chinese Women.” In Women in Chi­ nese Society, edited by Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, pp. 193–214. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975. Arrault, Alain. “Les diagrammes de Shao Yong (1012–1077): qui les a vus?” Etudes Chinoises 19, no. 1–2 (2000): 67–112. Baptandier, Brigitte. La Dame-du Bord-de-l’Eau. Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie, 1988. Baptandier, Brigitte. The Lady of Linshui, a Chinese Female Cult. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Baptandier, Brigitte. “Les mudrā du Lüshan pai, le battement de la vie.” In Empreintes du tantrisme en Chine et en Asie orientale: imaginaires, rituels, influences, edited by Vin­cent Durand-Dastès, pp. 139–157. Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes études chinoise, 2016. Berkowitz, Alan. Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.

51 52

For a short synthesis on the fu talismans, Catherine Despeux, “Talismans and Diagrams.” For samples of recent debates on this relationship, see Meulenbeld, Civilized Demons, 266–367; and Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice, 145–175, 330–333. For a summary of previous debates, see my “Prodiges ambigus.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

146

Durand-dastès

Campany, Robert Ford. To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth: A Translation and Study of Ge Hong’s “Traditions of Divine Transcendents”. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Campany, Robert Ford. “Living off the Books: Fifty Ways to Dodge Ming 命 in Early Medieval China.” In The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, edited by Christopher Lupke, pp. 129–150. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005. Cedzich, Ursula-Angelika. “Corpse Deliverance, Substitute Bodies, Name Change, and Feigned Death: Aspects of Metamorphosis and Immortality in Early Medieval China.” Journal of Chinese Religion 29 (2001): 1–68. Che Xilun 車錫倫. Zhongguo baojuan zongmu 中國寳卷縱目 [General Catalogue of the Precious Scrolls]. Beijing: Yanshan, 2000. Chen Fuzheng 陈復正. Youyou jicheng 幼幼集成 [Complete Work on Children’s Diseases]. Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, 1988. Cohen, Paul A. “Magic and Female Pollution.” In History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth, edited by Paul A. Cohen, pp. 119–145. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Cullen, Christopher. “Chou pi suan ching.” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 33–38. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China, 1993. Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001. De Pee, Christian. Text as Practice: The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China (Eighth through Fourteenth Centuries). Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Deng Zhimo 鄧志謨. Tieshu ji 鐵樹記 [The Iron Tree]. In Mingdai xiaoshuo jikan 明代小 说辑刊 [Series of Novels of the Ming-Dynasty], edited by Hou Zhongyi 候忠义, vol. 1.4, pp. 797–927. Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1993. Despeux, Catherine. Immortelles de la Chine ancienne: Taoïsme et alchimie féminine. Puiseaux: Pardès, 1990. Despeux, Catherine. “Talismans and Diagrams.” In Daoism Handbook, edited by Livia Kohn, pp. 498–540. Handbuch der Orientalistik 4. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Despeux, Catherine, and Livia Kohn. Women in Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2003. Diény, Jean-Pierre. “Le Saint ne rêve pas: de Zhuangzi à Michel Jouvet.” Etudes chinoises 20, no. 1–2 (2001): 127–199. Durand-Dastès, Vincent. “Prodiges ambigus: les récits non-canoniques sur le surnaturel, entre histoire religieuse, histoire littéraire et anthropologie.” Revue bibliographique de sinologie (2002): 317–343. Gan Bao 干寶. Sou shen ji 搜神記 [In Search of the Supernatural]. Edited by Wang Shaoying 汪紹楹. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1979.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

147

Grootaers, Willem A. “The Hagiography of the Chinese God Chen-wu (The Transmission of Rural Traditions in Chahar).” Folklore Studies 11, no. 2 (1952): 139–181. Gui lian meng 歸蓮夢 [The Dream of the Return to the Lotus]. Shenyang: Chufeng wenyi chubanshe, 1987. Homola, Stéphanie. “Jeux de main: les usages mnémotechniques de la main dans les calculs divinatoires en Chine contemporaine.” Études chinoises vol. XXXIII, no. 1 (2014): 153–175. Idema, Wilt. Filial Piety and its Divine Reward: The Legend of Dong Yong and the Weaving Maiden, with Related Texts. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009. Idema, Wilt, and Haiyan Lee. Meng Jiangnü brings down the Great Wall: Ten Versions from a Chinese Legend. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Ji Dejun 纪德君. Ming Qing lishi yanyi xiaoshuo yishu lun 明清歷史小説藝術論 [The Art of the Historical Novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties]. Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 2000. Johnson, David. Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Kalinowski, Marc, ed. Divination et société dans la Chine médiévale: étude des manuscrits de Dunhuang de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de la British Library. Paris: Biblio­thèque Nationale de France, 2003. Kohn, Livia. “A Textbook of Physiognomy: The Tradition of the Shenxiang quanbian.” Asian Folklore Studies 45, no. 2 (1986): 227–258. Li Qiao 李橋. Hangye shen chongbai: Zhongguo minzhong zaoshen yundong yanjiu 行業 神崇拜：中國民衆造神運動研究 [The Cult of the Crafts’ Tutelary Gods: Studies on the Gods’ Creation Processes among Chinese]. Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 1999. Liu Huiping 劉惠萍. “Taohua nü dou Zhougong gushi yanjiu 桃花女鬥周公故事研究 [Research on the Story of the Fight between Zhougong and Peach Blossom].” Master’s thesis. Zhongguo wenhua daxue, 1992. Liu Ruiming 劉瑞明. “Hunli zhong de ‘bisha’ minsu tanxi: jianlun chunühong jinji shiyuan 婚禮中的避煞民俗探析— 兼論處女紅禁忌始源 [Inquiries into the Customs for Avoiding Murderous Influences during Weddings: With a Study of the Origin of the Taboo about Virginal Blood].” Sichuan daxue xuebao—Zhexue shehuikexue ban 四川大學學報– 哲學社會科學版 [Sichuan University Journal—Philosophy and Social Sciences Issue] 141 (June 2005): 95–102. Meulenbeld, Mark. “Civilized Demons: Ming Thunder Gods from Ritual to Literature.” Ph.D. thesis. Princeton University, 2006. Qian Hou Qi guo zhi 前後七國志 [Former and Latter Annals of the Seven Kingdoms]. Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1984. Sakade Yoshinobu. “Guigu zi.” In The Encyclopaedia of Taoism, edited by Fabrizio Pregadio, vol. 1, pp. 460–461. London: Routledge, 2008.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

148

Durand-dastès

Smith, Richard J. Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society. Boulder, CO: Westwiew Press, 1991. Taohua nü 桃花女 [Peach Blossom]. In Ming Qing shenhua xiaoshuo xuan 明清神話小 説選 [Selection of Mythological Novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties], edited by Zhang Ying 張穎 and Chen Su 陳速, pp. 217–301. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1988. Wan Qingchuan 萬晴川. “Gudai xiaoshuo yu zhanbu shu 古代小説與占卜術 [Ancient Novels and Mantic Techniques].” In Zhongguo gudai xiaoshuo yu fangshu wenhua 中 國古代小説與方術文化 [Ancient Chinese Novels and Magic Arts’ Culture], edited by Wang Qingchuan, pp. 164–237. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehuikexue chubanshe, 2005. Wang Dongshan 王東山. Guxian Taohua nü Zhougong jianglun zhenshu 古賢桃花女周 公講論鎮書 [Exorcistic Book of the Debates between the Ancient Saints the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl], corrected and printed by the “Taoist dwelling in the rock of clouds” Yunshiju daoren 雲石居道人. Qing dynasty print. Wang Guoliang 王國良. “Yinyang douyi shuo chuanqi (yinyang dou) si juan shiliu hui 陰陽鬥異說傳奇（陰陽鬥）四卷十六回 [Novel about the Tale of the Fight of Magic between the Yin and the Yang, in Four Scrolls and Sixteen Chapters].” In Zhongguo gudai xiaoshuo zongmu baihua juan 中國古代小說總目白話卷 [General Bibliography of the Ancient Chinese Novels: Volume about Vernacular Novels], edited by Shi Changyu, p. 493. Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004. Wu Cheng’en 吳承恩. Xiyou ji 西遊記 [The Journey to the West]. Beijing: Renmin wen­xue, 1988. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. “Lunyu” yizhu 論語譯注 [“The Analects,” with Translations and Annotations]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980. Yang, Erzeng. The Story of Han Xiangzi: The Alchemical Adventures of a Daoist Immortal. Ca. 1600. Translated by Philip Clart. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007. Zhizhi xinkan quanxiang Pinghua “Sanguo zhi” 至治新刊全相平話三國志 [Plain Tale of the “Annals of the Three Kingdoms,” Newly Carved and Entirely Illustrated during the Zhizhi Era]. In Yuankan quanxiang pinghua wuzhong jiaozhu 元刊全相平話五種校 注 [Five Plain Tales Illustrated and Carved during the Yuan Dynasty, Edited and Annotated], edited by Zhong Zhaohua 鈡兆華, pp. 371–501. Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1990. Zhong Zhaopeng 钟肇鹏. Chenwei lunlüe 讖緯論略 [A Brief Discussion of the Chenwei Texts]. Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991. Zhongguo congshu zonglu 中國叢書總錄 [General Bibliography of Chinese Collections]. 3 vols. Edited by Shanghai Library. Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 1986. Zhongguo xiqu zhi Anhui juan 中國戲曲志安徽卷 [Annals of the Traditional Chinese Theater: Anhui Province]. Beijing: Zhongguo ISBN zhongxin, 1993.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl

149

Part 2 Divination and Religions

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

150

Durand-dastès

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

151

Chapter 5

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon* Esther-Maria Guggenmos Mantic practices have been viewed with caution in the Buddhist tradition. Nevertheless, magic and mantic practices as practiced by the non-Buddhist social environment have been closely monitored in a passage hereafter called “the list of magic and mantic practices”. The list enumerates mantic arts one should abstain from and occurs several times in the Buddhist canon, most prominently in the Brahmajāla-Sūtra. This chapter provides the first scholarly comparison of all extant parallels of this passage across different Buddhist canons, including its Pāli and Chinese versions, and has assembled them in the appendix. It also provides an English translation of the remaining untranslated Chinese passage (T.21, Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網六十二見 經 [Sūtra on the 62 ( false) views of the Net of Brahmā as told by the Buddha], which probably was translated itself into Chinese by Zhi Qian 支謙, early 3rd century, see details below). In addition, this chapter offers a comparative perspective on the complex transformation process of mantic arts that are reflected in this list. Doing so not only sheds light on the spread of mantic techniques across Asia, it also elucidates exchange processes that shape the organization of mantic knowledge, including traditions in Mesopotamia, South Asia, and East Asia. The list of magic and mantic practices was originally formulated in an anti-brahmin Indian discursive context and was intended to accumulate as comprehensively as possible all kinds of mantic arts and magic spells. Consciously or unconsciously, the list probably was inspired by the order of mantic arts given in Mesopotamian omen tablets. During its spread from South to East Asia, the list either transformed into a rarely understood * Previous versions of this paper were presented at the IKGF Reading Session on June 14, 2012, the workshop “Caution and Creativity—Legitimizing and Conceptualizing Prognostic Practices in Chinese Buddhism” (Convenor: EMG), IKGF Erlangen, September 3–4, 2012, and at the German Orientalists’ Day, Münster, September 23, 2013. I am very much grateful to the Research Consortium in Erlangen for its steady and generous support of my research and to Gudrun Bühnemann, Bhikkhu Anālayo, Marc Kalinowski, my Erlangen colleagues, and many others for their detailed comments and their in-depth reading of previous versions of this paper. All remaining errors and misrepresentations certainly are mine alone.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_007

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

152

Guggenmos

and semantically difficult passage or changed its shape radically while adopting Chinese techniques of prognostication. The extensive list of magic and mantic practices1 has attracted academic attention since the early days of Buddhology, although the list has always been treated in its textual context. Together with Rhys Davids’ study,2 Otto Franke’s translation of the Pāli Brahmajāla Sutta (Skt: Brahmajāla Sūtra; hereafter abbreviated as BJS),3 which is part of the Dīghanikāya (The Long Discourses; hereafter cited as DN), was the first Western profound study that attempted to investigate in detail the meaning of this list of magic and mantic practices.4 Continued research on the Brahmajāla Sūtra and the Sāmaññyaphala Sutta (Skt: Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra; hereafter cited as SPS), entailed further work on the list. The passage’s occurrence as a separable unit in two prominent scriptures already hints to the fact that it made up a quite autonomous text unit that could be implemented in several sūtras. In the following, I intend to contextualize the respective passage in texts found in the Buddhist canon. This includes looking at its position in the Sāmaññyaphala-Sutta, the Brahmajāla-Sūtra as well as in other passages (1). In a second step, I offer a translation and structural analysis of the hitherto untranslated passage in T.21 (2) and relate it to the detailed and well-studied Pāli version of the passage in the Brahmajāla-Sūtra (3–4). I then venture into further comparative perspectives (5–10).

1 The term ‘magic practices’ is applied for practices that are based on a special knowledge which application shall induce an intentional result. The term ‘mantic practices’ is applied for practices that enable the practictioner with the help of special knowledge and through the interpretation of defined signs to gain knowledge about future developments and events. 2 Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha. 3 In the following, if Buddhist names and terminology are given in their Indian counterparts, they are transcribed according to their Sanskrit expression, but not if they are situated directly in a Pāli context. 4 See Franke, “D.I. Brahmajāla-Sutta,” 1–47, here 13–21. The Pāli text itself has been edited by T.W. Rhys Davids and Estlin Carpenter (Rhys Davids, The Dīgha Nikāya, 2–46). Numerous translations of the DN exist, for example: Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Brahmajālasūtra, 1–55 (Mahāsīlas, 16–26); SPS, 65–95 (This does not contain the Mahāsīla section); Franke, “D.I. Brahmajāla-Sutta,” see above, French: Bloch, Canon Bouddhique Pāli. Texte et Traduction, 9–11, Modern Chinese: Duan Qing, Hanyi Bali Sanzang, Jingzang, Changbu, 9–11. A more recent English translation of the Dīghanikāya is by Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 71–73.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

1

153

Overview of the Extant Parallels

Let us first turn to the Sāmaññyaphala Sutta as it is found in the Pāli canon.5 In its comparative study, Meisig identifies the “Sermon of the Tathāgata” (“Tathāgata-Predigt”) as an independent, later insertion into the text. Among other reasons, this sermon is also contained in other sūtras and would not particularly fit into the logic of the story of the SPS.6 Meisig describes the structure of the “Tathāgata-Predigt” as follows: After a threefold list of rules of discipline—the small, medium-sized and large ones (cūla, majjhima, and mahā sīlā)—practices of concentration (“meditative Übungen”) are described, followed by a passage on supernatural powers (“übernatürliche Fähigkeiten”). The list of magic and mantic practices is part of the mahā sīlā list of rules. The first section of the Dīghanikāya comprises the thirteen suttas of the Sīlakkhan­dhavagga and contains, according to Norman, the oldest stratum of the Dīghanikāya. The rules of discipline in which the list of magic and mantic practices is incorporated are to be found in each of the suttas in this section. Most of the suttas also follow the rest of the structure of the “TathāgataPredigt”; that is, they embed the moral rules into the training of a monk in three stages, from moral conduct, to the practice of concentration and, finally, the mastery of full knowledge (corresponding to the ‘supernatural powers’ of Meisig’s description).7 The list of moral rules, however, seems to be most complete in the SPS.8 While Meisig, Ramers, and others have studied the SPS intensively,9 the Brahmajāla Sūtra has also attracted wide attention.

5 DN I, 47.1–86.8. Table 5.1 provides an overview of the extant parallels. 6 Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 35–37. This argumentation is under discussion and has to be taken with caution, see Freiberger, Der Orden in der Lehre, 73–74, note 165. 7 Norman, Pāli Literature, 32–33. 8 In other suttas of this vagga, it is shortened to a simple phrase, that is meant as an exhortation to recite the whole passage without noting it down, see also Meisig, Das “Śrā­maṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 36: “Nicht Teile der TP [Tathāgata-Predigt] werden in den anderen, d.h. folgenden, suttas genannt, sondern alle folgenden suttas des Sīlakkhandavagga (mit Ausnahme des Kassa­­pasīhanādasutta) enthalten die TP in voller Länge, wie aus den redaktionellen Abkürzungsanweisungen eindeutig hervorgeht. (Vgl. z.B. DN I, 100) Daß nur im SPS der volle Wortlaut gegeben wird, liegt einfach daran, daß es als erstes in der Reihe dieser suttas steht; entsprechend wird im DA nicht im SPS, sondern in der Entsprechung zum Ambaṭṭhasutta die TP ausführlich zitiert. Dort erscheint eben das Ambaṭṭhasutta als erstes in der Reihe der die TP enthaltenden Lehrreden” (Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 36). 9 Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”; MacQueen, A Study of the “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”; ­Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

154

Guggenmos

The Brahmajāla Sutta opens the Pāli Buddhist canon and is followed by the Sāmaññyaphala Sutta that stands second in the first section, named the Sīlakkhandhavagga. In the BJS, the pattern of the “Tathāgata-Predigt” is not followed as a whole, but the discourse on moral rules is followed by the explanation of sixty-two philosophical views (Skt.: dṛṣṭi, Pāli: diṭṭhi) of other ascetics and Brahmins, that are considered false. Studies of the BJS are often concerned with the later sixty-two views, as they offer insights into the philosophical views held in India in the early Buddhist period.10 The moral rules are elaborated upon in detail in the BJS and the SPS, the first two suttas of the Sīlak­ khandhavagga, while in the following they are replaced by abbreviations that refer to the complete versions of the beginning of the canon. Turning from the Pāli canon to the Chinese canon, the first observation is that the Dīrghāgama (Ch. Chang ahan jing 長阿含經), which is the collection of sūtras that corresponds to the Dīghanikāya (DN), also opens the Buddhist canon. However, the Dīrghāgama (DA) follows a different order: The first vagga of the Dīghanikāya contains thirteen suttas. This material corresponds to ten sūtras only in the third varga of the Dīrghāgama.11 Also, the order of the texts in the Chinese canon is different: the third varga now starts with the AmbaṭṭhaSutta (AS); this material came third in the Pāli canon. The Brahmajāla Sūtra comes second. The Soṇadaṇḍa-Sutta is now third wheras it came fourth in the Pāli canon. The SPS is postponed to the eighth position in this third varga. In general, the opening sūtras provide the passage in full while the following sūtras shorten it. Consistent with this pattern, the SPS only briefly refers to the moral rules;12 the Chinese Ambaṭṭha-Sutta13 and the Chinese BJS14 of the DA 10

11

12

13 14

Dutt, “The Brahmajāla Sutta (in the light of Nāgārjuna’s expositions)”; Syrkin, “On the Beginning of the Sutta Piṭaka (The Brahmajāla Sutta)”; Evans, “Epistemology of the Brahmajāla Sutta”; Anālayo, “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study”; “Liushi’er jian” de bijiao yanjiu; “Views of the Tathāgata—A Comparative Study and Translation of the Brahmajāla in the Chinese Dīrgha-āgama” including its bibliography. DN 6, 7, and 10 are missing. This comparison follows Akanuma, The Comparative Catalogue of Chinese Āgamas & Pāli Nikāyas, 5–6, which equals Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, 235–238. Certainly, a mere comparison of titles might overlook the fact that passages from the missing sūtras could feature elsewhere, in other sūtras. T.1, I: 109b7–12. T.1, I: 109b7 means: Taishō no. 1, vol. 1, page 109, second of three printing sections (that is in the middle), seventh line from the right. The Taishō is the standard reference for the Chinese Buddhist canon, Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, 1926 ff. The abbreviations employed in the following are based on this pattern. DA 20, Amozhou jing 阿摩晝經, T.1, I: 82a5–88b8. DA 21, Fandong jing 梵動經, T.1, I: 88b12–94a14.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

155

are virtually identical in formulating the śīla section, and both contain the fulllength passage on magic and mantic practices. The different order of the texts is comprehensible if one keeps in mind that the Dīghanikāya (DN) and the Dīrghāgama (DA) are attributed to different Buddhist schools: While the Pāli DN is generally attributed to the Theravāda tradition, the Chinese DA (T.1) is attributed to the school of the Dharma­ guptakas.15 The whole of the DA is considered to have been translated into Chinese in the late Qin dynasty (Hou Qin 後秦, 384–417); it may have been translated in bce 412/13 by the polyglot Chinese Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 on the basis of the recitation of the Indian text by the Kashmirian monk Buddhayaśas (Ch. Fotuoyeshe 佛陀耶舍).16 Leaving the DA translation of Zhu Fonian and Buddhayaśas, the Chinese Buddhist Canon provides with T.21 and T.22 two translations of the Brah­ majāla-sūtra and the SPS, that contain the passage on magic and mantic practices at greater length:17 the Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網 15

The Eighteen Schools of Early Buddhism are not defined consistently nor are their partitions into schools and their offshoots. Vinītadeva (c. 645–715) distinguishes four major schools: the Sthaviras make up one section, while the Sarvāstivāda with the Dharmaguptakas in it would make up another (see Keown, Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, 84). 16 The year is given according to the Taishō. It should be noted that the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasty editions of the canon do not determine the year precisely, but leave it within the Later Qin period (後秦弘始年 is replaced by 姚秦三藏法師; T.1, I: 88b11). The polyglot Zhu Fonian may possibly be reconstructed as *Buddhasmṛti (*Buddhānusmṛti according to personal communication with Bhikkhu Anālayo, who is critical about the reconstruction as such. This reconstruction is reflected in Legittimo, “Buddhānusmṛti between Worship and Meditation,” 351). He came from Liangzhou 涼州, arrived in Chang’an in the year 365, worked, and died there (Hōbōgirin, 258). The Hōbōgirin mentions Buddhayaśas as stemming from Kashmir, having visited Kashgar, Kucha, Gansu, having arrived at Chang’an in bce 408 and having worked there until bce 412. He went to Lushan 廬山 and finally returned to Kashmir (Hōbōgirin, 238). See also the account on Buddhayaśas from the Biographies of Eminent Monks, Gaoseng Zhuan 高僧傳, T2059, L:333c15–334b25, especially 334b20–25. Jonathan Silk discusses the involvement of Buddhayaśas in the translation process and concludes: “In any case, whether Buddhayaśas was from Khotan, Kashmir, Gandhāra or Tokharistan, he is equally unlikely to have been educated in Chinese in any of those lands, and it is much safer and more reasonable for us to assume his ignorance of that language than the contrary.” (Silk, Body Language, 81–82). 17 Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra” and Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, both provide in their introductions a comprehensive overview of the extant versions of the SPS (referring to Bapat, “The Sramanyaphala-sutra and its different versions in Buddhist Literature”), from which I have identified those that contain the passage on mantic practices at greater length. For the case of Chinese, this is

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

156

Guggenmos

六十二見經18 and the Jizhiguo jing 寂志果經.19

According to the Taishō, the Sūtra on the 62 ( false) views as told by the Buddha (T.21) was translated by Zhi Qian 支謙, an Upāsaka (i.e., a male lay disciple) from the Indo-Scythian Yuezhi 月支.20 As I will provide a translation of the passage on magic and mantic practices of this sūtra—it is the only passage that remains untranslated to date—let us take a brief look at the authorship of this sūtra. Nattier, in her thorough study of early Chinese Buddhist texts, does not consider T.21 to be among the texts translated by Zhi Qian (died around bce 252).21 Her considerations start from the book catalogues, like that of Sengyou 僧祐, that fail to mention the title of this text. Another problem is the fact that Zhi Qian’s name is occasionally confused with the name of another translator, Lokakṣema (born 147 CE)—given as Zhi Chen 支讖 in the Chinese sources. It seems difficult to establish even something like a “core-group” of Zhi Qian’s texts due to his extraordinarily diverse style. Following Nattier, Zhi Qian had repeatedly “polish[ed] and complet[ed] an already existing work,” as he describes his own work in a foreword.22 Considering a “Wu scriptual idiom”,23 Nattier states that Zhi Qian’s translation style shares much in common with the translations of Kang Senghui 康僧會 (died bce 280), another translator also stemming from the same region, Wu 吳, at around the same time. She mentions that these translators made “liberal use of ideas and terminology drawn from indigenous Chinese religion”24—a fact that might be noteworthy in the context of magic and mantic practices. In an investigation into the Weimojie jing 維摩詰經 (Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra)—a work that can be attributed with confidence to Zhi Qian—Seishi Karashima compared the existing version with new Sanskrit fragments of the text and concluded: “[W]e discover immediately that the translator frequently mixed especially relevant for T.1450, XXIV: 205b16–206a14 and for T.125, II: 762a7–764b12. For further details on the texts, see Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, 3–5, here 4 for T.1450, and Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 11–23, here 16–23 for T.125. The same approach has been followed regarding the extant versions of the BJS in Anālayo, “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study,” and “‘Liushi’er jian’ de bijiao yanjiu”: Besides T.21 and the DA version, Anālayo notes a quotation of the BJS in T.1548, the Shelifu apitan lun 舍利弗阿毘曇論, Śāriputrābhidharmaśāstra (Anālayo, “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study,” 24), which is irrelevant to our case. 18 Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網六十二見經, T.21, I: 264a19–270c22. 19 Jizhiguo jing 寂志果經 T.22, I: 270c26–276b7. 20 T.21, I: 264a22. 21 Nattier, A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations, 116–148. 22 Ibid., 125. 23 Ibid., 152. 24 Ibid., 151. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

157

up Middle Indic and Sanskrit,” for which Karashima gives illustrative examples.25 We must consider T.21 as a text by an unknown author. Keeping in mind the still possible attribution to Zhi Qian, when reading T.21, we must consider the possibility of a) incoherent vocabulary, and b) actual misinterpretations showing up in the translation due to misunderstandings of the original Middle Indic dialect from which it was translated. This includes the tendency to merge distinct words into homomorphic expressions. Without a known author, the date of the text must remain uncertain, but it may also date to the first half of the third century—roughly two hundred years before the translation of the Dīrghāgama (DA) by Zhu Fonian and Buddhayaśas. T.22, the Jizhiguo jing 寂志果經, a translation of the SPS, was probably rendered into Chinese between bce 381 and 395 by (Zhu) Tanwulan (竺) 曇無蘭.26 The attribution to a specific Buddhist school is difficult. The original from which it was translated seems to have had Pracritic facets.27 Konrad Meisig, in providing a German translation of the passage of interest to us, recognizes a strong interconnection between T.22 and the recently edited Sanskrit manuscript of the SPS. This Sanskrit version of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra was discovered after 1950 within the Gilgit Manuscripts (dated to around the 6th/7th centuries) as part of the Saṅghabhedavastu (SBV). It was edited by Gnoli in 1977/78. The Sanskrit manuscript can be attributed to the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya, which was translated into Tibetan in the eighth/nineth centuries. Therefore, the Sanskrit SPS and the Tibetan translation appear to be very closely related to each other, although Meisig does not go into a detailed comparison.28 The Sanskrit versions of the Brahmajāla Sūtra survived as fragments only. As far as I can ascertain, no fragments of the passage on magic and mantic practices have survived.29

25

Karashima, “Underlying Languages of Early Chinese translations of Buddhist Scriptures,” 363. 26 Name reconstructed as *Dharmaratna, according to Pelliot, “Meou-tseu ou les doutes levés,” 344, also quoted by Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 19. 27 Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 19–23. 28 Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 11–12; see also the comparative text study of Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra. 29 Anālayo “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study,” 24–25, provides an overview of the extant passages of the Sanskrit Brahmajāla Sūtra. See also Hartmann, “Fragmente aus dem Dīrghāgama der Sarvāstivādins,” 46–57, who identifies four fragments collected in the edition Sanskrithandschriften aus den Turfanfunden, SHT (III) 803, SHT (III) 882b, SHT (V) 1571, SHT (VI) 1248 and 1356, and one fragment No. 4189 from the Berliner Turfan ­Collection. The fragments that he analyses are closely connected to the Tibetan translation rendered into German by Weller. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

158

Guggenmos

Table 5.1

Overview of the extant versions of the detailed passage on mantic practices and the available translations

Language

Pāli

Sanskrit

Mahāśīla text passage

In all 13 suttas of the Sīlakkhandavagga, the first section of the Dhīghanikāya (DN), but ­abbreviated. In full length in the first and second sūtras:

Saṅghabhedavastu (SBV) = Gnoli ms. edition, Skt. SPS

Brahmajāla Sūtra (BJS, DN I,1,21–27) Śrāmaṇyaphala Sūtra (SPS, DN I,2,56–62)

Modern ­Translations

Annotated trsl. of BJS:

Comparative analysis:

– (English) Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, 16–26.

– Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, 287–418.

– (German) Franke, “D.I. Brahmajāla-Sutta,” 13–21. – (English) Walshe, The Long ­Discourses of the Buddha, 71–73.

– Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, esp. 246–260.

– (French) Bloch, Canon Bouddhique Pāli, 9–11. – (Modern Chinese) Duan Qing, Hanyi Bali Sanzang, Jingzang, Changbu, 9–11.

Regarding the Tibetan and Mongolian translation, the passage on magic and mantic practices has been translated as part of the BJS by Friedrich Weller. Weller studied the BJS in philological depth across Pāli, Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian sources to elucidate the relations between the different Buddhist canons.30 The basis for Weller’s Tibetan translation is the Tshangs pa’i sgra ba’i 30

Weller, “Über die Brahmajāla-sutta”; “Brahmajālasutra”: Tibetischer und Mongolischer Text; “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra”; “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

Tibetan/Mongolian

Chinese DA (T.1, Sūtras 20 and 21)

Chinese T.21

Tibetan and Mongolian closely interrelated, Tib.: Tshangs pa‘i sgra ba‘i mdo

BJS trsl.: In the 3rd varga of the Dīrghāgama (DA), in full Foshuo fanwang length in the first and liushi’er jian jing 佛 second sūtras: 說梵網六十二見 經, T.21 1) Amozhou jing 阿摩 晝經, that is AmbaṭṭhaSutta (AS)

159

Chinese T.22 SPS trsl.: Jizhiguo jing 寂志 果經, T.22

2) Fandong jing 梵動經 (FDJ), a BJS trsl. (nearly identical passages) Weller, “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra,” 5. Anālayo, “The ‘Sixty-two Views,’” and his “Liushi’er jian” de bijiao yanjiu work with another Tib. trsl., the Abhidharmakośopāyikāṭīkā.

1) German trsl. of AS in Meisig, Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”, 246–260. 2) Trsl. of FDJ: Weller, “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama,” 219 (I.B.11)–222 (I.B.16)

translated in this article (The introduction of T.21 is translated by Weller, “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama,” the philosophical part by Anālayo, “The ‘Sixtytwo Views.’”)

trsl. into German by Meisig, Das “ŚrāmaṇyaphalaSūtra”, 246–260.

mdo (1 fasc.), whose translator is unknown. The text can be dated to after the eighth century.31 The Tibetan and Mongolian versions of the BJS are so closely related that Weller uses the Mongolian version to certify the readings of the former. The passage on magic and mantic practices in the Tibetan canon is 31

Anālayo, “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study,” 24–25 mentions and works with a second Tibetan quotation of the BJS in Śamathadeva’s commentary on the Abhi­ dharmakośa, the Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā, Q (5595).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

160

Guggenmos

relatively short32 in comparison with the Pāli version and occurs in a quite different context. Weller identifies it as an “unorganic insertion” (“unorganischer Einschub”): “Man kann sich die Sachlage nur so erklären, daß die §§20/21 in einen älteren Textbestand eingeschoben wurden und zwar von einem jüngeren Bearbeiter des älteren Textes.”33 Weller notes also that the Sanskrit BJS should be considered as a compilation of texts of different origins.34 However, as the passage on magic and mantic practices appears to be a later insertion into the text, Weller’s further elaboration on the relationship between the different translations of the BJS35 needs not be dealt with here. One should note that the Fanwang jing 梵網經 (T.1484), is also referred to as the Brahmajāla-sūtra. This is probably a Chinese indigenous imitation of the Brahmajāla-sūtra and became far more influential than the BJS itself. We will examine two chapters of this text in more detail after the direct comparison presented below. 2

The Enumeration of Mantic Practices in the Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing

As can be seen from this overview, only the passage in T.21 has remained untranslated to date. This passage is presented here:36 Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網六十二見經, 卷1 (CBETA, T.21, I: 265a14–b17)

Sūtra on the 62 views of the Net of Brahmā as told by the Buddha, 1 fascicle.

[Each passage is framed by the same formula:] [a14] 有異道人，[a15]受人信施 食，作畜生業　[Taishō annotation: 以 inserted here in the Song, Yuan, and Ming Canon]自給 活，[..., enumeration follows] [a19] 佛皆離是事。

[Each passage is framed by the same formula:]

32 33 34 35 36

[a14] There are people apart from the Way [Pāli: micchājīvena, a wrong course of life], [a15] who receive food that people give faithfully, and follow an animal [like] occupation [Pāli: tiracchāna-vijjāya] [Taishō annotation: The Song, Yuan, and Ming edition of the Buddhist canon support the finalis reading] to support themselves [..., enumeration follows] [a19]—The Buddha draws away from all these affairs.

§20 in Weller’s translation, Weller, “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra,” 5. See also appendix. Weller, “Über die Brahmajāla-sutta,” 404. Ibid., 411. Compare the graph in Weller, “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra,” 424. The passage is numbered by the author.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網六十二見經, 卷1 (CBETA, T.21, I: 265a14–b17) Passage 1: 1. [a15] 作鬼神事[a16] 2. 作衣被 3. 作自醫 [Taishō annotation: 自is written as目 in the Yuan and Ming edition] 4. 作女人座醫 5. 作呪嬈[a17]女人往來之時 6. 持草化作美食與人食之[a18] 便詐隨索好物 7. 化盧服與人能令飛行 [Taishō annotation: 盧 written as 廬 in the Yuan and Ming edition.] Passage 2: 1. [a20]持藥與人使吐 Passage 3: 1. [a22] 呼人言使東西行 [Taishō annotation: 呼 written as 手 in the Song edition] 2. 呪令共鬪諍訟相撾捶人[a23] 墮人著地

3. 呪女人使傷胎 4. 以葦呪著人臂[a24] [Taishō annotation: 臂written as 譬 in the Song edition] Passage 4: 1. [a25]持薪然火

161

Sūtra on the 62 views of the Net of Brahmā as told by the Buddha, 1 fascicle.

1. [a15] by engaging in demon and spirit affairs, [a16] 2. by making clothes and bedding [to make a living], 3. by doing their own medical treatments [Taishō annotation: “treatment of the eyes” instead of reflexivum for the Yuan and Ming edition, typographically closely related], 4. by providing afterbirth medical treatment for a woman [?; something gynaecological, not sure what exactly], 5. by casting spells, when a charming [a17] woman comes, 6. by taking [simple] plants, making delicious food out of them and giving it to people to eat [a18] [in order to] take the chance to cheat [them while] pursuing better things, 7. by transforming black clothes [exact meaning unclear; Taishō annotation: “cottage” instead of “black” in the Yuan and Ming edition; probably a typographical error] and giving them to people to enable them to fly. 1. [a20] by taking medicine, giving it to people, and causing them to spit. 1. [a22] by calling people and, by speaking, causing them to move [that is travel unnecessarily?] around [literally: to the east and west] [Taishō annotation: “hand” instead of “calling” in the Song edition; typographical error], 2. by using spells to cause a public struggle, to contest a lawsuit, to cause people to fight with each other, [a23] or to cause someone to strike someone else so that he falls to the ground, 3. by using spells on a woman to harm the fetus in her womb, 4. by casting a spell with [the help of] a reed and attaching it to someone’s [as an amulet] [Taishō annotation: “example” instead of “arm” in the Song edition; typographical error]. 1. [a25] by taking firewood and lighting a fire,

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

162

Guggenmos

(cont.)

Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing Sūtra on the 62 views of the Net of Brahmā as told by 佛說梵網六十二見經, 卷1 the Buddha, 1 fascicle. (CBETA, T.21, I: 265a14–b17) 2. 呪栗皮毒蒲萄子作烟 [Taishō annotation: 萄 written as 陶 in the Song edition] [a26]

3. 呪鼠傷殺人 4. 學呪知人生死時[a27] Passage 5: 1. [a28] 一人言當大雨 一人言當小雨[a29] 2. 一人言米穀當豐熟 一人言不熟[b1] 3. 一人言米穀當貴 一人言當賤 4. 一人言當大病疫[b2] 一人言不 5. 一人言當有賊來破壞此國[b3] 6. 一人言當有大死亡 7. 一人言當有崩王 當有立王 [b4] 8. 一人言地當大動 一人言不 9. 一人言月當蝕[b5] 一人言月不蝕 10. 一人言日當蝕[b6] 一人言日不蝕 11. 一人言日從東西行 一人言從西東行[b7] 12. 一人言月星宿從東西行[b8] 一人言從西東行 13. 用是故有吉西 [Taishō annotation: 西 is written as 凶 in the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions] [b9] 14. 一人言用是故日月星宿從東 西行

2. [by] casting a spell on chestnut skin and poisonous grape seeds for creating smoke [meaning unclear; there are poisonous grape seeds, but the implicated ritual is unknown to me; Taishō annotation: in the Song edition, the word “grapes” is written in the second character with “pottery”/ “to model”; this is a miswriting] [a26], 3. by casting a spell on mice to hurt and kill people, 4. by learning to cast spells to find out when people were born and when they will die. [a27] 1. [a28] Someone says there will be a lot of rain; someone says there will be a small amount of rain. [a29] 2. Someone says rice and corn will be plentiful and ripe; someone says they will not be ripe. [b1] 3. Someone says rice and corn will be expensive; someone says they will be cheap. 4. Someone says there will be a big epidemic; [b2] someone says not. 5. Someone says that a traitor will come and destroy this state. [b3] 6. Someone says there will be widespread death. 7. Someone says that the emperor will die, or a king will emerge. [b4] 8. Someone says the earth will move greatly; someone says not. 9. Someone says there will be an eclipse of the moon; [b5] someone says there will not be an eclipse of the moon. 10. Someone says there will be an eclipse of the sun; [b6] someone says there will not be an eclipse of the sun. 11. Someone says the sun moves from east to west; someone says it moves from west to east. [b7] 12. Someone says the moon and stellar lodges [Skt.: nakṣatras] go from east to west; [b8] someone says they go from west to east. 13. Taking this as a reason, there will be fortune and misfortune [reading of the Taishō annotation is chosen here: “misfortune” instead of “west,” as in the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions]. [b9] 14. Someone says that, taking this as a reason, there will be sun, moon, and stellar lodges moving from east to west. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

163

Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing Sūtra on the 62 views of the Net of Brahmā as told by 佛說梵網六十二見經, 卷1 the Buddha, 1 fascicle. (CBETA, T.21, I: 265a14–b17) 15. 一人言用是故日月星出[b10] 一人言用是故日月星入 16. 一人言雲當覆日[b11] 一人言當出於雲 一人言天當清無雲[b12] Passage 6: 1. [b13] 一人言此國王當往破彼 國[b14] 彼國王當來破此國 2. 一人言此國王車馬畜少[b15] 3. 為人解夢 4. 呪人使不能語 5. 令人口噤[b16] 6. 為人書取其價 7. 為人持校計取其價 [Taishō annotation: 校 written as 衣 in the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions] [b17] 8. 分別好惡色取其價

15. Someone says, taking this as a reason, there will be sun, moon and stars appearing; [b10] someone says, taking this as a reason, the sun, moon and stars will disappear. 16. Someone says clouds will cover the sun. [b11] Someone says [the sun] will emerge from the clouds. Someone says the sky will be clear and cloudless. [b12] 1. [b13] Someone says the king of this state will go and destroy that state. [b14] [Someone says] the king of that state will go and destroy this state. 2. Someone says the chariots, horses, and domestic animals of the king of this state are few. [b15] 3. By explaining dreams to people, 4. by casting a spell on people to prevent them from speaking, 5. by ordering people to shut their mouth [exact meaning unclear], [b16] 6. by writing for people and taking one’s price for it, 7. by doing accounting [that is counting the balance and checking the result against the actual account] for people and taking one’s price for it, [Taishō annotation: in the verb “to do accounting” (jiaoji), the first part is miswritten as “clothes” in the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions] [b17] 8. by dividing good and bad forms [that is do physiognomy] [or: evaluate the good and bad aspect of a situation] and taking one’s price for it.

The above enumeration of actions from which one should abstain is divided into six passages, each framed by the same sentence. The passages make a quite inconsistent impression: they vary greatly in length—passage 2 consists of one expression only, while others are much longer. At first glance, it seems difficult to see a connection between the elements mentioned in passage 1. Also, in the last passage, there is a sudden change from a monotonous introduction of a prediction to an enumeration of the services one can perform for people in return for payment. Two main forms dominate the six passages: on the one hand, it is about casting spells, especially ones that harm other people. These spells (zhou 咒) are addressed toward individuals or single actions, not to

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

164

Guggenmos

society as a whole. On the other hand, actions that affect the whole of society are given in the form of predictions. Let us take a closer look at the spells. There are spells that are made “when a charming woman comes” (passage 1). Passage 3 mentions spells that intend to cause social unrest (public struggle, contesting a lawsuit, causing conflict between people, causing serious fights between people), but also spells for injuring a fetus and a spell connected to an armband. Also, passage 4 is dominated by spells—spells cast on smoke or for making smoke, spells cast on mice to harm people, and spells that provide knowledge about birth and death. The last two passages are—despite the very final elements—all predictions framed in the same manner through the expression “someone says” (yi ren yan 一人言). Most of these predictions are given as paired contradictions and they all miss the omina on which basis the predictions are made. This could be interpreted as expressing the randomness of the predictions. However, in general, the Buddhist tradition does not negate the functioning of mantic practices, but stresses their non-helpful impact on the practitioner and their danger to the monastic community.37 Thus, it might be that these contradictory statements mainly illustrate the breadth of the possible predictions or hint at the fact that, regardless of whether these predictions are favorable or not, they are to be abstained from.38 The predictions cover topics like the weather, harvest yields, the price of grain, epidemics, state dangers, deadly calamities, the empe­ror’s death, earthquakes, eclipses, and other movements of the sun, moon, stellar lodges, and clouds in the sky. The enumeration continues in passage 6, with predictions about wars between states and the prosperity of a king. Then a break occurs by enumerating dream divination together with spells for silencing people and three kinds of paid services: writing, accounting, and doing physiognomy for people. It is also noteworthy that, shortly before the end of passage 5, the pattern of argumentation changes: one should abstain not only from predicting certain events but also from making a connection between events by taking them as the cause of movements of the sun, moon and stellar lodges.

37

38

In general, one might state that, according to the vinaya and the Bodhisattva precepts, the mantic arts are not doubted with regard to their efficacy; rather the purpose for performing them is problematic: if they are conducted to make a living, it endangers the social prestige of the monastic community and, therefore, threatens the basis for the survival of Buddhist teaching. See also below. The passage also strongly calls to the mind the way in which answers in oracle bone predictions are examined.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

165

Table 5.2 Overview of the list of magic and mantic practices in T.21

Passages 1–4: Magic practices Passage 1: Various magic practices – do “demon stuff” – tailoring – practicing as a physician – practicing as a gynaecologist – uttering a spell when a charming woman comes – cheating people through cooking something nice – transforming clothes and enabling people to fly Passage 2: Causing people to vomit through medicine Passage 3: Spells against people – ordering people around – using spells to cause struggle – using spells to injure a fetus – casting a spell through an armband Passage 4: More special spells against people, learning the death-time spell – making fire, special chestnut-poisonous grape-smoke spell – a spell on mice to hurt people – learning spells to determine others’ death and birth times Passage 5: Predictions – weather – harvest – grain prices – epidemics – state danger – deathly disasters – death of a king – earthquakes  – sky movements: eclipses, west-east-movement – claiming something as the reason for sky movements – cloud predictions Passage 6a: Predictions continued – war against another state – prosperity of a king Passage 6b: Other various activities – dream divination – muting people – making people be silent (?) – paid service to people: writing, accounting and doing physiognomy

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

166

Guggenmos

Besides the two dominating forms of the enumeration—the spells and the predictions, both of which one should avoid—especially in passage 1, various ‘magic’ activities are mentioned as unbecoming to Buddhist conduct: engaging in ‘demon affairs,’ tailoring, acting as a doctor, also toward females, cheating people through cooking something nice for them, enabling people to fly through transforming their clothes, (passage 2:) causing people to vomit through taking medicine, (passage 3:) sending people around, and (passage 4:) making fire. The last one might be connected to the chestnut-skin spell. 3

Structural Comparisons

How far does this enumeration resemble the transmitted Indian and Tibetan/ Mongolian versions and are there similarities to be discovered with the received Chinese versions of the text? At first sight, it is tempting to make a detailed comparison between the received texts. Friedrich Weller attempted to take the study of the Brahmajāla-Sūtra including the passage on magic and mantic practices as a starting point for elucidating the relation within and the genesis of the Buddhist canon as a whole. However, the textual account is far too complex to draw simple conclusions and the translated passage above can at best serve as a basis for a specialist in Pracritic dialects to discover possible (mis-)understandings in the Chinese text with respect to an underlying language. In the given frame of an article, it seems reasonable to make a structural comparison of the received texts that might reveal the choices that particular authors and translators made when shaping their texts.39 When trying to grasp their meaning, what choices did authors and translators make to describe unfamiliar practices? It is their choices in giving meaning to these practices in their own cultural context that might tell us something about the extant organizational modes of magic and mantic knowledge of their time. 4

The Pāli Brahmajāla Sutta

Let us first turn to the most frequently translated version, that of the Pāli Brah­ majāla Sutta. The mahā sīlā section consists of seven paragraphs (§§21–27, see appendix). As in the case of T.21, they are all framed through the same sentence struc­ture as follows: 39

All extant parallels of the list of magic and mantic practices are given in the appendix together with the respective translations.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

167

Or he might say: Whereas some recluses and Brahm[i]ns, while living on food provided by the faithful, earn their living by wrong means of livelihood, by low arts, such as these: [... enumeration of magic and mantic arts] Gotama, the recluse holds aloof from such low arts.40 The structuring of the Pāli account follows the categorical terms that group the magic and mantic practices with the general intention of providing a comprehensive overview of the practices. In terms of the seven paragraphs, one could take the first two (§§21–22) together as providing an overview of magic, mantic and other practices in general: physiognomy, (close) omina divination, happenings-in-nature divination, dream divination, divination by clothes—or the belief that it brings misfortune to wear clothes that have been gnawed by mice and rats, foretelling the end of life, charms to ward off arrows, knowing the language of animals, various sacrifices (homa), various arcane arts (vijjā), and various lakkhaṇaṃ (§22), that comprise the knowledge of the (protective) qualities of things, people and animals. The sentence patterns of §§23 to 25 (1–4) form a clear semantic unit already through the copula “bhavissati”—“There will be...” They comprise three kinds of predictions: 1) political counseling (§23), 2) major happenings in the sky, mainly astronomical happenings, but including earthquakes and thunder­ storms (§24), and 3) events of social relevance like a) weather forecasts, b) food provisions, c) social unrest, and d) epidemics (§25). The last five words of §25 are quite unexpected and do not fit well into the context: they are an enumeration of human activities that are obviously seen as harmful (finger counting, high number counting, high number guessing, composing poetry, and explanations of nature). In their inner structure, §§23–25 resemble closely the predictions of T.21 (passages 5–6). With §26, the enumeration starts anew and comprises the choice of day (1–3), spells and charms (4–8), oracles (9) and worship and invocation of gods (10, 12). §27 is quite inhomogeneous, with its enumeration ranging from vows, to charms in earthen houses and concerning sexual power, geomancy, purification, medical treatment, practicing as a physician, and providing medical care. Two (earthen house charms, bhūri-, and geomancy, vathu-) expressions from §21 (8) are repeated, but these are categorized as -kammaṃ instead of -vijjā.

40

Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, 16–19.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

168

Guggenmos

§27 slides smoothly from mantic to medical knowledge. It might be taken together with §26. The end of §25 may be an independent insertion, or it has to be seen together with §26–27. All in all, this list, being far longer than the passage in T.21, provides a panorama of knowledge and practices, ranging from sacrifices over mantic arts up to medical treatments. The enumeration might be held together by designating the arts as Brahmanic (see below). The passage is structured in three major parts (§§ 21–22; 23–25; 26–27). The first part might intend to give an overview of magic and mantic practices, enlarging on the recognition of certain qualities. The second part is an overview of predictions concerning military actions by states, phenomena in the sky and events beyond the influence of people that affect society at large (like droughts). The third part tries again to give an overview of the knowledge of special power; this is explained as ranging from day selection, to spells, oracle practices, and divine worship. It starts again with an overview and ends with the topic of medical treatment. Table 5.3 Simplified overview of the structure of the respective Pāli list of magic and mantic practices

§21 §22 §23 §24 §25

§27

overview. various forms of sacrifice (homa) and sorts of knowledge (vijjā) lakkhaṇas—knowledge of (protective) qualities state predictions (bhavissati) social predictions (astronomical) (bhavissati) social predictions (weather, harvests) (bhavissati) numerical issues and other sophisticated material day selection spells oracles cults new start with some repetition floating into medical knowledge

5

Other Parallels

§26

The Sanskrit parallel has been compared in detail with the Pāli account by Ramers.41 In general, the parts of the text resemble each other quite closely, but follow a different order: The beginning of the text is parallel, but afterwards 41 Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

169

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

follows the first part of §27, then §22, the second part of §27, and then §§ 26, 25, 23, 24. Therefore the order of the Sanskrit parallel is slightly reversed and the logic of its composition is less easily recognizable than in the Pāli account. The Tibetan parallel includes astronomical events only. It comprises one passage and enumerates in §20 the proper and aberrant movements of the sun and moon, as well as comets and thunder. The rise, fall, haziness, and clarity of each of the heavenly bodies has to be interpreted as due to their right or wrong course. The passage corresponds roughly to §24 of the Pāli version. The Chinese parallel, T.22, the Jizhiguo jing, follows quite closely the structure of the Sanskrit version: Table 5.4 Comparison between the structure of the list of magic and mantic practices in the Jizhiguo jing, T.22, and the respective Sanskrit passage

Pāli text §21 paragraphs as ordered in Sanskrit msa Corresponding ten paragraphs of T.22

1+2

§27a

§22

§27b

§26

§25

§23

§24

5

3

6

7

8

9 + 10

a Following the structural comparison of the SBV with the Pāli text order in Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, 24.

This is especially relevant for the order in the predictive passages (§25, 23, 24 correspond to 7, 8, 9, 10), while the correspondences of other passages are often hard to define. 6

Missing Classifications and a Preserved Grammatical Structure

What might be the reasons that lead to such highly diverse textual variations? Comparing the Sanskrit with the Pāli passages, Ramers notes: “[...] einzelne Begriffs­gruppen, die als ‘Versatzstücke’ beim Aufbau der asyndetischen Be­griffs­ reihen fungieren [...] werden—recht willkürlich—unterschiedlichen

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

170

Guggenmos

Listen zugeordnet.”42 In the Pāli text, the word groups are clearly distinguished through classifications like “homa” (sacrifice, §21), “vijjā” (knowledge, §21), “lakkhaṇa” (knowledge of protective qualities attributed to something/-one, §22), or “kamma” (vows, §27). They resemble independent collections and classifications of knowledge that were grouped together in this mahā sīlā passage.43 As mentioned above, they partly overlap regarding their content. The Sanskrit version does not retain the classification very clearly, as we just saw from Ramers’ evaluation.44 While exact correspondences between the Sanskrit and the Pāli seem to have been blurred in the transmission process, the transfer into the Sinitic language family must have been a textual challenge for any translator: In particular, the classifications do not have any actual correspondences in the Chinese context. None of the larger enumerations of homa, vijjā, or lakkhaṇa have been preserved in the traditional Chinese translations.45 While semantic relations are hard to trace, especially in the classificatory passages, the second structuring element of the Pāli passage, its grammatically twofold structure, seems to have been far more stable and even hints at pos­ sible intertextual relations: the Pāli account delivers predictions, all of which contain the formula “bhavissati” from §§23–25. Five segments of this predictive passage can be divided as follows: 1) §23: advice to kings regarding 42 Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, 23. 43 A search for other Indian classifications of mantic knowledge led repeatedly back to this Buddhist enumeration. While a more encyclopedic overview of mantic knowledge appears unlikely, it is obvious that divination in India established itself over the centuries as several branches, each with their own respective standard references. The interpretation of dreams seems to have been early, while astrology—today certainly the strongest and most renowned tradition—developed much later in exchange with other cultures, especially the Arabic one. The idea that special people can be recognized by bodily marks (like the Buddha who holds the thirty-two signs of a great man) was common from early times. Also, geomancy is an old divinatory discipline in India—the directions of the altars and sacrifices performed are never unimportant in ritual services. I am grateful to Gudrun Bühnemann for exchange on this question. 44 Given the clarity of the Pāli structure in comparison with the evidence of the Sanskrit passage, one might easily accept the generally held opinion that the Sanskrit passages are later than the Pāli ones. However, the situation of the whole Buddhist textual corpus is certainly far more complex, as for example the recent findings of Gudrun Pinte suggest. See Pinte, “On the Origin of Taisho 1462,” and in more detail in Lost in Translation. 45 Noticeable is the highly systematic usage of classifications in the modern Pāli-Chinese translation. Here, homa is rendered as ji 祭 (sacrifice, a term firmly rooted in Confucian ancestor care), vijjā as shu 術 (art, knowledge), and lakkhaṇa as xiang 相 (appearance, an established term in Buddhist philosophy) (see Duan Qing, Hanyi Bali Sanzang, Jingzang, Changbu, 9–10). All of these terms could have theoretically served as classificatory terms established more than 1500 years ago, and each of these terms has huge implications.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

171

fighting, 2) §24.1: predicting sky-related events, 3) §24.2: other abnormal happenings in nature, 4) §24.3: Taking everything mentioned in §§24.1 and §24.2 as reasons, 5) §25 (without the last part, which leaves the “bhavissati” pattern): predictions that affect society at large directly. These five passages can be clearly identified in all translations. While T.22 follows the Sanskrit pattern, one can note an affinity between the two Dīrghāgama (DA) versions, Fandong jing (FDJ) and Ambaṭṭha-Sutta (AS), with the Sūtra of the 62 Views, T.21, that is translated above. T.21 and the FDJ/AS are ordered in six paragraphs, all framed by the known formula (Pāli: seven passages; Sanskrit: eight passages; T.22: ten passages). The abovementioned five segments are—in contrast to the Pāli and Sanskrit order—all arranged in the pattern 5–3–2–4–1.46 7

Characteristics of the Sūtra of the 62 Views, T.21

It is interesting to compare the Sūtra of the 62 Views, T.21, and the Dīrghāgama (DA) versions: The list of magic and mantic practices in T.21 is about one fifth longer than the one in the Ambaṭṭha-Sutta (AS). T.21 is 512 characters in length vs. AS is 422 characters. The extra length is mainly due to keeping the repetitive and, in Chinese style, quite odd-sounding “one person says” (yi ren yan) throughout all of the predictive antithetical sentence pairs; that is, all “bhavissati” passages. T.21 obviously intends to be faithful to the received Indian version that it translates. Whether translated by Zhi Qian, Lokakṣema or by somebody else, it seems to reflect an early attempt in the late Han dynasty (ending 220 ce) to understand a highly technical Indian text. The mastery of this challenge seems more successful in the later composed DA passages that also apply categories of mantic knowledge that are known to us from the official book catalogues (see below).47 Even a “liberal use of ideas and terminology 46

47

This suggests some kind of relation between T.21 and the FDJ/AS. This observation is not in accordance with Weller’s argumentation, who sees the FDJ separately from the other transmitted texts: “Diese chinesische Textform [sc. the Fandong jing, EMG] fällt in den gleichen Strom der Überlieferung des Werkes wie die im Dīghanikāya und die tibetische Wiedergabe, wenn die drei Textgestaltungen auch nicht gleich sind. Die etwa 200 Jahre ältere chinesische Übersetzung des Brahmajālasūtra, welche B. Nanjio im angegebenen Kataloge unter Nr. 554 verzeichnet [...; that is T.21, EMG], tut dies nicht. [...] Diese Form des Brahmajālasūtra weicht im Wortlaute erheblich von den zuerst genannten drei Quelleninschriften ab. Das lehrt schon ein Blick in den Beginn dieses Textes.” (Weller, “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama,” 202) Still, the difficulty of understanding the sources properly is already revealed in the headline of the FDJ, where “dong 動” (to move) should be “wang 網” (net): The name “Fandong

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

172

Guggenmos

drawn from indigenous Chinese religion,” that we might suspect according to Nattier (see above) in T.21 is not that obvious. It might be that we just do not know enough about the mantic practices of the translator’s time and location, but the translation does not create an impression of a coherent picture of the social practices underlying it. The two characteristics to be expected are totally fulfilled: the vocabulary is rather erratic and might be incoherent. The translator obviously struggled to make sense of what he had to translate, either due to the Pracritic source or his limited knowledge. The repeated usage of the term “zhou” for “spell”/“charm” is remarkable. The Indian account with its most encyclopedic, all-inclusive intent (without caring overly about overlaps or a comparable relevancy of all of the practices enumerated) seems to describe a broad range of social practices that were already unknown by the time of Buddhaghoṣa’s commentary (5th century). In contrast, the Chinese tradition in its organization of knowledge started from a textual basis: Book catalogues were one of the major contributions to the classification of knowledge. Such catalogues were part of the dynastic histories and had been created as a central and regular activity of the court for centuries. Within these catalogues, all kinds of incantations, spells or curses were not regarded as proper divinatory texts and were excluded from the official canon of licit knowledge. This is why, to date, we know little about magic and mantic practices that were rooted in popular belief, especially with regard to Early China. With the Baopuzi 抱樸子, written about a hundred years later than our T.21 by Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343), incantations/curses in the form of “zhou 咒” begin to appear in texts. Up to the Han dynasty, the character zhou is still written with the radical for ritual rather than the radical for mouth (祝 instead of 咒); such use hints that its meaning is associated with incantations in ritual services. Through recent discoveries produced by graveyard excavations, for example, early hemerological texts, we can again witness popular beliefs current during the Han dynasty. It is interesting to note that traces of the vocabulary used in these social and religious spheres are preserved in the Buddhist canon.48 “Zhou” in T.21 is used ubiquitously and seems to compensate

48

jing” seems to derive from the confusion between -jāla (net) and -cāla (moving) through the underlying language. In Middle Indic, including Gāndhārī, “-jāla” and “-cāla” are both rendered as “-yāla” (See Karashima, “Underlying Languages of Early Chinese translations of Buddhist Scriptures,” here 361). See the research project on the early hemerologies of Marc Kalinowski, Donald Harper, and others, who are publishing in the context of the Erlangen research consortium a volume on daybook manuscripts (rishu 日書): Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China. The Daybook Manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin, and Han. At a later stage of this project, it would be interesting to compare T.21 with the findings in the hemerological texts. This might also enable a deeper understanding of T.21. For example, mice and rats

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

173

for the lack of terminology. In other and especially later Buddhist texts, the term is an established expression to translate the word “dhāraṇī”—a powerful, sometimes long incantation, spell, or curse—that also can be transcribed as “tuoluoni 陀羅尼.” One of the major categories of Chinese divination that is centered around the term “bu 卜” does not appear in this context: “bu” refers to divination in its closest Chinese sense and hints at the origins of Chinese divina­tion preserved in the oracle-bone texts from as early as the fourteenth century bce. In the popular Bodhisattva precepts, also called Fanwang jing, that we will come to later, the term “bu” is applied in the enumeration of divinatory practices (see below). 8

Toward a Classification of Mantic Knowledge— The Dharmaguptaka Tradition

The two DA passages are created by a translator who not only wanted to be faithful to the Indian original, but also was more confident about creating a translation directed toward the Chinese reader or listener. Already, the trans­ lator Dao’an 道安 formulated principles according to which especially the short­ening of copious Indian passages and repetitions can be eradicated without hesitation.49 The grammatical “bhavissati” repetition is reduced to a single “to say” (shuo 說) at the beginning of the respective passage. The enumeration starts with physiognomy as an established Chinese mantic art in the first passage. Various popular religious practices follow (passage 2), in­cantations float into medical practices (passage 3), and passages 5 and 6 give a short but concise account of the bhavissati-passages. Passage 4 starts with incantations and talismans regarding water and fire, spirits, kṣatriyas, birds, home safety, fire and rat gnawing, recitations of death and life-related books, dream books, palmistry and physiognomy, astrological books, and books regarding all kinds of sounds. The book recitations are striking in this context—they do not have any parallels in the other sources. It might recall slightly the categoric enumerations in book catalogues as in, for example, the tianwen 天文 category that

49

are often to be found in bamboo almanacs appearing on doorways, which bears a specific significance. See Dao’an’s (312–385) five licit ways of textual loss and the three difficulties of translation (五失本三不易) as they are, for example, given in the Lidai Sanbao Ji 歷代三寶記 (T.2034, XXXXVIV: here 76c17–77a5) or the Xu Gaoseng Zhuan 續搞僧傳 (T.2060, L, here: 438a19–438b07), in which he states the copious style of Indian texts that should be shortened.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

174

Guggenmos

already appears in the earliest catalogue in the Book of the Han (Hanshu 漢書)50 that deals with heavenly patterns (like star or cloud movements, etc.). At this point, one should keep in mind that the translation team of the Dīrghāgama (DA) consists of a Chinese speaker and a Kashmirian monk, who through their collaboration were able to understand the original text more deeply while also being able to draw on Chinese literate education to translate whatever they understood. The Kashmirian Buddhayaśas is known to have recited not only the DA, T.1, for translation, but also the basic monastic discipline of the Dharmaguptaka school, the sifen lü 四分律. The terms “guizhou 鬼 呪” (demon spells), “chali zhou 剎利呪” (Kṣatriya spells), and “zhijie zhou 支節 呪” (charms concerning marks on the body) also appear three times in the categorization of mantic practices in the Dharmaguptakavinaya, which is to date the leading monastic discipline in Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism.51 In the Bhikṣuṇī Dharmaguptakavinaya, mantic arts are forbidden—with certain exceptions, such as the aim of curing oneself or learning writing. The text marks the practice of all kinds of “spell arts” (zhoushu 呪術) as a pācittikaoffence, which is an offence that should be repented in front of the Saṃgha. The kinds of magic arts are specified as follows:52 1) zhijie zhou: an expression that seems to correspond to the Pāli “aṅga-vijjā,”53 “the art of prognosticating from marks on the body, chiromantics, palmistry etc.,”54 2) chali zhou: chali is a phonetic rendering of kṣatra which refers to (military) power and therefore the whole expression might be connected with political counseling and concern the art of prognostication/magic arts in military and governmental affairs, 3) guizhou: this term is ambiguous in its Pāli correspondences, but might refer to a kind of demonology, that is magic arts concerning evil spirits, 4) jixiong zhou 吉凶呪: this term more literally refers to magic arts concerning luck and misfortune, but is comprised of two elements that have Pāli correspondences,

50 See Hanshu, Chapter Yiwen Zhi 藝文志. Here, tianwen appears in the category shushu 數 術 (numbers and techniques). 51 T.1428, XXII: 754.a17ff. The three references are T.1428, XXII: 754a18–20: 誦種種雜咒術: 支 節咒。剎利咒。鬼咒吉凶咒。習轉鹿輪卜。習解知音聲。T.1428, XXII: 774c22– 24: 學習咒術: 支節咒剎利咒。起尸鬼咒。知死相知轉禽獸論。卜知眾鳥音聲。 T.1428, XXII: 960c12–13: 誦外道安置舍宅吉凶符書咒。枝節咒。剎利咒。尸婆羅 咒。知人生死吉凶咒。解諸音聲咒。 52 For the following enumeration, excellent explanations and crosschecking with parallels and major dictionaries are offered in Heirman, ‘The Discipline in Four Parts,’ 760–761 and 792–795 (annotations). 53 Dīghanikāya (DN) I, 21. 54 Rhys Davids, The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, 6.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

175

that is house positioning and lifespan determination,55 5) zhuan lulun bu 轉鹿 輪卜: this probably refers to divination by means of turning the zodiac, that is some kind of astrological knowledge, 6) jie zhi yin sheng 解知音聲: this refers

to the knowledge of omens by means of the cries of birds. Still, this enumeration is specific for the Dharmaguptakavinaya and hardly leaves traces beyond commentaries on the precepts themselves.56 At the end of the first and second of both Dīrghāgama (DA) passages, the formula “for the purpose of making a living/search for practical advantages” (yi qiu liyang 以求利養) is added. Bearing in mind the connection to the Dharma­ guptakavinaya, this comes as no surprise. Zhu Fonian is adapting the DA passages to the argument of the Dharmaguptakavinaya, which underlines that the mantic arts, as such, are not forbidden, but problematic with regard to practicing the mantic arts to make a profit. 9

A Debased Knowledge—the Brahmin Encounter

Comparing all extant texts as a whole, it is evident that what frames all the passages is the most stable unit. Although the number of passages differs in the various versions, the ramification is unisono: People apart from the Way—Śramaṇas and Brāhmaṇas in all versions despite our early T.21—rely on food offerings while following an animal [like] occupation (作畜生業, T.21; Pāli: tiracchāna-vijjā) (DA/T.21: for making a living)—the Buddha (T.21) / true Śramaṇas (T.22) / my followers (AS) leave these things. The Indian source seems to be rooted in a discourse between Buddhists and a brahmanically influenced environment: “Śramaṇas and Brāhmaṇas” is a fixed expression in the polemical, anti-brahmanical Buddhist discourse. It hints at a group of people from whom Buddhists obviously tried to distance themselves.57 This group of people is marked as following the “low arts.” In Monier-Williams’s Sanskrit-English dictionary, tiracchāna (Skt.: tiraścīna) is defined as “trans­ 55 56

57

For details see Heirman, ‘The Discipline in Four Parts,’ 794. I went through a longer IT-expedition on regular expressions to certify my statement. Whatever I tried, I could not find similar enumerations in the CBETA. As this excursion became rather time-consuming, I abandoned it. The result is therefore uncertain. I am grateful to Sven Sellmer and Olliver Helwig for profound help with this matter. See Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, 16.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

176

Guggenmos

verse, horizontal, across”58—that moves in the manner of “animals.”59 The literal meaning of an animal-like knowledge/art is directly translated in T.21; the other translations talk more of debased arts/knowledge. The ex­pression also might imply that the horizontal art is blocking any higher life regard­ing the pursuit of Nirvāṇa. For example, Buddhaghoṣa explains tiracchāna as “talk which, because it does not lead to emancipation, runs horizontal to the (upward leading) paths to heaven and liberation.”60 The term “tiracchāna-vijjā” is already rare in the Indian context. Its locus classicus is our passage, together with its mention in the Dharmaguptakavinaya. Brahmins are ascribed to the knowledge of various arts in the context of their role especially in political counseling. In contrast, early Buddhism did not have a clear concept of state government and ideally rejected the existence of social classes. Still, during the time when the Buddhist scriptures were in creation, Brahmanism was undergoing a process of transformation. Around the time of the Upaniṣads, we witness a process of redefining Brahmanical teachings for an audience who no longer favored sacrifices. Brahmins were becoming teachers or court priests and were not seen as ritual specialists alone.61 As a consequence of their priestly role, they were assigned an acquaintance with the supernatural and therefore seen as able to make predictions. Already, the seer Asita, who according to the legend predicted the great future of the newborn Gautama Siddharta, “shows that predicting the future was, or became, a typically brahmanical occupation.”62 58 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 447. 59 Rhys Davids, The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, 137. 60 Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views, 61, ann. 1. Original: “anīyānikatta saggamokkhamaggānaṃtiracchabhūtā kathā ti tiracchānakathā” (Rhys Davids, The Sumaṅgala-Vilāsinī. Part I, 89.16–17). This is also quoted in Ramers, Die “Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit” im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, 241. 61 Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, 31. 62 Ibid., 36. Bronkhorst quotes Olivelle (without giving details) with an enumeration of brah­manical skills from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad 7.1: Ṛgveda, Yajurveda, Sāmaveda, Athar­vaveda, the corpus of histories and ancient tales, ancestral rites, mathematics, sooth­saying, the art of locating treasures, dialogues, monologues, the science of gods, the science of the ritual, the science of spirits, the science of government, the science of heavenly bodies, and the science of serpent beings (Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, 31, ann.10). In the Chinese Soṇadaṇḍa-Sutta (Zhong de jing 種德經, Dīrghā­ gama I.22) and the Chinese Kuṭadanta-Sutta (Jiuluotantou jing 究羅檀頭經, Dīrghāgama I.23) a formulation is to be found that displays the investigation into good and bad luck and therewith is part of the mantic techniques as part of Brahmin knowledge defeated by Buddhists: “They are good at prognosticating to important people from the shape of the body (physiognomy), investigating luck and misfortune, and sacrificial rites (又能善於

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

177

In the Chinese context, the Brahmin-Buddhist encounter was losing its social relevance. The “worldly, debased magical knowledge” (sishu zhoushu 世 俗呪術), as the Chinese Dharmaguptakavinaya translates the term tiracchānavijjā, is by no means exclusively rooted in a social upper class, but generally assigned among the popular practices (see above). While T.21 even omits to mention the Brahmins especially, the later texts keep the expression. Still, they neither try to explain the original discourse nor are they successful in reformulating the message in the context of Chinese mantic arts. The traditional Chinese mantic arts finally become part of the mantic enumerations with the Bodhisattva precepts (i.e., the Fanwang jing) at the same time as the Dharmaguptaka translations are done in Liangzhou. Moreover, this acquaintance with its Chinese environment might have significantly contributed to its widespread acceptance that goes far beyond the spread of any of the Buddhist scriptures mentioned so far. 10

A Brighter Future and a Surprising Past

The Bodhisattva precepts appeared around the same time that the Dharma­ guptakavinaya was being translated, between 410 and 430 ce, in Liangzhou and the northern region.63 In the form of the Fanwang jing, they enjoyed a flourishing future and became widely acknowledged.64 Assumed to be an indigenous composition but claiming an authentic origin, the mantic arts are displayed, albeit very briefly, in the Fanwang jing in chapters 29 and 33: The moral frame is emphasized more emphatically (“with evil intention,” “for

63 64

大人相法 觀察吉凶 祭祀儀禮).” The Pāli canon contains enumerations of the mantic arts; in the Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna of the Divyāvadāna, for example, it serves as proof of the solid Brahmanical knowledge about astronomy and astrology. Named are: “the zodiac (mṛga­cakra), constellations (nakṣatragaṇa), lunar days (tithikramagaṇa), eclipses (?; rāhu­carita), the course of the planet venus (?; śukracarita), and the course of the planets (grahacarita)” (Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, 119). Funayama, “The Acceptance of Buddhist Precepts by the Chinese in the Fifth Century,” 104–106. Extensive research has been carried out on the Fanwang jing (T.1484); this is because, especially in Japan, Bodhisattva practices are much more central than the vinaya. To date, it remains unclear where and how the Bodhisattva precepts originated. They might have been composed in the Gansu area around the same time as the Dīrghāgama (DA) was translated. The expression “brahmajālasūtra” was obviously adapted to assign them greater importance and authenticity. There is an extant Sogdian version of T.1484, see Yoshida, “The Brahmajāla-sūtra in Sogdian.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

178

Guggenmos

profit,” “not mercyful” actions). In chapter 29, prostitution, food preparation, and divination: to determine gender, to divine dreams, to recite charms, and something to do with an eagle, not entirely clear, are enumerated. The list concludes with preparing poison and monitizing preparations of it. Chapter 33 emphasizes that one should not, with evil intentions, watch a fight, make music, gamble, divine, or be a messenger for robbers. Under divination are mentioned: by mirrors, milfoils, poplar branches and skull bowls.65 In both cases, mantic practices are just one among many. Mantic practices are not rejected outright; rather, they are rejected only in cases where they are conducted out of evil intentions. Both enumerations sound far more informative to a Chinese casual reader. Also, although they might even intentionally try to preserve the nimbus of arcane arts, they include at the same time well-known divinatory arts like physiognomy, dream divination, the art of spells, and charms but also milfoil divination, which had held a prominent position since early times. Let us conclude with a final observation that opens up the horizon to the larger context of the classifiction of mantic knowledge in the ancient world: Babylonian omens are found in the Šumma ālu (tablets of terrestrial omens affecting individuals) and the Enūma Anu Enlil (tablets of lunar, solar, meteorological, and stellar, together with planetary omens, affecting countries and their rulers, both from the millennium bce). According to David Pingree, these omens shaped the order of magic and mantic enumerations in our Pāli passage and also informed the saṃhitās.66 Pingree assumes that the Mesopotamian 65

66

Chinese original: Chap. 29: 若佛子。以惡心故為利養[1]故。販賣男女色。自手作 食自磨自舂。占相男女。解夢吉凶。是男是女。呪術工巧調鷹方法。和[2]合 百 種 毒 藥 千 種 毒 藥 蛇 毒 生 金 [3]銀 蠱 毒 。 都 無 [4]慈 心 。 [5]若 故 作 者 。 犯輕垢罪。Taishō annotations: [1]〔故〕－ in [宋], [元], [明], [宮]。[2]〔合〕－ in [宮]。[3]銀＋（毒）[明]。[4]慈＋（憫心無孝順）[明]。[5]〔若故作者〕－ in [宋], [元], [宮]。(Fanwang jing, T.1484, XXIV: 1007a23–27); Chap. 33: 若佛子。以惡 心故觀一切男女等鬪。軍陣兵[1]將劫賊等鬪。亦不得聽吹貝鼓角琴瑟箏笛箜 篌歌叫伎樂之聲。不[2]得摴蒲圍波羅[3]賽[4]戲彈六博拍[5]毬擲石投[6]壺八道 行[7]城[8]爪鏡[9]蓍草楊枝鉢盂髑髏。而作卜筮。不[10]得作盜賊使命。一一 不得作。若故作者。犯輕垢罪。Taishō annotations: [1]將＝鬪[宋], [元], [宮]。[2]得＝聽[宋], [元], [宮]。[3]賽＝塞[宋], [元], [明]。[4]戲＝戰[元]。[5]毬 ＝毱[宋], [元], [明], [宮]。[6]壺＋（牽道）[宋], [元], [明], [宮]。[7]城＝成[宋], [元], [宮]。[8]爪＝瓜[元]。[9]蓍＝芝[宋], [宮]。[10]〔得〕－ in [宋], [元], [宮]。 (Fanwang jing, T.1484, XXIV: 1007b14–20). Saṃhitās according to Pingree: “In the Sanskrit literature on jyotiḥśāstra, which embraces astronomy, astrology, and mathematics, as well as divination, there is a class of texts, called saṃhitās, which combine terrestrial and celestrial omens. The oldest of the extant

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

179

omen literature “was transmitted to India during the two centuries that the Achaemenid Empire controlled Gandhāra in Northwestern India and the Indus Valley—a period in which elements of Babylonian mathematical astronomy were also transmitted to India.”67 Pingree goes through our Pāli list §21 and §22, and finds equivalents for most categories. Especially in the vijjāsection of §21, he finds a series of omens that, in their given order, exactly match the order of the tablets of Šumma ālu: 1) bhūta-vijjā (art of banning evil beings), 2) ahi-vijjā (snake charms), 3) visa-vijjā (poison charms), 4) vicchikavijjā (scorpion charms), 5) mūsika-vijjā (rat/mice charms), 6) sakuṇa-vijjā (bird language knowledge), 7) vāyasa-vijjā (crow language knowledge), and the final term of the §21-listing 8) miga-cakkaṃ (knowledge of the language of all animals). The predictive passage §24 of the Pāli enumeration is, in terms of its order, shaped by the contents of Enūma Anu Enlil. It is only the “planets” as a separate category that are missing from the Pāli enumeration, but they are counted among the stars as there was no separate word for planets at this time in India.68 Through these comparisons, we might gain a far deeper understanding of what is meant by the often hard-to-understand Pāli enumeration, as the Mesopotamian tablets not only enumerate the categories of omens, but also list the omens themselves and their meaning. Making an in-depth comparison would probably reshape our understanding of the Pāli enumeration. Knowing the practices behind the terms makes it far easier to identify whether the translator was aware of the practices underlying chosen terminology. It makes a difference to know that the term “sakuṇavijjā” refers to the knowledge of ominous birds, particularly vultures.69 Without this information, in translating the

67

68 69

saṃhitās is one called the Gargasaṃhitā, written most likely in North India in about 100 bce; it mentions, however, a number of predecessors, so that its tradition long antedates the beginning of the Christian era” (Pingree, “Mesopotamian Omens in Sanskrit,” 375). See Pingree, “Mesopotamian Omens in Sanskrit,” 376. See also Pingree’s “From Astral Omens to Astrology” where he five years later resumes these results and asserts: “Though much work needs to be done in comparing the specific omens in the Sanskrit tradition [...] with the cuneiform texts [...] it is clear that in the 5th and early 4th century b.c. much of the Mesopotamian omen literature, perhaps from Aramaic versions, was translated into an Indian language, and that these translations, through undoubtedly considerably altered to fit with Indian intellectual traditions and with the Indian society which the diviners had to serve, form the basis of the rich Sanskrit and Prakrit literatures on the terrestrial and celestial omens. They thus parallel the contemporary Babylonian influence on early Indian mathematical astronomy” (Pingree, From Astral Omens to Astrology, 33). See ibid., 375. Pingree, “Mesopotamian Omens in Sanskrit,” 377.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

180

Guggenmos

indigenous Chinese Fanwang jing one might spontaneously think of hunting practices with tamed eagles in Northern China, the region in which this text was probably created, when trying to elucidate the meaning of “methods of training eagles (maybe better: hawks and falcons)”70 in its mantic enumeration. It might be that the image of ominous vultures someway found its way over the Himalayan region and left its traces in the indigenous text. Finally, as one sees with the art of interpreting the flight of birds, it seems that, Meso­ potamian sources had already accumulated knowledge that accompanied the Greek empire. Through single specific instances this can even be traced far into Medieval Europe.71 Although repeatedly marked and eliminated as a “rejected knowledge” in the Buddhist tradition, Chinese official canon building, and the Roman Catholic Church alike, it appears that magic and mantic practices not only flourished in India, but also in China as well as Europe. Indeed, it is the major transcultural flow which obviously made the notion of magic and mantic practices—even if rejected—travel across Europe and Asia alike. A list in many shapes has been left to us, which must have sounded enigmatic to the early translators. Future research on these exchange processes will lead to a deeper understanding of the concrete social and material basis underlying the variety of magic and mantic practices.

70 71

Tiaoying fangfa 調鷹方法, chap. 29, in Fanwang jing, T.1484, XXIV: 1007a25. For example, mice gnawing clothes as a bad omen (or the belief that it brings misfortune to wear clothes that have been gnawn by mice and rats, or at least the mentioning of mice) appears repeatedly in the passages treated so far including the Pāli passage, the Chinese T.21 (passage 4.3), and also the Mesopotamian Šumma ālu. It is the interdisciplinary exchange with Medieval studies at Erlangen that brought my attention to the fact that in twelfth-century Europe clothes gnawn by shrew mice were considered as a bad omen in the Decretum Gratiani, dated around 1140 bce, that marks the beginning of canonical law of the Roman Catholic Church. Among others, under the headline “Human institutions that might be superstitious or not” (Institutiones hominum quae sint superstitiosae vel non) it enumerates practices that are discussed in terms of superstition and tackles the topic of mice-gnawing clothes in its second paragraph: “It is advisable to return home, if the one preceding you is having an accident or if even the clothes are gnawn by shrew mice.” (“[R]edire ad domum, si procedens offenderit; uel si uestis a soricibus roditur,” Decretum Gratiani, causa 26, quaestio 2, c. VI; Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici 1: Decretum magistri Gratiani, Sp. 1021f.) I would like to thank my colleagues Andreas Holndonner and Hans Christian Lehner for our exchange on this matter.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

181

Abbreviations AS BJS DA

T.21 T.22

Ambaṭṭha-Sutta (Amozhou jing 阿摩晝經) Brahmajāla-Sūtra Dīrghāgama (Ch: Chang ahan jing 長阿含經), corresponds to the Pāli DN, text corpus in the Chinese canon Dīghanikāya (The Long Discourses), text corpus in the Pāli canon Fandong jing 梵動經 Saṅghabhedavastu Sāmaññyaphala-Sutta (Skt.: Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra). Standard, consecutively numbered, reference for the Chinese Buddhist canon: Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 [The Newly Arranged Large (Buddhist) Canon from the Taishō Period]. Ed. by Takakusu Junjiro 高楠 順次郎 et al., Tokyo: Taisho Issaikyo Kankokai, 1960–1978, first edition 1926 ff. See also ann. 12. Within the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō the first text. Within there: Sūtra 20 is the AS and sūtra 21 is the FDJ, T.1 is part of DA Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 佛說梵網六十二見經 (BJS trsl.) Jizhiguo jing 寂志果經 (SPS trsl.),



Works Cited

DN FDJ SBV SPS T.

T.1

Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “Views of the Tathāgata—A Comparative Study and Translation of the Brahmajāla in the Chinese Dīrgha-āgama.” In Buddhist and Pali Studies: In Honour of the Venerable Professor Kakkapalliye Anuruddha, edited by K.L. Dhammajoti and Y. Karunadasa, pp. 183–234. Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, Univ. of Hong Kong, 2009. Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “‘Liushi’er jian’ de bijiao yanjiu「六十二見」的比較研究 [Com­ parative Research on the “62 Views”].” Fuyan Foxue Yanjiu 福嚴佛學研究 [Fuyan Buddhist Studies] 5 (2010): 43–57. Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “The ‘Sixty-two Views’—A Comparative Study.” Fuyan Foxue Yanjiu 福嚴佛學研究, [Fuyan Buddhist Studies] 5 (2010): 23–42. Akanuma, Chizen. The Comparative Catalogue of Chinese Āgamas & Pāli Nikāyas. Tokyo: Hajinkaku-Shobō, 1958. Bapat, Pandurang Vaman. “The Sramanyaphala-Sutra and its Different Versions in Buddhist Literature.” Indian Culture 15 (1948): 107–114. Bhikkhu Bodhi. The Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views: The “Brahmajāla-Sutta” and its Commentarial Exegesis. Transl. from the Pāli by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1978.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

182

Guggenmos

Bloch, Jules, Jean Filliozat, and Louis Renou. Canon Bouddhique Pāli: texte et traduction. Tome I, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1949. Bronkhorst, Johannes. Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Cheng, Jianhua. “A Critical Translation of Fan Dong Jing, the Chinese Version of Brah­ majala Sutra.” (accessed May 15, 2015). Duan Qing 段晴 et al., trans. Hanyi Bali Sanzang, Jingzang, Changbu 漢譯巴利三藏, 經 藏, 長部 [The Pāli Tripiṭaka, Sūtra Piṭaka, Dhīgha Nikāya Translated into Chinese]. Shanghai: Zhongxi Shuju, 2012. Dutt, Nalinaksha. “The Brahmajāla Sutta (in the Light of Nāgārjuna’s Expositions).” Indian Historical Quarterly 8 (1932): 706–746. Evans, Stephen A. “Epistemology of the Brahmajāla Sutta.” Buddhist Studies Review 26, no. 1 (2009): 67–84. Franke, Otto. “D.I. Brahmajāla-Sutta (“Das Netz des umfassenden Wissens.”).” In Dīgha­ nikāya: Das Buch der Langen Texte des buddhistischen Kanons, trsl. by Otto Franke, pp. 1–47, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1913. Freiberger, Oliver. Der Orden in der Lehre: Zur religiösen Deutung des Saṅgha im frühen Buddhismus. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000. Friedberg, Emil, ed. Corpus iuris canonici 1: Decretum magistri Gratiani. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879. Funayama, Tōru. “The Acceptance of Buddhist Precepts by the Chinese in the Fifth Century.” Journal of Asian history 38, no. 2 (2004): 97–120. Harper, Donald, and Marc Kalinowski, eds. Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China: The Daybook Manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin and Han. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Hartmann, Jens-Uwe. “Fragmente aus dem Dīrghāgama der Sarvāstivādins.” In SanskritTexte aus dem buddhistischen Kanon: Neuentdeckungen und Neueditionen, edited by Fumio Enomoto and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, vol.1, pp. 37–67. Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden. Beiheft 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989. Heirman, Ann. The Discipline in Four Parts: Rules for Nuns according to the “Dharma­ guptakavinaya”: Part II: Translation. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002. Hōbōgirin 法寶義林. Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Bouddhisme d’après les sources Chinoises et Japonaises, Édition de Taishō, edited by Paul Demiéville. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient; Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonaise, 1978. Karashima, Seishi. “Underlying Languages of Early Chinese Translations of Buddhist Scriptures.” In Studies in Chinese Language and Culture: Festschrift in Honour of Christoph Harbsmeier on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, edited by C. Anderl et al., pp. 355–366. Oslo: Hermes, 2006. Keown, Damien. Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

183

Legittimo, Elsa. “Buddhānusmṛti between Worship and Meditation: Early Currents of the Chinese Ekottarika-Āgama.” Asiatische Studien / É tudes asiatiques 66 (2012): 337–402. MacQueen, Graeme. A Study of the “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”. Freiburger Beiträge zur Indologie vol. 21. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988. Meisig, Konrad. Das “Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra”. Synoptische Übersetzung und Glossar der chinesischen Fassungen verglichen mit dem Sanskrit und Pāli. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987. Monier-Williams, Monier, E. Leumann, and C. Cappeller. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate IndoEuropean Languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899. Norman, K.R. Pāli Literature: Including the Canonical Literature in Prakrit and Sanskrit of all the Hīnayāna Schools of Buddhism. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983. Nanjio, Bunyiu. A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in China and Japan. Oxford: Clarendon, 1883. Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢 and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods. Tokyo: The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008. Pelliot, Paul. “Meou-tseu ou les doutes levés.” T’oung Pao, Second Series, 19 (1918): 255–433. Pingree, David. “Mesopotamian Omens in Sanskrit.” In La Circulation des Biens, des personnes, et des idées dans le proche-orient ancien. Actes de la XXXVIIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, edited by D. Charpin and F. Joannès, pp. 375–379. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992. Pingree, David. From Astral Omens to Astrology: From Babylon to Bīkāner. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, 1997. Pinte, Gudrun. “On the Origin of Taisho 1462, the Alleged Translation of the Pali Samanta­­pasadika.” In Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 160, no. 2 (2010): 435–449. Pinte, Gudrun. Lost in Translation: A Case Study of Sanghabhadra’s “Shanjian lü piposha”. Ghent: University press, 2011. Ramers, Peter. “Die ‘Drei Kapitel über die Sittlichkeit’ im Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra: Die Fassungen des Dīghanikāya und Saṃghabhedavastu, verglichen mit dem Tibetischen und Mongolischen. Einführung, Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar”. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. Bonn, 1996. Rhys Davids, Thomas William. Dialogues of the Buddha vol. 1. Sacred Books of the Buddhists vol. 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1899. Rhys Davids, Thomas William, and Estlin Carpenter. The Dīgha Nikāya. vol. 1. London: Pali Text Society, 1889.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

184

Guggenmos

Rhys Davids, Thomas William, and William Stede. The Pali Text Society’s Pāli-English Dictionary part 1 (A). Chipstead: The Pali Text Society, 1921. Rhys Davids, Thomas William, Estlin Carpenter, and William Stede, eds. The “SumaṅgalaVilāsinī”: Buddhaghosa’s Commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya. Part 1–3. London: The Pali Text Society, 1886–1932. Takakusu Junjiro 高楠順次郎 et al., eds. Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 [The Newly Arranged Large (Buddhist) Canon from the Taishō Period]. Tokyo: Taisho Issaikyo Kankokai, 1960–1978. SBV—Saṅghabhedavastu: The Gilgit Manuscript of the Saṅghabhedavastu, Being the 17th and Last Section of the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādin. 2 vols., edited by Raniero Gnoli and T. Venkatacharya. Serie Orientale Roma vol. XLIX/1 and XLIX/2. Roma: Instituto per il medio ed estremo Oriente, 1977–1978. Silk, Jonathan. Body Language: Indic śarīra and Chinese shèlì in the “Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra” and “Saddharmapuṇḍarīka”. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of The International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, 2006. Syrkin, Alexander. “On the Beginning of the Sutta Piṭaka (The Brahmajāla Sutta).” In Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy and Dissent in India, edited by S.N. Eisenstadt, Reuven Kahane and David Shulman, pp. 57–71. Berlin: Mouton, 1984. Walshe, Maurice. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the “Digha Nikaya”. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1987. Weller, Friedrich. “Über die Brahmajāla-sutta.” Asia Major 9, no. 2 (1933): 195–332; 9, no. 3 (1933): 381–440. Weller, Friedrich. “Brahmajālasutra”: Tibetischer und Mongolischer Text. Leipzig: Har­ rasso­witz, 1934. Weller, Friedrich. “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra: Verdeutscht von Friedrich Weller.” Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik 10, no. 1 (1935): 1–61. Weller, Friedrich. “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama.” Asiatische Stu­ dien. Zeitschrift der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft. Études asiatiques 25 (1971): 202–264. Yoshida, Yutaka. “The Brahmajāla-sūtra in Sogdian.” In Aspects of Research into Central Asian Buddhism, edited by Peter Zieme, pp. 461–474. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

185

Appendix Passage of magic and mantic practices in the Pāli canon following the transcription in the Pāli canon edition (Rhys Davids, The Dīgha Nikāya, 9–12), with a translation by the author that grew out of a combination of extant translations, their explanations, and further research (Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, 16–26; Franke, “D.I. Brahmajāla-Sutta,” 13–21; Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 71–73; Bloch, Canon Bouddhique Pāli. Texte et Traduction, 9–11; Duan Qing, Hanyi Bali Sanzang, Jingzang, Changbu, 9–11). The enumeration has been inserted by the author for better orientation. Topic

Pāli original with translation Frame: Yathā va pan’ eke bhonto samaṇa-brāhmaṇā saddhā-deyyāni bhojanāni bhuñjitvā te evarūpaya tiracchāna-vijjāya micchājīvena jīvikaṃ kappenti -- seyyathīdaṃ […] -- iti vā iti evarūpāya tiracchānavijjāya paṭivirato Samaṇo Gotamo ti. Iti vā hi bikkhave puthujjano Tathāgatassa vaṇṇaṃ vadamāno vadeyya. Or he might say: Whereas some recluses and Brahmins, while living on food provided by the faithful, earn their living by wrong means of livelihood, by low arts, such as these: [... enumeration of magic and mantic arts] Gotama, the recluse holds aloof from such low arts.

Dīghanikāya I.21 1. aṅgaṃ Knowledge of bodily marks (like on the hands and feet through which somebody is fated to enjoy a long life, a high position, etc.). various forms 2. nimittaṃ Divining by omina. of mantic 3. uppādaṃ Divining through major happenings in nature (like a thunderbolt). practices—by 4. supinaṃ Dream divination bodily marks, 5. lakkhaṇaṃ Knowledge of bodily marks telling of a bright future. omina, nature, 6. mūsikācchinnaṃ Predicting misfortune from clothes that have been gnawed by mice dreams, or rats. protective 7. [HOMA] [Reaching certain aims through fitting sacrifices such as:] aggi-homaṃ bodily marks, Sacrifice to Agni, dabbi-homaṃ Spoon sacrifice, thusa-homaṃ Husk sacrifice, sacrifice kaṇa-homaṃ Rice powder sacrifice (Rhys Davids: the red powder between the grain (homa), sorts and the husk), taṇḍula-homaṃ Rice corn sacrifice (Rhys Davids: husked grain ready of knowledge for boiling), sappi-homaṃ Ghee sacrifice, tela-homaṃ Oil sacrifice, mukha-homaṃ (vijjā), Mouth (spitting) sacrifice, lohita-homaṃ Blood (from the collar bone and knee?) foretelling the sacrifice end of life, 8. [VIJJĀ] aṅga-vijjā Divining through looking at knuckles and murmuring a formula, warding off vatthu-vijjā Geomancy (determining whether the location for a house is fitting), arrows, animal khatta-vijjā (problematic meaning) Advising on customary law, siva-vijjā Knowledge language of charms for summoning ghosts in a cemetery, bhūta-vijjā Art of banning evil beings, bhūri-vijjā earth hut charms (?), ahi-vijjā Snake charms, visa-vijjā Poison charms, vicchika-vijjā Scorpion charms, mūsika-vijjā Rat?/mice charms, sakuṇa-vijjā Bird language knowledge, 9. vāyasa-vijjā Crow language knowledge. 9. pakkajjhānaṃ Foretelling the end of life 10. sara-parittānaṃ Charm to ward off arrows 11. miga-cakkaṃ Knowledge of the language of all animals overview:

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

186

Guggenmos

(cont.) Topic

Pāli original with translation

Dīghanikāya I.22 1.  [LAKKHAṆAṂ] Knowledge of the (protective) qualities of: maṇi-lakkhaṇaṃ gems, daṇḍa-lakkhaṇaṃ staves, vattha-lakkhaṇaṃ garments, asilakkhaṇaṃ swords, knowledge of usu-lakkhaṇaṃ arrows, dhanu-lakkhaṇaṃ bows, āyudha-lakkhaṇaṃ weapons in the (protective) general, itthi-lakkhaṇaṃ women, purisa-lakkhaṇaṃ men, kumāra-lakkhaṇaṃ young qualities of boys, kumāri-lakkhaṇaṃ young girls, dāsa-lakkhaṇaṃ slaves, dāsi-lakkhaṇaṃ female things, humans, slaves, hatthi-lakkhaṇaṃ elephants, assa-lakkhaṇaṃ horses, mahisa-lakkhaṇaṃ and animals buffaloes, usabha-lakkhaṇaṃ bulls, go-lakkhaṇaṃ cows, aja-lakkhaṇaṃ goats, meṇḍa-lakkhaṇaṃ rams, kukkuṭa-lakkhaṇaṃ chicken, vaṭṭaka-lakkhaṇaṃ quails, godhā-lakkhaṇaṃ lizards, kaṇṇīkā-lakkhaṇaṃ (a kind of rabbit?), kacchapalakkhaṇaṃ tortoises, miga-lakkhaṇaṃ all quadrupeds (or deer?). lakṣanas:

Dīghanikāya I.23 [Or predictions of the following content:] 1.   ‘Raññaṃ niyyānaṃ bhavissati, The king will march out.     raññaṃ aniyyānaṃ bhavissati. The king will not march out/march back. advice to kings 2.   Abbhantarānaṃ raññaṃ upayānaṃ bhavissati, The home king will come.     bāhirānaṃ raññaṃ apayānaṃ bhavissati. The foreign king will go. regarding fighting other 3.   Bāhirānam raññaṃ upayānaṃ bhavissati, The foreign king will come.     abbhantarānaṃ raññaṃ apayānaṃ bhavissati. The home king will go. kings (all sentences with 4.   Abbhantarānaṃ raññaṃ jayo bhavissati, The home king will win. ‘bhavissati’)     bāhirānaṃ raññaṃ parājayo bhavissati. The foreign king will lose. 5.   Bāhirānaṃ raññaṃ jayo bhavissati, The foreign king will win.     abbhantarānaṃ raññaṃ parājayo bhavissati. The home king will lose. 6.   Iti imassa jayo bhavissati, imassa parājayo bhavissati.     It is like this that the victory of the one side and the loss of the other will be. state predictions:

Dīghanikāya I.24 predicting [Or predictions of the following content:] sky-related 1.   ‘Canda-ggāho bhavissati, There will be an eclipse of the moon. events (all suriya-ggāho bhavissati, There will be an eclipse of the sun. sentences with nakkhatta-ggāho bhavissati. There will be an eclipse of a planet (a planet passing ‘bhavissati’): through a constellation?). 2.   Candima-suriyānaṃ patha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, The sun and moon will follow their eclipses of the usual path. moon, sun, candima-suriyānaṃ uppatha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, The sun and moon will follow a planets; different path than usual. sun, moon, nakkhattānaṃ patha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, The stars/planets will follow their usual planets on track path. or not nakkhattānaṃ uppatha-gamanaṃ bhavissati. The stars/planets will follow a different path than usual.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

Topic

187

Pāli original with translation

3.   Ukkā-pāto bhavissati. Meteors will fall. meteors, world burning, Disā-ḍāho bhavissati. The burning of an area of the world (/bright light in a region of the sky) will happen. earthquake, thunderstorm; Bhūmi-cālo bhavissati. There will be an earthquake. Deva-dundubhi bhavissati. There will be a thunderstorm. sun, moon, Candima-suriya-nakkhattānam uggamanaṃ ogamanaṃ saṃkilesaṃ vodānaṃ planets move/ have spots bhavissati. The sun, moon, and stars/planets will rise, fall, show spots, be clean of spots. 4.   Evaṃ-vipāko canda-ggāho bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko suriya-ggāho bhavissati, evaṃpredicting vipāko nakkhatta-ggāho bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko candima-suriyānam patha-gamanaṃ sky-related bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko candima-suriyānaṃ uppatha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, evaṃevents and vipāko nakkhattānaṃ patha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko nakkthattānaṃ giving the uppatha-gamanaṃ bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko ukkāpāto bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko reason for this disā-ḍāho bhavissati, evaṃ-vipāko bhūmi-cālo bhavissati, evam-vipāko deva-dundubhi (same list as bhavissati, evaṃ-vipākaṃ candima-suriya-nakkhattānaṃ uggamanaṃ ogamanaṃ above) saṃkilesaṃ vodānaṃ bhavissati’ This will be the consequence of [all previous statements are repeated]. making predictions that affect society directly: droughts, famines, social unrest, epidemics, health; all sentences done with ‘bhavissati’ numerical and other sophisti­ cation

improper intervention in social affairs: day selection (marriage, social harmony, monetary borrowing)

Dīghanikāya I.25 [Or predictions of the following content:] 1.   ‘Subbuṭṭhikā bhavissati, There will be plenty of rain. dubbuṭṭhikā bhavissati, There will be drought. 2.   subhikkhaṃ bhavissati, There will be an abundant harvest. dubbhikkhaṃ bhavissati, There will be starvation. 3.   khemaṃ bhavissati, There will be peace. bhayaṃ bhavissati, There will be unrest. 4.   rogo bhavissati, There will be epidemics. ārogyaṃ bhavissati,’ There will be health. [And through various arts such as:] 5.   muddā, Finger counting, gaṇanā, Counting (high numbers?), saṃkhānaṃ, Estimating high numbers, kāveyyaṃ, Composing poetry, lokāyataṃ Explanations of nature. Dīghanikāya I.26 [Or through low arts such as:] 1.   āvāhanaṃ Arranging a lucky day to bring home a partner vivāhanaṃ Arranging a lucky day for sending out a partner. 2.   saṃvadanaṃ Fixing a lucky time for making peace. vivadanaṃ Fixing a lucky time for opening hostilities. 3.   saṃkiraṇaṃ for getting back borrowed money vikiraṇaṃ for lending money

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

188

Guggenmos

(cont.) Topic

Pāli original with translation

causing happiness, miscarriage, spells to silence people, immovable, deaf, oracles (mirror, girl, god), cults (sun, the Great Being), spit fire, invoke Siri

4.  subhaga-karaṇaṃ art of making somebody popular/happy dubbhaga-karaṇaṃ art of making somebody unpopular/unhappy 5.  viruddha - gabbha - karaṇaṃ to induce miscarriage 6.  jivhā - nittaddanaṃ to make through charms the tongue unmoveable 7.  hanu-saṃhananaṃ to make through charms the jawbone unmoveable 8.  hatthābhi-jappanaṃ to put a spell on somebody’s hands, so that they stand wrongly kaṇṇa-jappanaṃ to put a spell on somebody’s ears to make him deaf 9.  ādāsa-pañhaṃ to ask the mirror for an oracle kumāri-pañhaṃ to ask a godly girl for an oracle deva-pañhaṃ to ask a god 10. ādicc-upaṭṭhānaṃ to worship the sun Mahat-upaṭṭhānaṃ to worship the Great Being 11. abbhujjalanaṃ art of spitting fire 12. Sir’-avhāyanaṃ to invoke Siri, the goddess of luck

Dīghanikāya I.27 new start of an [Or through low arts such as:] overview with 1.  [KAMMAṂ] santi-kammaṃ Vows to gods naṇidhi-kammaṃ Making such vows partly repetitions bhūri-kammaṃ Repeating charms while lodging in an earthen house. vassa-kammaṃ Causing virility floating into vossa-kammaṃ Making a man impotent medical vatthu-kammaṃ Fixing on lucky sites for dwelling knowledge vatthu-parikiraṇaṃ Consecrating these sites 2.  ācamanaṃ Ritual rinsing of the mouth 3.  nahāpanaṃ Ritual bathing of other people 4.  juhanaṃ Sacrificing for others 5.  vamanaṃ virecanaṃ uddha-virecanaṃ adho-virecanaṃ Rhys Davids: Administering emetics and purgatives / Franke: „Vomieren- und Abführen-Lassen: sowohl Expekto­ rieren- wie Purgieren-Lassen“ sīsa-virecanaṃ Relief of the head 6.  kaṇṇ-telaṃ Oiling people’s ears 7.  neta-tappaṇaṃ Eye care 8.  natthu-kammaṃ Medical treatment through the nose 9.  añjanaṃ Applying collyrium to the eyes 10. paccañjanaṃ Giving medical ointment (for the eyes?) 11. sālākiyaṃ Practicing as an ENT physician 12. sallakattikaṃ Practicing as a surgeon. 13. dāraka-tikicchā Practicing as a doctor for children. 14. mūla-bhesajjānaṃ Administering roots and drugs. 15. anuppādānaṃ Removing drugs from the body at the appropriate time/administering medicines in rotation.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

189

T.22, the Jizhiguo jing, according to CBETA, T.22, I: 273c16–274a28, translation following Meisig, Das Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra (without his annotations): Topic

summary of different kinds of magic and mantic practices

Chinese Original

Meisig’s Translation

Frame:

Frame:

沙門梵志受信施 食，[..., enumeration follows] 沙門道人，已 遠離此也。

[Da gibt es zum Beispiel] Śramaṇas und Brahmanen, die gläubig gespendete Almosenspeise empfangen, [..., enumeration follows]—wirkliche Śramaṇas haben davon schon abgelassen.

1)

1) (p. 241)

學修幻 [c17] 術，興起 邪見，說日之怪，[1] 逢占觀相，妄語有 [c18] 所奪，學品術 處度術所，學呪欺詐 術，乾陀羅 [c19] 呪 孔雀呪雜碎呪術，是 異術欺詐迷惑，如是 [c20] 之像，非法之 術；

die pflegen Zauberkünste, sie verhelfen falschen Ansichten zum Aufschwung. Sie verkünden Glücks- und Unglückstage, prophezeiend betrachten sie die [körperliche] Erscheinung, [um die Wesensart daraus zu deuten]. Durch lügnerische Rede bringen sie gestohlenes Gut an sich. Sie befassen sich mit den verschiedensten Künsten und Berufen. Künste der Erlösung sind es, um die sie sich bemühen, betrügerische Künste mit magischen Formeln, Künste mit „Gandhāra“-Formeln, Pfauen-Formeln und Tiereingeweide-Formeln. Diese ketzerischen Künste sind Betrügereien und Irreführungen. Derartige Künste von falschen Lehren,—

2)

2) (p. 241)

broad summary of dif- 學迷惑呪欺詐之術， ferent kinds of (mantic) 觀 [c22] 人面像，星宿 災變風雲雷霧，求索 practices 良日，夏 [c23] 月之時 [2] 某聚落當雨不雨， 其地當吉不吉，[c24] 說國王事，如是之 行，非法之術；

die befassen sich mit irreführenden magischen Formeln und betrügerischen Künsten. Sie betrachten Gesicht und Erscheinung der Leute, Sternkonstellationen, Unglückszeichen, Wind, Wolken, Donner und Nebel. Ihr Bemühen gilt glückverheißenden Tagen. Zur Zeit der Sommermonate [verkünden sie, ob es] in ihren Dörfern Regen oder Dürre geben könnte, auf ihrem Boden Glück oder Unglück. Sie verkünden Staats- und Königsdinge. Von einem solchen Wandel, den Künsten falscher Lehren, [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

190

Guggenmos

(cont.) Topic

various misuses of ­magic-medical arts

improper behavior and intervention in public affairs and places

predictions on the basis of things, animals, and humans, recalls strongly the lakṣaṇa passage above (Dīghanikāya I.22)

Chinese Original

Meisig’s Translation

3)

3) (p. 242)

學有若干 [c26] 種非[3] 取之法，畜生之業， 處方行藥，住在所 [c27] 欲，令人短氣吐 下淚出，動人血脉， 志不[4] 忠 [c28] 正，說 欺詐術，占安隱事， 如是之像，畜生之 [c29] 業；

die befassen sich mit den verschiedensten abwegigen Lehren: mit weltlichen Berufen, mit Heilkunde und Medizin. Sie üben aus (?) was ihnen beliebt. Sie verkürzen die Lebenskraft der Menschen. Sie verabreichen Brech- und Abführmittel, regen den Tränenfluss an, beschleunigen den Puls der Menschen. Ihr Wille ist nicht auf Treue und Aufrichtigkeit gerichtet. Sie verkünden betrügerische Künste. Sie prophezeien Heil. Derartige weltliche Berufe,—

4)

4) (p. 244)

所行非法，以斷[5] 饐 口說嫁娶事，[6] 其有 居 [a2] 跱，某館某舍 某堂懷軀，某堂[7] 嬿 處，某有宮 [a3] 殿，為 精進行，某有堂館， 無精進行，說王者 [a4] 雜事，如是之像，畜 生之業；

was sie tun, ist falsche Lehre. Mit verletzenden, üblen Worten verkünden sie Heiratsangelegenheiten. In gewissen Aufenthaltsorten, Speisehäusen, Quartieren und Hallen lassen sie es sich wohl sein. Gewisse Hallen, schöne Orte und Paläste werden von ihnen häufig besucht, manche Gaststätten [hingegen] seltener. (?) Sie verkünden die unterschiedlichsten Könige betreffenden Dinge. Von derartigen weltlichen Berufen [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas abgelassen.]

5)

5) (p. 247)

作若干種畜生 [a6] 行，邪見之業，有占 相珠寶[8] 牛馬居家刀 刃，[a7] 所見相男子女 人大小，如是之像， 邪見之 [a8] 業；

die führen in unterschiedlicher Weise einen weltlichen Wandel, die üben Berufe aus, die mit falschen Ansichten zu tun haben. Einige prophezeien in Bezug auf Perlen, Edelsteine, Rinder, Pferde, in Bezug auf das Hausleben und in Bezug auf Schwerter. Sie sehen vorher in Bezug auf Männer, Kinder, Frauen, Menschen und Gesinde. Von derartigen Berufen, die mit falschen Ansichten zu tun haben, [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

Topic

to do as if knowledgable with impotent (notknowing) things: inquiring through oracles and performing spells

making predictions that affect society directly ( famines, inflation, social unrest, epidemics, death)

191

Chinese Original

Meisig’s Translation

6)

6) (p. 247)

或有妖妄之本行非法 業，無智之事，自 [a10] 以為智，卜問行 符呪，如是之像，邪 見之業；[a11]

von denen haben manche seltsame, falsche Grundlagen, sie üben Berufe aus, die mit falschen Lehren zu tun haben. Sie haben nicht [Anteil an] den Dingen der Weisen, halten sich [aber] selbst für Weise. Sie befragen das Orakel und befassen sich mit Zauberformeln. Von derartigen Berufen, die mit falschen Ansichten zu tun haben, [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

7)

7) (p. 254)

[a12] 或見善或見惡， 豫說米穀當飢貴當平 賤，當 [a13] 有恐怖當 有安隱，當大疫當死 亡，如是之 [a14] 像， 邪見之業；

die sehen mal Gutes, mal Schlechtes voraus. Im voraus verkünden sie in Bezug auf Reis und Getreide, ob es Hungersnot und Teuerung oder Ausgeglichenheit und Verbilligung geben wird; ob es Gefahr geben wird oder Frieden; große Epidemien, Tod und Untergang. Von derartigen Berufen, die mit falschen Ansichten zu tun haben, [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

8)

8) (p. 257)

making state predictions 說某國王戰鬪當得 勝，某國 [a16] 王當不 for the king 如，某國王當出遊觀 他國，他國王不 [a17] 得自在，此當得勝， 彼當敗壞，此王象馬 六 [a18] 畜車乘多， 彼王象馬車乘少，如 是之像，邪 [a19] 見之 業；

die verkünden, daß von gewissen Ländern die Könige im Kampf den Sieg erlangen werden und daß von gewissen Ländern die Könige unterliegen werden; daß von gewissen Ländern die Könige ausziehen werden, um andere Länder zu besichtigen; daß von anderen Ländern die Könige es nicht erlangen werden, ein unabhängiges Dasein zu führen. ‘Dieser wird den Sieg erlangen, jener wird zugrundegehen. Von diesem König [werden] die Elefanten, Pferde, die sechs [Arten von] Haustieren, die Wagen und Gespanne zahlreich [sein], von jenem König werden die Elefanten, Pferde, Wagen und Gespanne wenige sein.’ Von derartigen Berufen, die mit falschen Ansichten zu tun haben, [haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

192

Guggenmos

(cont.) Topic

predicting sky-related events and corresponding disaster (sun and moon on tracks, star constellations on track, irregularities of sun and moon, sun and moon eclipses, bad weather)

predicting sky-related events and giving the reason for this (same list as above in 9)

Chinese Original

Meisig’s Translation

9)

9) (p. 259–260)

共說日月順行，日月 差錯，星宿順 [a21] 行，星宿差錯，日月 運行遲疾不順，當有 災 [a22] 異無常之變， 日月當蝕，或雨霜 雹，或當霹 [a23] 靂， 如是之像，邪見之 業；

die verkünden gemeinsam, daß Sonne und Mond in ihrer Bahn bleiben werden, daß Sonne und Mond von ihrer Bahn abweichen werden; daß Sternkonstellationen in ihrer Bahn bleiben werden, daß Sternkonstellationen von ihrer Bahn abweichen werden; daß Sonne und Mond einen Hof haben werden, daß sie, ihren Gang verlangsamend oder beschleunigend, nicht in ihrer Bahn bleiben werden; daß es Unglück geben wird, und andere Vorzeichen der Unbeständigkeit; daß Sonne und Mond sich verfinstern werden; oder Regen, Frost und Hagel; oder daß es Gewitter geben wird. Von derartigen Berufen, die mit flaschen Ansichten zu tun haben, [haben wirklich Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.]

10)

10) (p. 260)

die verkündigen kundig, daß Sonne und Mond aus dem und dem Grund in ihrer Bahn bleiben, aus dem und dem Grund nicht in ihrer Bahn bleiben; das In der Bahn Bleiben der Sternkonstellationen habe einen Grund, ihr Nicht in der Bahn Bleiben habe ebenfalls einen Grund; welche Vorzeichen widriger Umstände auch immer –, Sonne und Mond würden nach Westen gehen, oder sie sagen, sie würden nach Osten gehen; oder sie sagen, es würde eine Finsternis geben, oder, warum es keine Finsternis geben wird; daß es Donner, Blitz und Gewitter geben werde. Derartiges, [nämlich] ständig zu prophezeien und Auskunft [über die Zukunft] zu geben, [davon haben wirkliche Śramaṇas schon abgelassen.] Taishō Annotations: [1] 逢＝逆 in [宋], [元], [明]。[2] 某＝其 in [宋], [元], [明]。[3] 取＝邪 in [宋], [元], [明]。[4] 忠＝中 in [宋], [元], [明]。[5] 饐 ＝䭓 in [元], [明]。[6] 其＝某 in [宋], [元], [明]。[7] 嬿＝燕 in [宋], [元], [明]。 [8] 牛＝中 in [宋]。 便說日月是故順 [a25] 行，以是不順行， 星宿順有因緣，不順 亦有 [a26] 因緣，有 所罣礙變怪，日月西 行，或言東行，[a27] 或言當蝕，又云何不 蝕，當雷電霹靂，如 是 [a28] 之像，常見證 驗；

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon

193

Amozhou jing, Ambaṭṭha Sutta (AS), according to CBETA, T.1, I: 84b15–84c13; Translation according to Meisig, Das Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra, without annotations, enumeration of passages EMG, nearly identical to FDJ: Topic

Chinese Original

Translation

Frame: 摩納！如餘沙門， 婆羅門食他 信施， 行遮道法，邪命自 活，[enumeration follows][, 以求利養 in first and second passage]; 入我法者，無 如此事。

Junger Mann! So befolgen zum Beispiel einige Śramaṇas und Brahmanen, die von anderen gläubig gespendetes Almosen verzehren, abwegige Lehren und befassen sich mit falschem Lebensunterhalt: [enumeration follows] [und streben so nach Gewinn und Lebensunterhalt, in first and second passage only]. Die in meine Lehre eintreten, tun solche Dinge nicht.

1)

1) (p. 250)

divine gender, fortune, [1] 瞻相男女， 吉凶 [b17] 好醜， beauty, animals, 及相畜生， and make use of it 以求利養；

call/send away ghosts and demons, call them for prayers, to places, scare people; direct them around, cause bitterness/joy; influence pregnancy turn people into animals; make people blind, deaf, dumb; touch the sun and moon; and make use of it

sie sagen voraus, ob Mann, ob Frau, ob glücklich, ob unglücklich, ob schön, ob häßlich. Oder sie weissagen über [Dinge wie] Viehzucht und streben so nach Gewinn und Lebensunterhalt.

2)

2) (p. 250–251)

[2] 召喚鬼神，或復 驅遣，[b20] 或能令 住，種種[3]𧞣 禱， 無數方道，恐[4] 嚇 於 [b21] 人，能聚能 散，能苦能樂，又 能為人安胎出 [b22] 衣，亦能呪人使作驢 馬，亦能使人[5] 盲 聾瘖 [b23] 瘂，現諸 [6] 技術，叉手向日 月，作諸苦行以 [b24] 求利養；

Sie rufen Geister und Dämonen oder treiben sie wieder aus. Oder sie können ihnen befehlen, während der verschiedensten Gebete answesend zu sein und an zahllosen Orten und Wegen die Menschen zu erschrecken. Sie können versammeln und auseinandergehen lassen, können Leid und Glück verursachen. Und sie können für andere eine Schwangerschaft glücklich verlaufen lassen oder die Nachgeburt abgehen lassen. Sie können auch durch magische Formeln andere in Pferde und Esel verwandeln. Sie können andere auch blind, taub und stumm machen und allerlei Künste zum Vorschein bringen. Und mit der Hand berühren sie Sonne und Mond. Sie begehen Schandtaten, indem sie nach Gewinn und Unterhalt streben.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

194

Guggenmos

(cont.) Topic

cause illness through spells; recite good/bad spells medical treatments

apply spells (water/ fire, kṣatriya, birds, talismans appeasing home, fire, mice, lifedeath, dream books, astronomy books, books about sounds)

Chinese Original

Translation

3)

3) [not translated by Meisig, here Weller FDJ trsl., Weller, “Das Brahmajālasūtra des chinesischen Dīrghāgama,” 220:]

為人呪病，或誦惡術 [FDJ: 呪, but 術 in Song, Yuan, and Ming edition]，或為[FDJ: 誦 instead of 為] 善呪， 或為醫 [b27] 方，鍼 灸 [FDJ: 炙, but 灸 in Song, Yuan, and Ming edition] 、藥石，療 治眾病 [病 also in FDJ; but 疾 in FDJ of Song, Yuan and Ming edition];

etwa den Menschen Krankheiten zu beschwören, oder böse Beschwörungen melisch vorzutragen, oder gute Beschwörungen melisch vorzutragen; oder zu rezeptieren, akupunktieren, kauterisieren, mit Arzneimitteln und steinerner Nadel alle Krankheiten ärztlich zu behandeln,

4)

4) (p. 253)

或呪水火，或為鬼 呪，或誦 [c1] 剎利 呪，或誦鳥呪，或支 節呪，[7] 或是安宅 符 [c2] 呪，或火燒， 鼠嚙能[8] 為解呪， 或誦別死生書，[c3] 或讀夢書，或相手 面，或誦天文書，或 誦一 [c4] 切音書；

Sie sprechen Zauberformeln über Wasser und Feuer, wenden Geisterformeln an, rezitieren “kṣatriya-” Formeln, Vogel-Formeln, Zauberfomeln, [die Herkunft des Schicksals eines Menschen] nach [seinen] Gliedmaßen [bestimmen]. Oder es sind Zauberformeln, die friedliche Nachbarschaft bezwecken, Formeln, die von Feuer und Rattenfraß befreien können. Oder sie rezitieren Bücher zur Unterscheidung von Leben und Sterben, sie lesen Bücher über Träume, sie lesen aus der Hand. Sie lesen Bücher über Astrologie oder über alle Laute.

5)

5) (p. 254–255)

predicting the weather, [c6] [9] 瞻相天時， 言雨不雨，[ 穀-(一/ inflation, epidemics, 禾)+ 釆] 貴[ 穀-(一/ social unrest 禾)+ 釆] 賤，多病少 earthquakes, comets, 病，[c7] 恐怖安隱， sun and moon eclipses 或說地動，彗星，日 月[10] 薄[11] 蝕，或 planet eclipses 言 [c8] 星[12] 蝕，或 言不[13] 蝕，如是善 whether these events 瑞，如是惡徵； are good or bad omens

Sie sagen das Wetter voraus, sagen, ob es regnen wird oder nicht, ob das Getreide teuer oder billig sein wird, ob es viele oder wenige Krankheiten geben wird, ob Gefahr oder Friede herrschen wird. Oder sie reden über Erdbeben, Kometen, Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse. Oder sie sagen, ob sich die Planeten verfinstern werden oder nicht, ob es so ein gutes Omen oder ein schlechte (Vorzeichen) ist. Die in meine Lehre eintreten, tun solche Dinge nicht.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon Topic

Chinese Original

making state predictions

195

Translation

6)

6) (p. 256–257)

或言此國 [c11] 勝 彼，彼國不如；或言 彼國勝此，此國不 如；[c12] [14] 瞻相吉 凶，說其盛衰；

Sie sagen, dieses Land übertrifft jenes, jenes Land kommt [ihm] nicht gleich. Sie prophezeien diesen Ländern Glück und Unglück, sprechen über deren Gedeih und Verfall.

Taishō Annotations: [1] 瞻＝占 in [元], [明]。[2] 召＝名 in [明]。[3] 𧞣＝猒 in [宋], [元]; ＝厭 in [明]。[4] 嚇＝熱 in [宋], [元], [明]。[5] 盲聾＝聾盲 in [宋], [元], [明]。[6] 技＝伎 in [宋]。[7] 〔或〕－ in [宋], [元], [明]。 [8] 為解呪＝呪為解 in [宋], [元], [明]。[9] 瞻＝占 in [元], [明]。[10] 薄＝ 博 in [宋], [元]。[11] 蝕＝食 in [宋], [元], [明]。[12] 蝕＝食 in [宋], [元], [明]。[13] 蝕＝食 in [宋], [元], [明]。[14] 瞻＝占 in [元], [明]。

The Tibetan Brahmajālasūtra passage and its translation into German (Tibetan: Weller, Brahmajālasutra, 12, §20–21; Tibetan according to the reconstruction of Weller but using T. Wylie’s transliteration, German: Weller, “Das tibetische Brahmajālasūtra,” 5, §20–21, without annotations): §20. Ji ltar ‘di na dge sbyong dang / Bram ze kha cig dad pas byin pa yongs su spyod cing / Rig pa yon po dag gis log par ‘tsho bas / ‘Tsho bar byed de / ‘Di lta ste / Nyi ma dang zla ba gnyis lam nas rgyu ba’i rnam par smin pa ni ‘di lta bu’o / / Nyi ma dang zla ba gnyis lam log pa nas rgyu ba’i rnam par smin pa ni ‘di lta bu’o / / gZa nyi ma dang / gZa zla ba’i lam dang / sKar mda ltung ba las phyogs ‘bar ba dang / Bar snang las lha’i rnga sgra grag pa’i rnam par smin pa ni ‘di lta bu’o / / gZa nyi ma dang / gZa zla ba’i lam log pa dang / sKar mda ltung ba las phyogs ‘bar ba dang / Bar snang las lha’i rnga sgra grag pa dang / Yang nyi ma dang / Zla ba ‘di gnyis ‘di ltar mthu che ba / ‘Di ltar rdzu ‘phrul che ba’i rnam par smin pa ni ‘di lta bu’o / / ‘Char ba dang / ‘Ong ba dang / Kun nas nyon mongs pa dang / rNam par byang ba rnam par bzhag pa dag tu mi shes pa ni / ‘Di lta ste / Lam dang lam log pa’i phyir ro // §21. Gou ta ma de ni rig pa yon po dag gis log par ‘tsho bas log par ‘tsho bar byed pa de lta bu dag spangs pa yin no //

§20. (Oder) wie (in folgendem:) Einzelne Bettelgänger und Brahmanen genießen hierbei Gaben, die aus frommem Glauben gespendet werden, und gewinnen ihren Lebensunterhalt durch krause Wissenschaften und durch ein verkehrtes Leben, und zwar folgendermaßen: Gehen die beiden, Sonne und Mond, auf ihrem (richtigen) Wege, so zeitigt das die und die Folge. Gehen die beiden, Sonne und Mond, auf verkehrtem Wege, so zeitigt das die und die Folge. Der Weg des Planeten Sonne und der Weg des Planeten Mond und das Lohen der Himmelsgegenden von einem herabgefallenen Kometen her und das Grollen des Donners aus dem Luftraume zeitigt die und die Folge. Der verkehrte Weg des Planeten Sonne und des Planeten Mond und das Lohen der Himmelsgegenden von einem herabfallenden Kometen her und das Grollen des Donners aus dem Luftraume und ferner Sonne und Mond, diese beiden (Gestirne) so großer Kraft, so großer Macht, zeitigen die und die Folge, das Nichtwissen um die genauen Verhältnisse (bei) Hervortreten, Untergehen, Trübung und Klarheit, dies ist nämlich von wegen des (rechten) Weges und des verkehrten Weges. §21. Der Gautama hat sich dessen entschlagen, durch krause Wissenschaften und durch ein verkehrtes Leben seinen Lebensunterhalt zu gewinnen. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

196

Steavu

Chapter 6

The Allegorical Cosmos: The Shi 式 Board in Medieval Taoist and Buddhist Sources Dominic Steavu*

Sacrifice to the ancestors, as if they are there, sacrifice to the gods, as if the gods are there. The Master said: “If I do not offer a sacrifice [as if they are there], it is like not sacrificing at all.” 祭如在，祭神如神在。子曰：吾不與祭，如不祭。 The Analects [Lunyu 論語] 3.12

1 Introduction In his recent reconsideration of James L. Watson’s contributions to the anthropology of Chinese religions, Donald Sutton refers to the above epitaph from the Lunyu in establishing the centrality of ‘as if’ fiction in ritual.1 The effect of a ritual, he argues, is accomplished through one’s state of mind. The effectiveness of the sacrifice hinges not on whether the gods are verifiably present or not, but on the officiant’s sincerity in acting as if they were. Thus, in sources spanning from the Doctrine of the Mean [Zhongyong 中庸] to Qing (1644–1912) liturgical handbooks for magistrates, sincerity (cheng 誠) is a crucial component of ritual propriety (li 禮) and is deemed vital to ritual efficacy.2 Moreover, Sutton insists, sincerity “had a bodily aspect: earnest * I would like to thank Donald Harper, Marc Kalinowski and Fabrizio Pregadio for their precious insights and close reading of this article. I would also like to thank the reviewers for their comments. Any mistakes that may remain are entirely mine. 1 Sutton, “Ritual, Cultural Standardization, and Orthopraxy in China,” 14; I borrow the term “‘as if’ fiction” from Roetz, Confucian Ethics, 326, n. 13. 2 See for example, Zhongyong 16, for a passage that echoes the lines from Lunyu 3.12: 子曰： 「鬼神之為德，其盛矣乎！視之而弗見，聽之而弗聞，體物而不可遺。使天下 之人齊明盛服，以承祭祀，洋洋乎如在其上，如在其左右。《詩》曰：『神之 格思，不可度思！矧可射思！』夫微之顯，誠之不可掩如此夫。」

“The Master [Confucius] said, ‘How abundant are the gods and ghost’s acts of power! Yet, if one looks for them, one does not see them. If one listens to them, one does not hear them. They inform all things, yet they cannot be traced. They cause all people under

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_008 Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

197

disposition made visible in physical acts and attitudes. It was not a purely ‘internal state’ at all. Neither, on the other hand, is li a purely external state like our [academic and post-enlightenment understanding of] ‘ritual.’”3 The Xunzi 荀子 for instance, explains: “Rites (li) reach their highest perfection when both emotion and form are fully realized. In rites of the next order, emotions and form in turn prevail. In the lowest order of rites, all reverts to emotion […].”4 In their highest expression, the formal elements of ritual, considered both internal and external, and the informal features, expressed outwardly and inwardly, commingle.5 In other words, the ceremonial aspects of ritual must be performed ‘as if’ they perfectly express intent, while the intent must be ‘as if’ it were a flawless emotional translation of the ceremonial component, to paraphrase the exhortation from the Lunyu. In this circular logic of ‘as if’ mimesis, the two aspects blend, mirroring both internal dispositions and external performance simultaneously.6 Although informative, the dichotomy that Watson and other anthropologists upheld between ritual and belief, or action and thought, does not reflect all indigenous Chinese discourses on ritual.7 Nonetheless, this brief consideration Heaven to fast and purify, and don splendid attire in order to undertake sacrifices to them. [Their presence is] Overflowing! As if they were [right] above them, as if they were to their right and left. Thus, the Classic of Poetry says: ‘The approaches of the gods, cannot be surmised! All the more are they not to be disregarded!’ The manifestation of the subtle and the impossibility of obstructing sincerity are like this!’” 3 Sutton, ibid. 4 故至備，情文俱盡；其次，情文代勝；其下復情以歸大一也; Xunzi, 19.12; English translation from Knoblock,“Xunzi”, 3:16. 5 文理繁，情用省，是禮之隆也。文理省，情用繁，是禮之殺也。文理情用相為內 外表墨，並行而雜，是禮之中流也。故君子上致其隆，下盡其殺，而中處其中; Xunzi, 19.16. Knoblock, “Xunzi”, 3:62, translates: “When form and principle are emphasized and emotions and offerings are treated perfunctorily, there is the greatest elaboration of ritual. When emotion and offerings are emphasized and form and principle are treated perfunctorily, there is the greatest simplification of ritual. When form and principle, and emotion and offerings, are treated as inside to outside, external manifestation to inner content, so that both are translated into action and commingled, there is the mean course of ritual. Thus, the gentleman […] dwells in the mean of its mean course.” 6 I rely on Michael Taussig’s notion of mimesis, which he develops principally from Walter Benjamin’s ideas; see Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity. 7 Among the proponents of the “interpretive approach,” we may also cite Malinowski and LéviStrauss; among its detractors figure Catherine Bell, Pierre Bourdieu, and Stanley Tambiah, who argued for a “performative” model in which the social dimensions to ritual are prized (as a line of investigation) over that of the individual; see, for instance, Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, and, more succinctly, Tambiah, “A Performative Approach to Ritual,” 123–166, in his Culture, Thought, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective; for an overview of why ritual (action) is not separable from thought (belief) in the Chinese context, see Rawski, “A Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

198

Steavu

of ritual in China offers a methodological springboard into the world of the instrument known as the shi 式 board. The implement was likely devised for the purpose of astrocalendrical computation, but specimens from the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) suggest that even early on, the device was used in hemerology, that is, the determination of auspicious and inauspicious times, days, or periods. From the early medieval period, the shi was increasingly adapted to a variety of other prognosticatory and increasingly ritual contexts that required less technical knowledge or expertise than strictly astrocalendrical calculations. Although some official sources contain examples of the shi board’s more ritual permutations, the Taoist and Buddhist canons preserve the most striking examples of such re-appropriations. In these, the general prin­ ciples of the shi’s operation, deriving from a desire to know or alter fate—the ‘internal intent,’ so to speak—are preserved, but the external display of that intent is modified in accordance with new parameters dictated by the practice. Likewise, although the external form of the shi board—defined by the spatiotemporal markings that it bears—is highly fluid, its ‘internal form,’ that is to say, its basic features as a cosmograph, is consistently maintained.8 Even in its most figurative embodiments, the shi still operated in the same way as its earlier astrocalendrical or hemerological cousins. The present article will contribute observations towards answering the question of why certain mantic traditions, despite having a priori very little to do with hemerological computation, opted for the shi board as their ritual implement of choice. To put it differently, why did the traditions in question deem it necessary or advantageous to appropriate and reformulate the shi board, a tool whose manipulation required fairly specific technical training that was traditionally valid only within a fairly restricted context? Preliminary impressions will be gleaned through a close examination of shi board literature in the Taoist and Buddhist canons, although official sources will also be considered. In the concluding discussion, I will attempt to answer the question of what ritual mechanisms were at play when the shi was de- and re-con­ textualized. First and foremost, however, a few clarifications concerning the implement are in order.

Historian’s Approach” and Feuchtwang, The Imperial Metaphor; as well as the discussion thereof in Sutton, “Ritual,” 3–21. 8 See also Hayek’s contribution in this volume.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

199

The Allegorical Cosmos

2

Toward a Typology of the Shi in Early and Medieval China

Although the topic of the shi board, or, alternatively, the shi ‘cosmograph,’ has generated numerous studies and elicited a number of notable debates, the exact functions of the instrument remain poorly understood.9 Some scholars, including Joseph Needham and Christopher Cullen, have stressed the shi’s astrometric dimensions in the structuring of time and space, while Donald Harper has insisted on its role in divination and the reckoning arts (shushu 數 術). Most specialists agree on the astronomical undertones, which are in fact, more accurately described as astrocalendrical undertones and are inherent to the instrument’s structure and use in hemerology.10 Marc Kalinowski has most recently cleared up some of the misconceptions that have plagued previous studies in order to pave the way for a more accurate typology of the device and its applications.11 But the exact boundaries that delineate calendrical astrology, hemerology, or technically cruder forms of divinatory and para-divinatory

9

For relatively early impressions on the shi and its potential applications, see Yan Dunjie, “Guanyu Xi-Han,” and Yin Difei, “Xi-Han Ruyin.” For a debate around the shi that sums up many of the issues encountered in Chinese literature, see Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board (shih 式)”; Cullen, “Some Further Points on the shih”; Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board”; and Cullen, “The Han Cosmic Model”; see also Li Ling’s masterfully synthetic, “‘Shi’ yu Zhongguo gudai de yuzhou moshi” in his Zhongguo fangshu kao, 89–176, originally published under the same title in Zhongguo wenhua; and, more recently, Lu Yang, Zhongguo gudai xingzhan xue, 298–523. 10 The word used to translate the shi 式 is often reflective of the author’s understanding of the device. Echoing Needham’s “diviner’s board,” Harper suggests “cosmic board”—while Cullen answers with “cosmic model,” a direct translation of the Chinese term “yuzhou moshi” 宇宙模式; see the previous footnote for references. Throughout this article, I have elected to leave the term untranslated, adding “board” as a suffix to clarify that it is a tangible technical instrument that is under discussion—a notion that the modern Chinese term shipan 式盤 conveys. In addressing its cosmological nature, I will on occasion refer to the shi as a “cosmograph,” following Stephen Little; see his “Cosmos, Cosmograph, and the Inquiring Poet.” This moniker has the advantage of encompassing the notion of “cosmic model” and that of “shitu 式圖” (“cosmogram”) preferred by Li Ling, without the inconveniences of being overly descriptive or too general. For example, it may refer to both material computational tools or shi-derived diagrams and schemata that are traced on paper or on the ground. More recently, Kalinowski has proposed the elegant term “mantic device” to reflect the Chinese zhanpan 占盤 adopted from Yan Dunjie, although it is my understanding that this would not apply to shi that are used for non-prognosticatory ends, such as apotropeia; see Kalinowski’s “The notion of ‘Shi 式.’” 11 Kalinowski, ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

200

Steavu

Figure 6.1 A two-dimensional representation of a Six Dynasties (220–589) Liuren 六 壬 divination board with its round “heaven plate” and square “earth plate.” Reproduced on the basis of Abe no Seimei to Onmyōdō ten 安倍晴明と陰 陽道展 [Abe no Seimei and the Way of Yin and Yang: The Exhibition], 53.

methods involving the instrument or its derivative diagrams remain difficult to ascertain. For heuristic purposes, I propose we view these three categories as a continuous spectrum along which technical knowledge is progressively diluted and replaced with abstract or impressionistic substitutes of that knowledge. In other words, the farther one moves along the spectrum, the more astro­ calendrical values are replaced with cosmological or even theological counterparts. Through this prism, the cases examined in the next few pages, which chiefly exhibit highly abstract data with only symbolic astrocalendrical value, can still be integrated in a broader taxonomy of the shi. Yet, this schematic simplification of the instrument does not amount to a carte blanche in formulating misleading generalities. It would be mistaken to assume that the applications and varieties of shi can be divided along neat social or sectarian lines, with official sources conserving the comparatively “practical” hemerological uses and the symbolic or conceptual uses being relegated to religious sources insusceptible to the logical rigors of representational accuracy. That is not to deny that in their formalistic and technically demanding incarnations, shi boards were connected to the practices of the official sphere—whether determining the proper course of military action, divining the auspiciousness of an emperor’s dream, or formulating

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

201

meteo­­rological predictions on the basis of which agricultural policies could be imple­mented. The implement was indeed associated with statecraft, but it was not the exclusive preserve of the governing elite.12 In fact, it is precisely because it immediately evoked power and authority that the shi was a valuable commodity for many who were not directly involved with ruling, religious spe­ cialists among them. 3

Taoist Technical Manuals on Shi Divination

Among its wealth of treatises on prognostication, the Taoist Canon [Daozang

道藏] houses a triptych of texts that deal with the manipulation of the shi in a

way that presupposes advanced technical knowledge.13 The first of these is the

12

13

For early accounts of the application of the shi in relation to official matters, see for example, Ban Gu’s Hanshu 漢書, 99.2; and Sima Qian’s Shiji 史記, 128. By the Tang (618– 907), shi divination for official purposes was fully regulated by the Office of Divination (Taibu shu 太卜署), itself under the administration of the Ministry of Rites (Taichang si 太常寺). Kalinowski, “Mantic Texts,” 114–115, explains: “In the 8th century, it comprised 92 members including instructors and students, 20 diviners (bushi 卜師), and 15 exorcists (wushi 巫師). The Tang liudian which describes its composition also mentions the four main specialties practiced by members of the Office: divination by turtle (gui 龜), signs (zhao 兆), milfoil (yi 易) and mantic astrolabes (shi 式). The work further cites a fifth specialty named ‘Various Yin-Yang Prognostications’ (yinyang zazhan 陰陽雜占), which was again subdivided into nine categories.” Most of the divination techniques described in the Taoist Canon do not require a shi board. Those that do are discussed in the following pages. A third category of texts present methods that involve cosmographs, most often in the form of computational tables or diagrams, bearing some relation to the shi, although this is not made explicit; see for example the Song (960–1279) or Yuan (1279–1368) period Ziwei doushu 紫微斗數 [­Reckonings from the Big Dipper’s Palace of Purple Tenuity] and its treatment in Ho, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 74–81; see also Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds; DZ 1032], 107.10b for a description of an intriguing “celestial globe” (huntian xiang 渾天像) that Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456–536) devised. In this third category of texts, I also include two groups of dunjia 遁甲 (hidden stem) divination treatises. The Tang dynasty Huangdi taiyi bamen rushi jue, 黃帝太一八門入式訣 [The Yellow Emperor’s Instructions on Entering the Cosmograph through the Eight Gates of Supreme Unity; DZ 586] Huangdi taiyi bamen rushi bijue 黃帝太一八門入式祕訣 [The Yellow Emperor’s Secret Instructions on Entering the Cosmograph through the Eight Gates of Supreme Unity; DZ 587], and Huangdi taiyi bamen nishun shensi jue 黃帝太一八門逆順 生死訣 [The Yellow Emperor’s Secret Instructions on Inverting and Following the [Processes of ] Life and Death through the Eight Gates of Supreme Unity; DZ 588] form a first group. A second group of interrelated scriptures, this time from the Song, is made up of the Taishang liuren mingjian fuyin jing 太上六壬明鑑符陰經 [Book of the Luminous Mirror

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

202

Steavu

Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dragon Head [Huangdi longshou jing 黃帝龍 首經; DZ 283], a two-juan Liuren 六壬 treatise first mentioned in the fourthcentury The Master Who Embraces Simplicity [Baopu zi 抱朴子].14 Among its seventy-two headings, readers will find instructions for a variety of prog­ nosticatory purposes including “interrogating convicts and obtaining the truth” or “determining the docility of servants and other members of the underclass”.15 The sixty-eighth entry’s typically jargon-laden instructions con­ cerning the method for “divining burial matters” (zhan zangshi 占葬事) suggest the source was primarily intended for a readership of technical specialists: One must first determine the [positions] of the five phases. If the branch value16 below the hour [matching] Victorious Precedence does not cor­ respond to the stem of the current day, then be cautious when operating the shi not to make the Dipper face the current day’s stem and branch, nor should the White Tiger be made to face a direction of potency.17 Thus, [the situation] will be greatly auspicious and there will be no misfortune thereafter. As for not complying with this method, it is the first step in stirring up calamity.18 必先定五行，若勝先時下辰與今日日[ 辰] 不比，及推式，慎無令魁罡 臨今日日辰，又勿令白虎臨有氣之鄉，即大吉，後乃無咎。不如法 者，禍起之始。

14 15 16

17 18

of the Six Ren Tallying with Yin; DZ 861]. and the Taishang dongshen xuanmiao boyuan zhenjing. 太上洞神玄妙白猿真經 [Perfect Scripture of the Mysterious and Wondrous White Monkey; DZ 858] The last pair exhibits overlap with a number of official divination sources from the Tang and Song, among them the Taibo yinjing 太白陰經 [The Hidden Scripture of Venus] by Li Quan 李筌 (fl. ca. 743), its antiquarian re-edition of (1044) under the name Wujing zongyao, 武經總要 [Complete Essentials of the Classic of Warfare] and Jingyou dunjia fuying jing, 景祐遁甲符應經 [Scripture of the Resonant Talismans of the Hidden Stem from the Jingyou era (1034-1038)] on which, see below. See Ge Hong, Baopu zi, 19.307. Huangdi longshou jing, 1.15ab and 2.3ab, respectively. The text dates from the Han (206 bce–220 ce) or early Six Dynasties (220–589 ce) period. Sexagenary binomes are composed by combining one of the ten celestial stems with one of the twelve earthly branches. In a hemerological context, chen 辰 most often refers to the branch half of the binome. I am thankful to Donald Harper for pointing this out. The expression Kuigang 魁罡 is here a synecdoche for the Big Dipper. It combines the names of the first and last stars of the asterism. Huangdi longshou jing, 2.18a. I am thankful for Marc Kalinowski’s assistance in rendering this passage. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

203

Figure 6.2 Schematic representation of the general features and markings of a typical medieval shi divination board

The cryptic directives continue throughout the text. Yet, from the mention of Victorious Precedence (Shengxian 勝先),19 one of the Twelve Monthly Generals (shi’er yue jiang 十二月將) and the exhortations to refrain from making some of them ‘face’ (lin 臨) certain values, it is safe to assume that the Longshou jing is describing the operation of a shi cosmograph, or at the very least the elabo­ ration of a shi diagram, in accordance with the Liuren divination method (see figure 6.1 and figure 6.2). What is more, the passage explicitly enjoins practi­ tioners to “operate the cosmograph” (tuishi 推式), confirming that ritual did indeed rely on some material support.20 Written in the same technical language as the Longshou jing, the two other sources from the Taoist Canon—the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale [Huangdi jinkui yuheng jing 黃帝金匱玉衡; DZ 284] and 19 20

Sometimes listed as Shengguang 勝光 (Superior Radiance). Since these issues have already been addressed at length, I will refrain from elaborating on the operational details of the Liuren shi or the astrocalendrical significance of its markings. See Marc Kalinowski, “Les instruments” and “La transmission”, 788–791; see also Yan Dunjie, “Shipan zongshu”; and Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 124– 129. In early and medieval Japan, the Liuren shi was also used according to Chinese principles of operation, thus offering valuable insight into the practice in China; see the instructive three-part article series by Kosaka Shinji, “Onmyōdō no rikujin shikisen ni tsuite” and more recently by the same author, “Rikujin chokusen to nijūhasshuku.” Kosaka has devoted the better part of the last thirty years to studying shi board divination, with particular attention to the Liuren method. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

204

Steavu

the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dark Maiden Transmitted to his Three Sons [Huangdi shou sanzi xuannü jing 黃帝授三子玄女經; DZ 285]—equally cater to specialists of the divination arts. Although only the first is listed in the bibliographic catalogues of dynastic histories, the similarity in content between the sources lends to believe that the Liuren methods encountered in all three treatises would have been in use in official circles.21 The two latter sources are just as technical as the Longshou jing, but the question of whether an actual material cosmograph is employed is more ambiguous. References to the manipulation of an actual shi device or the elaboration of a shi diagram are comparatively oblique. The Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale stands out in that it proposes what appears to be an abstracted version of the shi device, one that the officiant, standing at the center of a projected ritual area modeled on the shi, partially embodies22: The Yellow Emperor said: I will transmit to you these two [documents], the Chart of the Gold Casket and the Scripture of Jade Scale, but you must keep these secret […] Without even leaving the house, all under heaven can be known; without walking out of the door, perfected rule can be achieved. That which Ascending Brightness faces [determines] auspi­ cious­ness. [...] The Revered Spirit of the Heavenly One is positioned in the Central Palace. He takes hold of Jewel and Pearl [the ‘carriage’ of the Big Dipper] and the Jade Scale [the handle of the Big Dipper], controlling the four seasons, holding Yin and Yang in rein. In his hands, he grasps the 21

22

For a list of the bibliographic treatises that include the Longshou jing, see Li Ling, Zhongguo fangshu kao, 112–119, esp. 114. Given the truncated nature of its content and its relatively short length, the Shou sanzi xuannü jing was likely a subsection of a larger Liuren divination text, perhaps the Longhsou jing, as its title refers to the transmission narrative presented in the latter’s preface; see Longshou jing, 1.1a: Con­cerning the circulation of the Jinkui yuheng jing in official circles, the scholar-official Yan Zhitui 顏之 推 (531–591) cites a Jinkui 金匱 [Gold casket] while the Wuyue chunqiu 吳越春秋 [Spring and Autumn of Wu and Yue] mentions a Jinkui together with a certain Yumen 玉門 [Jade gate], an expression used interchangeably with “yuheng 玉衡”; see Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 398–400; and for an abridged account in English, see, by the same author, “Huangdi jinggui yuheng jing”, 85–86. Both of these passages are part of a broader overview of the three Liuren scriptures from the Daozang; see Kalinowski, “Les instru­ ments,” 396–401; and the English counterpart in Schipper and Verellen’s The Taoist Canon, 84–87; see also Yan Dunjie, “Shipan zongshu.” Marc Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 397–398 first proposed this reading of the Jinkui yuheng jing, which I follow.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

205

plumb line, positioning in order the stars of the Big Dipper. Fang [fourth equatorial mansion] is on its left, shen [twenty-first equatorial mansion], on its right, xu [eleventh equatorial mansion] to its back, and zhang [twenty-sixth equatorial mansion], to its front. The Revered Spirit of the Heavenly One joins the twenty-eight [mansions] to the eight directions, with [the trigram] Qian as compass and [the trigram] Kun as ruler. He exhales Yin and exhales Yang, [positioning] the five [Generals] before him and the six [Generals] behind. And thus, he makes auspiciousness manifest. […] [This scripture presents] thirty-six uses of the Gold Casket and Jade Room,23 and in all of them, the Heavenly One is the most vener­ able, for he is lord ruler. Commanding the center empowers the spirits; how lofty and magnificent!24 黃帝曰：吾授汝此圖金匱、玉衡經二，子秘之 […] 不出房戶，可知天 下，不出戶房，可致真主。明視登明，所臨吉 凶. […] 天一貴神，位在 中宮，據璇璣把玉衡，統御四 時，攬撮陰陽, 手握繩墨，位正魁罡， 左房右參，背虛向張, 四七布列，首羅八方，規矩乾坤，噓吸陰陽， 首五後六，以顯吉凶。[…] 三十六用，金匱玉房，天一最尊，為之主 王；將中威神，巍巍堂堂。

The Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale is just as hermetic as its two sister scriptures, but even casual readers may discern the features of a Liuren method shi board, from the twenty-eight mansions and the Eight Trigrams (bagua 八卦) to Ascending Brightness (Dengming 登明), one of Twelve Month­ly Generals. The passage focuses on the celestial deity Heavenly Unity (Tianyi 天一), the mobile pivot and center of the ritual area and one of the Twelve Heavenly Generals (shi’er tianjiang 十二天將).25 Together with the Twelve Monthly Generals, these divine figures are closely associated with shibased Liuren rituals.26 Practitioners are subsequently instructed to configure the rest of the shi’s parameters in relation of what appears to be their own position at the center of the ritual area, that is, in the position of Heavenly Unity. The multiple references to statecraft and governing solidify the identity between the officiant, Heavenly Unity, the center, and the cosmocratic political 23 Manifestly, fang 房 here, as men 門 elsewhere, is a variation of heng 衡. 24 Huangdi jinkui yuheng jing, 1a–2a. 25 The shi’er tianjiang 十二天將 (Twelve Heavenly Generals) are also known as the shi’er shenjiang 十二神將 (Twelve Divine Generals), or the shi’er shenjiang 十二神 (Twelve Spirits/Twelve Gods). 26 Huangdi jinkui yuheng jing, 2a, omitted above.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

206

Steavu

embo­diment of that position, the emperor. This is not un­com­mon in early or medieval religious sources. Nāgār­juna’s Treatise on the Five Sciences [Longshu wuming lun 龍樹五明論; T.1420], a Buddhist text dated to the late sixth century, contains a similar Liuren divination ritual in which the adept acts as the mobile heaven plate (tianpan 天盤), pacing across a ritual area that reproduces the compo­sition and markings of a static earth plate (dipan 地盤).27 Whereas the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale and other texts from the Taoist Canon still emphasize the specialized knowledge required to operate the shi, other, and especially later sources diminish the technical aspects of divination methods in order to stress the material aspect of the shi device. In this way, the divination board is no longer a tool that translates the knowledge or authority of the officiant, but it is the direct materialization of that knowledge or authority. The shi becomes a talisman of sorts, evoking power through a symbolic shortcut. For example, after giving precise instructions on how to engrave the board, the Scripture on the Liuren [Method] for Alleviating Doubt Compiled During the Jingyou era (1034–1038) [ Jingyou Liuren shending jing 景佑六壬神定經] recommends that the device is to be ritually consecrated, properly adjusted, and then, rather anticlimactically, “placed in a cloth purse and carried around [at the waist] on one’s person.”28 “The prestige of tradition,” as Kalinowski puts it, is often enough to justify the ritual use of the divination board.29 Again, the fact that this passage appears in a source that was compiled by the eminent official of the Astronomical Bureau, Yang Weide 楊維德 (d. after 1054) and commissioned by the Emperor reveals that the apotropaic appli­ cations of the shi were not the sole purview of religious specialists. Similarly, technical applications of the cosmograph can be found in religious sources such as the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dragon Head just as well as in official sources.

27 See Longshu wuming lun, 958 bc. 28 Jingyou dunjia fuying jing—slightly modified from Kalinowski, “The Notion of ‘Shih 式,’” 346. 29 Kalinowski, ibid. See also Kalinowski’s comments on the decorative function of the related “cord-hook” diagrams (composed of the “two cords” er sheng 二繩 and the “four hooks” sigou 四鉤) in “The Xingde 刑德 Texts,” 138–145, and “Time, Space, and Orientation,” 137–142.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

207

The Allegorical Cosmos

4

The Cosmic Body: Shi as Self in Taoist Sources

Beyond the niche market of hemerological specialists, the shi cosmograph proved alluring to a wider group of users. In the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale, technical knowledge is still a requisite for operating the shi, but the text stands out in identifying the officiant with the implement, heralding a transition to increasingly abstract and figurative appli­ cations. Pushing the equivalence between shi and adept even further, and this time combining it with an almost complete abandonment of hemerological computation, Laozi’s Central Scripture [Laozi zhongjing 老子中經] projects the layout of the entire shi board onto the body, complete with a lower earth plate (dipan 地盤) and an upper heaven plate as well as astrocalendrical markings that are anthropomor­phized as corporeal deities.30 The following passage supplies the clearest evidence of the indebtedness of Laozi’s Central Scripture to the shi cosmograph. Beginning with the central pivot of the heaven plate, the text describes the bureaucracy of internal officials radiating outwards in concentric layers: The navel is the fate of humans. At times it is called the Middle Ultimate, at other times it is known as the Great Abyss, Kunlun, Solitary Pivot, or the Five Citadels. Within the Five Citadels, there are the Five Perfected (The Five Cita­dels are the Five Emperors). Outside the Five Citadels, there are the Eight Envoys (They are the gods of the Eight Trigrams, together with Supreme Unity, they form the Nine Ministers).31 Beyond the Eight Trigrams, there is the Twelve-storied Tower, with its Twelve Princes (these are the Twelve Grand Officials) […]. And thus, the Perfected of the Five Citadels take charge of submitting accounts [of merits and misdeeds] at [the interstices of] the four seasons, and the Eight Spirits take charge of submitting accounts on the days of the eight nodes. The Twelve Grand Officials take charge of the twelve months, submitting accounts on the last day of each month […] Thus, at midnight on the evening of the first and last days of every month and on the days of the 30

31

On the Laozi zhongjing, see Katō Chie, “Rōshi chūkyō to naitan shisō no genryū”; Lagerwey, “Deux écrits”; Liu Yongming, “Laozi zhongjing”; Maeda Shigeki, “Rōshi chūkyō oboegaki”; Pregadio, “Early Taoist Meditation”; Schipper, “Le calendrier de jade” and “The Inner World.” I have added parentheses to the English and Chinese texts to signal a subsequent layer of annotations to the text. The Laozi zhongjing is dated to the second to fourth centuries, but the notes likely date from the Tang. I am indebted to Fabrizio Pregadio for pointing this out.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

208

Steavu

eight nodes, Supreme Unity beats on the drums of the Five Citadels to summon all the spirits. They revise tabulated acts and discuss the recorded merits and misdeeds. Those who have a [positive] record will have their life extended, and the spirits will hold them aloft; those who have none will perish, and the Director of Destinies will expunge their name from the register of Life. This is why at the time of going to bed on the evenings of the first and last day of every month and on the days of the eight nodes, one must meditate on the Supreme Unity of the upper cinnabar field, the Supreme Unity of the middle cinnabar field, and the Supreme Unity of the lower cinnabar field, [and ponder] the Perfected of the Five Citadels and Twelve-storied Tower.32 臍者，人之命也，一名中極，一名太淵，一名崑崙，一名特樞，一名 五城。五城中有五真人 (五城者，五帝也) 。五城之外有八吏者 (八卦 神也。并太一為九卿) 。八卦之外有十二樓者，十二太子 (十二大夫 也) 。[…] 。故五城真人主四時上計，八神主八節日上計，十二大夫主 十二月，以晦日上計。[…] 故太一常以晦朔、八節日夜半時，五城擊 鼓，集召諸神，校定功德，謀議善惡，有錄者延命，眾神共舉，無錄 者終亡，司命絕去生籍。故常以晦朔、八節之日夜欲臥時，念上太 一、中太一、下太一、五城、十二樓真人。

Sprawling out from the central position—that is, from the navel, occupied by the Supreme Unity (Taiyi 太一)—the administrative circles are successively populated by the Five Perfected (wu zhenren 五真人) of the Five Directions and the gods of the Eight Trigrams (bali 八吏). Together with Supreme Unity, these form the exoteric circle of the Nine Ministers (jiuqing 九卿), which is followed by an outer layer of administration, the Twelve Grand Officers shi’er dafu 十二大夫), also known as the Twelve Princes (shi’er taizi 十二太子) of the Twelve-storied Tower (shi’er lou 十二樓). As Lagerwey has pointed out, this passage appears to map out a shi board associated with the Nine Palaces (jiugong 九宮) divination method, onto the inner plane of the body.33 In a rich analogical tapestry, the passage conjugates 32

33

Laozi zhongjing, 14, in Yunji qiqian (DZ 1032), 18.10b–11a. See Lagerwey, “Deux écrits,” 8–9, for a French translation of the same passage; see also Schipper, “Le calendrier de jade,” 79. The Taishang Lingbao Wufu xu, 1.20b, contains a similar passage, explaining: “the gods of the Eight Trigrams are eight in number. Together with Taiyi, in the navel, they form the Nine Ministers” 八卦神八者并臍太一為九卿. Lagerwey, “Deux écrits,” 18–19. The absence of the equatorial divisions of the twenty-eight lunar mansions along with the emphasis on the Nine Ministers and the suggestion of concentric circles recall the structure of the Nine Palaces shi; see Kalinowski,

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

209

astronomical, hemerological, and physiological registers, thereby articulating the interpenetration of the macrocosmic and microcosmic planes. For example, Supreme Unity, which, in astral form is the immobile Pole Star around which the Big Dipper rotates, is also located in the “center” (zhong 中) of the body, namely the navel, or lower Cinnabar Field (dantian 丹田). Quite fittingly, it represents here the central pivot of the imagined cosmograph. Likewise, other sets of data that are typically featured on shi boards are translated into the idiom of the inner landscape: the five directions or five seasons appear as the Five Viscera (wuzang 五臟), which double as the Five Citadels (wucheng 五城), and the twelve months are incarnated as the Twelve Princes of the trachea, the Twelve-storied Tower. At a higher level of abstraction, another section from Laozi’s Central Scripture sketches out the contours of the microcosmic shi within the body. In the space between the two kidneys, there is a vast ocean (dahai 大海) where the Divine Tortoise (shengui 神龜) swims: On the back of this turtle, right in the center [of its shell], are the seven stars of the Big Dipper. This tortoise is yellow in color, and it has the appearance of a golden disc. To its left and right shine the moon and sun. Thus, the area below the navel is the center of the Earth. This is where the Five Peaks and the Four Seas, the rivers and springs connect, where Kunlun Mountain and the Ruoshui waterway sink deeper and deeper—it is the abyss of the Mysterious Abstruse. Following the orbit of the sun [sic] and moon, the heavenly daytime sun shines on the Earth below, and the myriad spirits all receive its brilliance. Humans are also modeled on this: the daytime sun, is found in the navel. It descends to shine on the lower Cinnabar Field, and the myriad spirits within the navel receive its brilliance. The evening sun is the stomach, and it rises to shine in the chest […]. The evening moon is in the navel, it descends to shine on the myriad spirits. The daytime moon is in the stomach, it rises to illuminate the myriad spirits in the bosom. Moving up and down, up and down, [continuously,] without rest.34

34

“Instruments,” 324, and “La transmission,” 777. The circulation of Supreme Unity through the Nine Palaces is evoked in another meditation from the Laozi zhongjing, in which the Yellow Spirit (Huangshen 黃神), a hypostase of Supreme Unity, performs a tour of inspec­ tion akin to those undertaken by officials and the emperor in early imperial China; see Laozi zhongjing 53 in Yunji qiqian, 19.18b. It has been argued that these administrative practices were the basis for the “Circulation of Taiyi through the Nine Palaces” divination method (Taiyi xing jiugong 太一行九宮); see Lagerwey, “Deux écrits,” 15, n. 59, and 16, n. 62. Laozi zhongjing 20 in Yunji qiqian, 18.15ab.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

210

Steavu 神龜上有七星北斗，正在中央。其龜黃色，狀如黃金盤，左右日月照 之。故臍下為地中，中有五岳四瀆，水泉交通，崑崙弱水，沈沈滉 滉，玄冥之淵也。日月之行，故天晝日照於地下，萬神皆得其明。人 亦法之，晝日在臍中，[ 下] 照於丹田，臍中萬神皆得其明也。夜日在 胃中，上照於胸中，[…]。 夜月在臍中，下照於萬神；晝月在胃中， 上照胸中萬神。更相上下，無有休息。

The passage first elaborates on a sacred testudine in the shape of a disc or plate (pan 盤), with the pattern of the Big Dipper inscribed at the very center of its golden shell—a description that immediately evokes the image of a shi board.35 Like the shi, the Divine Tortoise is an autonomous cosmic egg comprising all of space and time. A parallel passage relates how the Director of Destinies (siming 司命) and the Director of Emoluments (silu 司祿), mounted on the tor­toise’s shell, endow the amphibian with the prophetic faculties of fore­ casting the course of adepts’ lives—a feature that it shares with the ritual implement.36 The text then proceeds to detail some of the topographical attributes of the inner landscape, artfully connecting Kunlun (崑崙) Mountain, the central anchor of Earth, to the physiological center point of the lower Cinnabar Field, the area immediately behind the navel. This is followed by the superimposition of astrocalendrical, and thereby chronological, components onto the breath (qi 氣) rhythms of the body. In this case, what appear to be solar day counts, alternating between sun and moon phases, define corporeal time cycles. The 35

36

See Lagerwey, “Deux écrits,” 17–18; Schipper, “The Inner World,” 126; for more passages describing the Divine Tortoise, see Laozi zhongjing 10, 19, 23, and 25 in Yunji qiqian, 18.6ab, 18.4b–15a, 18.17b–19b, and 18.20a–21a, respectively. Laozi zhongjing 25 in Yunji qiqian, 18.20a–21a. In his “De la tortue à l’achilée,” Léon Vander­ meersch discusses the role of tortoises in Chinese mythology: “Enfermée dans sa carapace, ne représente-t-elle pas l’oeuf cosmique, et par là la totalité du monde spatial? De plus, sa longévité proverbiale en fait également l’emblème de la totalité du temps. La tortue est donc le signe global de tout l’univers spatio-temporel. La carapace, dans sa partie dorsale, est ronde comme le ciel. Sa partie ventrale est plate, et même carrée par la forme de ses deux épaulements latéraux, ainsi que les Chinois imaginent la Terre; composée de neuf écailles, elle reproduit les neuf continents de la géographie mythologique. Y reporter les figures divinatoires, c’était replacer les événements symbolisés par celles-ci dans le contexte général du monde, les intégrer à l’ordre universel.” Schipper, “The Inner World,” 127, adds with insight: “Thus, the inner world is a total space, where according to a few fundamental structures such as the trinity and the five agents, the entire mythical universe can be classified. The system is closed and completely self-containing, yet it is also open because it can accommodate any amount of diverse elements. Like the ocean between the kidneys, it contains space where there is no space” (41).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

211

rules of time and space apply to the microcosm of the inner landscape as they do to the universe at large. Similarly, just as the shi board grants its user insight into and control over the workings of fate, so too does the ‘manipulation’ of the bodily gods. Beyond the imagery reproduced in individual sections of the text, scholars have suggested that the textual structure of Laozi’s Central Scripture itself imitates the layout of the divination board. Every member of the internal pantheon that is manifested in the adept’s body and described in the text has a celestial equivalent that is represented on the shi in astrocalendrical terms.37 This source, along with the three Taoist scriptures that were discussed earlier, fit in a trajectory of gradual abstraction of shi board features. Already during the late Han dynasty, an observable shift in shi design takes place from boards known as ‘Dipper devices’ or ‘Dipper astrolabes’ that relied on astrographic and calendrical notions from the Warring States (475–221 bce) to Liuren boards bearing deities that govern time and space. The Liuren cosmo­ graph retained its currency well into the Six Dynasties, and while some sources, including religious ones, preserved its earlier applications as a tool of hemerological computation, the gradual divinization of its markers rendered the shi an increasingly figurative or symbolic ritual instrument.38 Thus, the 37 38

Lagerwey, “Deux écrits,” 17–18. In the Six Dynasties (220–589 CE), the Big Dipper definitively vanishes from the heaven plate of the Liuren board, and markings including the thirty-six beasts (qin 禽), based on the six decades of the sexagesimal cycle, make their appearance. Other elements are divinized: the solar mansions (richan 日躔) for instance, become the twelve spirits (shi’er shen 十二神) of the year; see Kalinowski, “Instruments,” 354–356. Already during the Han dynasty, the Eight Trigrams began to be correlated with the Eight Directions on cosmographs, marking a new phase in the development of an increasingly allegorical shi board. Out of these “eight gates” (bamen 八門; not to be confused with the Eight Gates of the later Qimen dunjia 奇門遁甲 [Hidden Stem of the Strange Gates] divination method), only the four ordinal directions, the Four Corners (siwei 四維) or Four Gates (simen 四 門), were routinely displayed. These were originally used to represent the sun’s points of exit and entry on the horizon during the winter solstice (the beginning of the astronomical year) and were associated with prognosticatory literature from very early on, most notably in the Weishu 緯書 (literally, “weft-texts”) corpus, where they figure in the Yiwei qiankun zuodu, vol. 1, 80–82; see also Xiao Dengfu, Chenwei yu daojiao, 295–300. In later incar­ nations, the Four Corners lose all astronomical and even astrocalendrical significance; see Kalinowski’s discussion of the merging of the Four Corners with the Eight Trigrams in “Les instruments,” 376–377, n. 5. The Eight Gates of the Yiwei qiankun zuodu are based on the eight Great Images (daxiang 大象), the archetypal manifestations of the Eight Trigrams from which all other phenomena take their form (xing 形). The Great Images take on the meaning of a cosmic template or model (fa 法), a notion that is not extraneous to the principle of the shi board, which is a microcosmic blueprint in its own right.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

212

Steavu

abstraction of the shi that began in the Han continued and found new expressions in early medieval and medieval China, especially in the context of religious traditions such as Taoism, and Buddhism as well. 5

Matching Cosmologies: The Shi in Buddhist Context

The figurative turn of the shi board was to be anticipated in some respects. From the outset, the instrument’s layout adhered to chiefly cyclical calendrical principles, thus aiming for geometric symmetry rather than arithmetic accuracy.39 Because of this fundamental feature, the shi was eminently adapt­ able to various contexts, including those in which astronomical precision were relegated to the status of secondary concerns. During the early medieval and medieval periods, Buddhists too, recognized the symbolic potential of the shi board in a brand of prognosticatory methods that were, like those of Laozi’s Central Scripture, more akin to self-cultivation. Yet, as with its Taoist cousin, technical Buddhist divination literature also cir­ culated concurrently. Famed esoteric monk and astronomer Yi Xing 一行 (683–727) was a consummate diviner credited with what, judging from the surviving titles, appears to have been a pair of divination treatises: the Scripture of Heavenly Unity and Supreme Unity [Tianyi taiyi jing 天一太一經] and the Scripture on the Supreme Unity Configuration of the Hidden Stem [Divination] [Taiyi ju dunjia jing 太一局遁甲經].40 Owing to the word “configuration” (ju 局) in its title, it stands to reason that the second of these sources especially, would 39

40

See Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board,” 54–57, citing Shigeru Nakayama, A History of Japanese Astronomy; Harper sees the Dipper dial, which unevenly spaces the twenty-eight lunar mansions according to their actual positions along the celestial equator, as the astronomical precursor to the heaven plate (tianpan) of the shi board; see ibid., 48, and “The Han Cosmic Board (shih 式).” By the Song (960–1279), some, including Shen Gua 沈括 (1031–1095), were arguing for a revision of markings on the Liuren shi board in order to increase their astronomical precision; see, for instance, Shen’s Mengxi bitan 7.1b–2a; see also Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 403. For a translation of the passage, see Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 113–115. Longxing fojiao biannian tonglun, 15.185b. A line from Yi Xing’s biography in Song gaoseng zhuan, 5.733a states, “He divined calamity and fortunes as if pointing to [something] in his palm” (zhan qi zaifu ruo zhi yu zhang 占其災福若指于掌). The expression “pointing to his palm (zhi yu zhang 指於掌) is sometimes used to denote that something is achieved “with great ease,” but it could also indicate that Yi Xing was prac­ticing a form of Liuren divination that involves projecting the cosmograph onto the palm of the hand; cf. the account of Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 employing a similar method in the fourteenth-century Sanguo yanyi 三國演義 [Romance of the Three Kingdoms], where it is written that “while

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

213

have included the manipulation of a shi board, or at the very least, that of a shi-based cosmograph or diagram. Unfortunately, these sources are lost, but the Sino-Japanese Tripiṭaka has preserved two texts that offer a glimpse into how Buddhism, with its own rich and distinct cosmological systems, absorbed the shi board into its repertoire of divination practices. The earlier among the two sources is the Sutra of the Esoteric Cosmograph of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas for Instantan­ eous Great Accomplishment [Wuda Xukong zang pusa suji dashenyan bimi shijing 五大虛空藏菩薩速疾大神驗秘密式經; T.1149], hereafter Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas, purportedly translated by Vajrabodhi (Jingangzhi 金剛智; 669–741).41 This text is essentially a user’s manual for a building and operating a Buddhist shi board. After the obligatory introductory verses extolling the method’s virtues it immediately addresses the topic of con­ struction materials: One may use white sandalwood, or [a similar material] like oak or cypress. Any wood will do as long as it comes from a numinous tree of [at least] a hundred years of age. The heaven plate should be made circular and have a diameter of either 2 cun and 5 fen or 3 cun [roughly 2.5 or 3 inches]. The earth plate is to be 6 or 7 cun on each of its four sides. As the color of the sky, all [sections of the Heaven plate] should be blue. The inner tier of the earth plate should be yellow, the central tier blue, and the outer one red. Below [the outer tier of the earth plate], the four edges of the square should be blue, and the back [of the plate] should be painted yellow. The heaven plate must be made 3 cun in thickness, and the earth plate 1 cun in thickness.42

41

42

riding his horse, he divined a prognostication in his sleeve” 在馬上袖占一課; cited from Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 135–36. See Donald Harper’s brief discussion of the text in “The Han Cosmic Board,” 55–56; he speculates that the structure of the shi board in this source was possibly adopted from unspecified “Taoist sources.” Xukong shijing, 607b. Verified against the measures given in the Song-dynasty Jingyou liuren shending jing, 2 par. 13, the specifications in the Xukong shijing are for building a shi board that is to be used by commoners and minor officials. Instruments with a Heaven plate over 3 cun in diameter are reserved for high offi­cials, and those over 4 cun for princes/local rulers. Those with a diameter of 6 cun and over are for emperors only. For a translation of the Liuren shending jing passage on the proportions of shi boards see Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 319–321; cf. also the earth to heaven plate ratios presented in Kalinoswki, ibid., 372; and Yan Dunjie, “Guanyu Xi-Han,” 335.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

214

Steavu 白檀若柏桂。又經百歲靈木。用天盤造圓。方二寸五分又三寸。地盤 四方六寸又七寸。又天色皆經青。地內院黃。中院青。外院赤。下方 四面空青下黃。天厚一寸三分。地厚一寸。

In this passage, the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas is unam­ biguously instructing its readership how to build an actual, operational shi board. The second canonical source that unpackages the intricacies of the Buddhist shi board is the Cosmograph Method of the Saintly Deva Vināyaka [Sheng huanxitian shifa 聖歡喜天式法; T.1275], hereafter the Method of Vinā­ yaka. It opens much in the same way as the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas, with indications on the size and materials to be used in fashioning a functional and tangible device.43 A fragrant variety of white wood is preferred and the recommended size is approximately the same (3 to 4 cun for the heaven plate and 7 cun for the earth plate) as that prescribed the previous text.

43

This source was compiled by Prajñācakra (Banruo Rejieluo 般若惹羯羅; fl. 847–882) of the Tang dynasty; for an overview and a translation of the text, see Duquenne, “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese,” 326–328 and 346–350 respectively. Prajñācakra has a biography in the Song gaoseng zhuan (T.2061) 3.723a; his name is transliterated “Banruo zhojia” 般若斫迦 and translated as Zhihuilun 智慧論, or “wheel of wisdom.” On account that he was said to be Enchin’s 円珍 (814–891) master (and a disciple of Amoghavajra 不空), Japanese sources are more voluble about his accomplishments; for a synopsis of these, see Mochi­ zuki’s Bukkyō daijiten, 4.3550c–3551a, which notably lists him as the author of the Huanxitian shifa. The relative paucity of information on Prajñācakra in Chinese sources, combined with the absence of the Huanxitian shifa from ninth-century catalogues of Chinese scriptures in Japan, and the fact that the only surviving manuscript copy of the text (and the basis of the Taishō Tripiṭaka edition) is from a Japanese monastery, has fueled speculation about the Buddhist shi method having been devised in Japan. Stephen Trenson has defended this interesting possibility, despite Duquenne’s, ibid., and Michel Strickmann’s, Mantras et mandarins, 261, views to the contrary; see Trenson, “Shingon Divination Board Rituals”. Trenson further argues that the Xukong shijing was also pos­ sibly composed in Japan. However, Harper unambiguously considers it a Chinese document; see “The Han Cosmic Board,” 55–56. Although I side with Duquenne, Strick­ mann, and Harper, in both instances, the origin of the scriptures does not have a significant impact on the thrust of this study’s argument. It should be pointed out that the Dakiniten 吒(荼) 吉尼天 and Kangiten 歡喜天 (Shōten 聖天) Liuren shi board methods (in this case centering on Dakiniten 吒(荼) 吉尼天 or Kangiten 歡喜天/Shōten 聖天) are preserved in a handful of manuscripts held at the Kanazawa bunkō 金沢文庫 outside Yokohama; for a list, reproduction, and discussion of the manuscripts, see the Onmyōdō kakeru Mikkyō catalogue published by the Kanagawa prefectural Kanazawa library; see also Nishioka Yoshifumi’s “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

215

After the shi boards are fabricated, both Buddhist sources enjoin adepts to depict an array of cosmic bodhisattvas and devas. For the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas, each of the four cardinal directions of the heaven plate is first decorated with a different Siddhaṃ character that “changes into” (biancheng 變成) a different manifestation of Ākāśagarbha.44 Precise icono­ graphic details are supplied for the four bodhisattvas; colors, accoutrements, hand positioning, vestments, and seat—usually a lotus of varying color—are covered in extenso. A fifth Ākāśagarbha occupies the central portion of the heaven plate, but it is to be drawn around the image of the King of the Big Dipper (qixing wang 七星王), who rests at the summit (dingshang 頂上) and pivot of the shi board.45 Similarly, the Method of Vināyaka specifies that four Vināyakas must be portrayed in the four directions of the heaven plate. Again, each is assigned its own color, dress, appearance, paraphernalia, and so forth. In the center, the image of the Dipper is replaced with a manifestation of “the four devas all in one body” (sitian jie yiti ye 四天皆一體也), a possible reference to the embracing non-dual esoteric form of Vināyaka. This form is typically represented as an elephant-headed male and female couple in deep embrace.46 The descriptions of the earth plates are identical in both texts: in the first tier, the four cardinal and four ordinal directions are invested by the lokapālas, Indian guardian deities of the eight directions, in their usual arrangement: Indra (Dishitian 帝釋天) to the east, Yama (Yanmotian 焰/魔天) in the south, Brahma (Fantian 梵天) or Varuṇa (Shuitian 水天) in the west,47 and Vaiśravaṇa (Pishamentian 毘沙門天) in the north; Agni (Huotian 火天) protects the southeast, Rakṣasa (or Nirṛtī) (Luoshatian 羅剎天) guards the southwest, Vāyu (Fengtian 風天) presides over the northwest, and Maheśvara (Dazizaitian 大自 在天) defends the northeast.48 Two subsequent tiers are occupied by the 44

The text first stipulates that the heaven plate should be “divided into eight sections” 又八 分作之, which signals that there was probably a smaller compartment where the Siddhaṃ character was depicted and a larger one below, where the bodhisattva would appear; see Xukong shijing, 607b. 45 Ibid. 46 Huanxitian shifa, 324a. The text specifies that this figure may be substituted with a “Deva of Many Waves” (Duopotian 多波天); for a discussion of the non-dual Vināyaka, and more generally, Chinese esoteric Buddhist sources featuring Vināyaka/Gaṇapati, see Strickmann, Mantras et mandarins, 243–290; for the Japanese context, see Sanford, “Literary Aspects.” 47 In the Xukong shijing, Brahma, who is usually associated with the zenith in a ten-direction scheme, replaces Varuṇa in the west; see Xukong shijing, 607b. 48 Rather than listing them individually, the Xukong shijing simply states that the “Four Heavenly/Deva Kings of the four corners” 四角四天王 should be represented in their respective directions; see ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

216

Steavu

Figure 6.3 Schematic rendering of the Buddhist shi board described in the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Boddhisattvas (T.1149).

Figure 6.4 Schematic rendering of the Buddhist shi board described in the Method of the Saintly Deva Vināyaka (T.1275).

twenty-eight equatorial mansions (ershiba su 二十八宿) and the thirty-six beasts (sanshiliu qin 三十六禽) (see figure 6.3 and figure 6.4).49 49 The Huanxitian shifa is succinct: “position the twenty-eight equatorial mansions and the thirty-six beasts” 安廿八宿卅六禽; Huanxitian shifa, 324b. By contrast, the Xukong shijing, 607c, stipulates that the mansions should take on a human form and hold ritual implements (qizhang 器仗) in their hands; they should be divided into four groups of seven, each group bearing robes and a matching complexion in the color of their respective direction (blue/green for the east, red for the south, white for the west, black for the north); the source then suggests that the thirty-six beasts should be depicted as yakṣas (yecha 夜叉), or names of yakṣas, in accordance with iconographic conventions. Although the twenty-eight yakṣas are not unheard of—see for instance the Fomu da kongque mingwang jing 佛母大孔雀明王經 [Sutra of the Great Peacock Wisdom King; T.982], 19.426b, where they appear in the description of a Mahamayuri mandala that is

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

217

Aside perhaps from the presence of the Dipper on the Ākāśagarbha board, these last sets of parameters are the ones that most readily recall the shi boards that are presented in technical sources. Yet, the twenty-eight mansions and thirty-six beasts appear to be principally decorative in these Buddhist sources, mere vestigial reminders of the implement’s hemerological applications.50 The five bodhi­sattvas or devas and the eight lokāpalas are actively used in the Buddhist mani­pulation of the shi, but the last two tiers of the earth plate, including the Dipper on one of the boards, are purely emblematic. They are strategically inserted to: a) better integrate Indian (Buddhist/Hindu) cosmology with its Chinese counterparts, and b) to elicit by transitivity the same aura of factuality and legitimacy that shi-based divination methods enjoyed in official circles. As with the visualization methods of Laozi’s Central Scripture, the manipu­ lation of the Buddhist shi board required almost no computation. With the exception of the directive of selecting an “auspicious day” (yi jiri wei zhi 以吉日 為之) for the drawing of the images on the instrument,51 there is absolutely no concern for hemerological, let alone astronomical calculations. After the deities are summoned by means of incantations, a series of ritual hand gestures (mūdras, or “seals”; yin 印), the ingestion or impression of talismans (fu 符),52 and a number of other ritual prerequisites, the board becomes formally activated. Thereafter, the divination process begins. Its principles, in a nutshell, consist of the following: depending on the nature of their wishes, adepts are required to rotate the heaven plate in order to match (jia 加) one of its figures with a figure on the top tier of the earth plate. For instance, one of the scenarios from the Method of Vināyaka reads: If you are among those who wish to purloin the money and riches of others, then match the moon-love Vināyaka [of the heaven plate] with Maheśvara [on the earth plate].53 若欲得他人財寶者。以月愛天加大自在天。

50

51 52 53

strikingly similar to the shi of the present source—a grouping of thirty-six yakṣas is uncommon to my knowledge. In the Huanxitian shifa, the gods of the twenty-eight mansions are invoked as a group in only two (out of twenty-seven) operations described, but they are solicited as part of the retinue of Maheśvara and Vaiśravaṇa and do not affect the configuration of the heaven plate vis à vis the earth plate; see Huanxitian shifa, 324c and 325a. This appears in the Huanxitian shifa alone; ibid. 324a. The talisman is only included in the Huanxitian shifa version of the ritual; see ibid. 324b. Ibid., 324c.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

218

Steavu

Another example from the same text instructs the readers as follows: If you are among those who wish to cease afflictions of the stomach or head, then match the solar-disc Vināyaka [of the heaven plate] to Yama [on the earth plate]. 欲止腹病頭病者。以日輪天加炎魔天。 The matching of markings from one section of the shi to those from another section is one of the most important steps in configuring the board for divination in hemerological methods. The step appears invariably in Liuren divination manuals, including the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dragon Head and the Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale, examined above. Typically, this is a preliminary operation in which the officiant revolves the heaven plate so that the Monthly General corresponding to the month in which the divination takes places matches the double-hour’s branch value on the earth plate. Although this basic keying of the instrument is not considered a part of the actual divination, in medieval Buddhist texts, it constitutes its central component. In the Method of Vināyaka there are thirtytwo potential combinations (4 Vināyakas × 8 lokapālas) for matching the Buddhist deities of the heaven plate to those of the earth plate. Yet, only twenty-seven are listed, in­dicating that the text is fragmentary. The Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas includes the fifth and central Ākāśagarbha as an active component, bringing the number of potential combinations to forty (5 Ākāśagarbha × 8 lokapālas), although only thirty-seven possibilities are discussed, suggesting, again, that the text is truncated or has lacunae.54 The whishes that the divination is intended to fulfill are thematically iden­ tical in both texts and decidedly worldy in scope: eliciting love in another person, obtaining a post, causing illness in others, protecting oneself against evil charms, and so forth. However, the combination of deities for analogous pursuits are sometimes different. For instance, while the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas prescribes matching the [Ākāśagarbha] bodhisattva of the north to the deva in the west [Brahma] for returning curses onto those who cast them, the Method of Vināyaka urges matching the solar-disc Vināyaka of the east to the Rakṣasa deva in the southwest for the same purpose. Nonetheless, aside from these directional discrepancies, both practices are

54

This suspicion is echoed in an annotation toward the end of the text: “The secret arts listed above likely number forty” 已上祕術條四十歟; see Xukong Shijing, 608b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

219

The Allegorical Cosmos

undertaken in the same exact way.55 Deities are invoked (hu 呼) and supplicated (qi 祈; qishen 祈申) to descend and grant the practitioner’s wishes. Although this is not mentioned explicitly, it appears that at the keying stage adepts were intended to visualize the deities gradually merging into each other, or transforming from one into another. These mental acrobatics are already alluded to in the instructions for fashioning the heaven plate. In both Buddhist texts, Siddhaṃ characters “change into” (biancheng) deities—a feat that would be problematic to undertake with the fixed images of the shi board. The Method of Vināyaka, in fact unequivocally urges practitioners to “contem­ plate” (guan 觀) the characters morphing into Vināyaka.56 It is thus highly prob­able that the crucial process of “matching” (jia) deities from the heaven plate with those of the earth plate involved some visualization component as an accompaniment to the manual operation of the shi board. Thus, in the Buddhist context, the board itself could be understood as a type of mandala— a material, tangible and visible representation of the cosmos that also incorpo­ rated an immaterial visualization component.57 6

Visualization as Cosmic Computation, Technology as Ritual

In this respect of the Sutra of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas and the Method of Vināyaka, we are approaching Laozi’s Central Scripture territory, where the shi as a whole or at least its markings are internalized, and the device is wiped clean of its tech­nical significance and computational capacities. The pair of Buddhist texts recalls a class of Taoist contemplation practices in which 55 Compare Xukong Shijing, 608b to Huanxitian shifa, 324c. 56 The term is used for each of the four directions on the heaven plate; see Huanxitian shifa, 324a. 57 This function of the shi would explain the uncanny likeness between the description of the board in the Huanxitian shifa and an Edo period (1603–1868) “Image of the Vināyaka’s Esoteric Mandala” (Shōten himitsu mandara zu 聖天秘密曼荼羅図) from Kongōbuji 金 剛峰寺 in Japan. The twenty-eight mansions and thirty-six beasts are absent, but the mandala displays four Vināyakas in a circular section with an additional pair of embracing, “single-bodied” Vināyakas in the center. The eight lokapāla are represented in an outer square, in addition to four devas, absent from the textual counterpart, namely Bonten 梵 天 (Brahman); Jiten 地天 (Pṛthivī); Nitten 日天 (Sūrya, Āditya), and Gatten 月天 (Candra). While their respective icono­ graphies pertain to distinct traditions—the appear­ances of the Vināyakas notably do not match—the functions of the shi board and the mandala undoubtedly overlap in a Buddhist context; for a reproduction of the mandala, see Tenbu no shoson, 30.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

220

Steavu

adepts visualize the transformation from one aspect of a god into another. For example, the Scrip­ture of the Jade Pivot of the Perfected on the Five Viscera and Six Receptacles of the Yellow Court [Huangting wuzang liufu zhenren yuzhou jing 黃庭五臟六腑真人玉軸經; DZ 1402], a brief treatise on the visualization of the gods of the Five Viscera, first describes the shape of each viscus allegorically (“the appearance of the kidneys is like that of round stones”).58 In a second step, the text presents and depicts the indwelling spirits of the Five Viscera in animal form (dragon, vermilion bird, white tiger, phoenix, and a two-headed white deer for the liver, heart, lungs, spleen, and kidneys respec­tively) before finally explaining that adepts undertaking the meditation will see them “turn into” (huawei 化為) human figures: jade boys or jade maidens holding a variety of objects from batons to dragons and libations.59 Such lavish iconographic precisions were useful guides for contemplation practices, but they were also intended for the production of actual illustrations or diagrams (tu 圖; see figure 6.5) that would, much like the mandala, serve as meditation aids (and not medi­tation replacements) and objects of worship: once produced the images could be venerated as animated icons, live manifestations of the bodily/cosmic gods that inhabit them. Other coeval sources on visualizations of the gods of the Five Viscera are explicit in instructing practitioners to produce similar images and to suspend them (xuanxiang 懸象)—a term usually reserved for describing celestial bodies dangling in the sky—on the wall before meditating on them. The hanging images act as meditation aids, objects of worship, and apotropaic talismans, keeping at bay the disease demons that are susceptible to harm the Five Viscera.60 In Laozi’s Central Scripture and medieval Buddhist sources, the shi board completes its transition from an instrument of hemerological technology to a strictly ritual implement. Internalization, either by transposing the cosmograph within the body and identifying it with oneself or by undertaking its operation within the mind’s eye, was key in the shi’s transition to unmitigated 58 59

夫腎者，[…] 其象如圓石; Huangting wuzang liufu zhenren yuzhou jing, 8b. See ibid., 2b–9a; see also Yunji qiqian, 14.4b–14a. The descriptions of the illustrations of the spirits of the Five Viscera differ in both sources; see Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 70–71 and 71 n.49 especially, for variations and correspondences pertaining to the meditations; see also Jean Levi’s entry on the Huangting wuzang liufu zhenren yuzhou jing in Schipper and Verellen’s The Taoist Canon, 350–351, for a more complete picture of the passage’s relation with respect to other prominent Five Viscera meditation manuals. 60 See Taiping jing chao, 2.3b–4a; for an overview of the passage in question, see Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 64–66.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

221

The Allegorical Cosmos

Figure 6.5 Illustrations from a fifteenth-century Korean medical encyclopedia titled Uibang yuch’wi 醫方類聚 [Classified Collection of Medical Methods] depicting the Five Viscera along with their corresponding trigrams, breaths, animal spirits, and deities. The images are based on medieval Taoist meditation texts. Figure modified from Pregadio, ed. The Encyclo­pedia of Taoism, 1079.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

222

Steavu

allegory. By using the shi ‘as if’ it were a fully external and func­tional computational device, practitioners preserved the ‘internal intent’ and ‘internal form’ associated with the device, but the ‘external intent’ and ‘external form’ were modified. Other­wise put, the shi board lost the superficial features pertaining to ‘style’ while retaining its fundamental ‘function’ as a schematic representation of cosmic time and space that offers determination over one’s welfare. But how is it that astrocalendrical and hemerological technical knowledge, such a defining aspect of the shi board historically, would be discarded as extraneous artifice during successive reformulations? Part of the answer lies in the consideration that neither ‘style’ nor ‘function’ have precedence over the other. Nor are they separate, as one informs the other and vice versa; the distinction between them is merely a product of decontextualization. Teleological readings of technology are notoriously impervious to ack­nowl­edging the ritual dimensions of technical knowledge and activity, let alone the role of ‘magical’ or ‘religious’ elements in the construction of an efficacious enactment of technical knowledge.61 As a result, there appears to be some inherent contradiction when technical knowledge is cast aside in the transmission of a technical instrument. However, in bringing the full breadth of its experience to bear, it would be more pertinent to speak of technology as inclusive technique, a notion that integrates a system of material resources, tools, operational sequences, and skills, verbal and nonverbal knowledge, including conceptions pertaining to ‘magic’ or ‘religion,’ as well as specific modes of work coordination—a large part of which is ritual.62 When fully restituted to its specific sociohistorical and microcultural contexts, the ‘style’ of the shi board, namely its external features, is indeed its ‘function.’ The ritual and the technical are commingled, as the etymology of the graph shi 式 betrays.63 This should come 61

62

63

See, for example, Robert Spier, From the Hand of Man, cited in Pfaffenberger “Social Anthropology of Technology,” 497 and 501; Pfaffenberger offers a lucid critique and deconstruction of what he calls the “Standard View of technology” (ibid., passim). Paraphrasing Pfaffenberger, ibid., 497, following Pierre Lemonnier’s definitions; for more, see Lemonnier, Elements; and Lemonnier and Latour, L’intelligence des techniques. Pfaffenberger adds sociotechnical systems and material culture as the two other distinct subjects of the social anthropology of technology but for the purpose of our analysis, I will treat the social and material aspects of technology as ingredient to the notion of technique (as do Lemonnier and Latour to a large extent). Shi 式 denotes at once a body of prescriptions relative to the proper performance of a rite or ceremony (not unlike yi 儀) and a model (or plan, even a law; fa 法) or blueprint used in the realization of an implement or tool; see Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 312. For more on the meaning of the term shi and its principal variants (栻；拭), see Cullen, “Some Further Points,” 31; and Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board,” 47–48.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

223

as no surprise after having highlighted the interpenetration of ritual ‘form’ and ‘intent’ in the Lunyu and especially the Xunzi (another argument for how ritual and technology are thoroughly enmeshed). The reason why the Buddhist cosmograph is bedecked with devas while the Taoist one is adorned with anthro­pomorphized cosmic gods in administrative garb is because they have funda­ mentally different purposes for their respective communities of practice and operate according to very different cultural registers. 7

Concluding Discussion

We are left with a rather untidy picture of different shi doing very different things. This indirectly solves the issue of classifying the instrument according to its uses, as there would be simply too many uses to classify. Far from an aber­ ration, such plasticity confirms that the interconnection between the ‘function’ and ‘style’ varies in these tools. According to Daniel Miller, this is a central feature of human technology. As he elaborates, “Technology could be analyzed as the systematic exploitation of the range of methods used in order to produce patterned variation.”64 Succinctly stated, the development of shi cosmographs with abstract, allegorical, or figurative markings was the result of emerging circum­stances from the Six Dynasties onward in the context of which heme­r­ ological technical knowledge was judged to be increasingly less ingredient to the board’s use. Yet, the semblance of earlier shi boards persisted in each successive incarnation. Its perennial functions of representing the cosmos and its agents, and offering ascendancy over fate were transmitted through external stylistic traits; a round pivoting heaven plate, a square earth plate, spatiotemporal markers. Mimesis helped to preserve the symbolic capital accrued by the shi in official circles and transmit it to other spheres, that of religious traditions where ritual specialists could directly benefit from it. Some early medieval Taoist sources preserved the technical knowledge required to operate prior Han versions of the shi. It should be underscored once more that these Han Liuren cosmographs, in replacing astrocalendrical markers with deities (the Monthly Generals and the Heavenly Generals), were part of a broader transition towards progressively allegorical understandings of the implement and its functions. But even in the most technical of Taoist hemerological sources, this transition 64 Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption, 201; cited in Pfaffenberger, “Social Anthropology,” 505; see also Miller, “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

224

Steavu

can be observed: parts of the device are internalized in such a way that the officiant’s movements in the ritual area during the divination correspond to the rotation of the heaven plate. Around the same time, other sources from the Taoist canon, Laozi’s Central Scripture chief among them, divested the shi from its hemerological back­ground and applied it instead towards self-cultivation, thereby capitalizing on the device’s association with ordering time, and thus fate and lifespan as well. In this reformulation of the shi, its structure, features and markers were completely transposed onto the somatic plane. All the elements or deities that composed it are identified with the self, thereby overlapping the microcosm of the practitioner’s body with the macro-cosmography of the shi. The figurative cosmological aspects of the shi were emphasized even further in medieval Buddhist texts, to the detriment of astrocalendrical or hemerological uses of the implement. Some of its formal features were maintained, including its keying procedure, but the Monthly Generals and Heavenly Generals of the Liuren board gave way to bodhisattvas and devas. Moreover, the divination procedure and the mani­pulation of the shi were internalized as well, this time, as components of visualization practices. This relationship between ritual image and internalization is pre­figured in certain Taoist contempla­tion manuals, where deified and anthropo­mor­phized cosmic elements and their images (xiang 象) on one hand, and the interior space of practitioners (either their bodies or their mind’s eye) on the other, are considered equally accurate and interchangeable representations (xiang 像) of cosmic reality. We have tangentially touched upon the subject of how framing a divination practice or para-divinatory contemplation practice as a shi method offered a number of advantages. We may review these benefits one last time. First, Buddhists in particular found in the shi an opportune interface for correlating Indian and Chinese cosmologies and demonstrating their compatibility.65 That Indian cosmology could be expressed on a canvas that prized geometrical symmetry instead of arithmetical accuracy in its representations was a significant detail for Buddhists, one that easily translated into political relevance. Cosmology in China—like governing, to which it was intimately 65

In discussing the ritual adaptations of talismans (fu 符) and charts (tu 圖), Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 367, analyzes the Buddhist adoption of distinctly Chinese grammars of legitimacy: “It was an accepted means of declaring allegiance to the authorities and of flattering the ruler, and the foreign religion was in special need of demonstrating its adaptation to Chinese ways”. This assessment can be extended to the shi cosmograph, in many respects a tu or chart as well.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

225

tied—emphasized neatness and symmetry. Irregularities were not tolerated as they were symptoms of a disturbance in the order of things.66 Thus, aside from constituting an inbuilt potential for abstraction, the shi board’s geometric cosmography established an affinity between Indian cosmology, Chinese statecraft, and cosmographic imperial sacraments.67 Secondly, as it was couched in themes of governance, the shi also elicited a tenor of imperial authority. Manipulating the board in early medieval and medieval China was akin to ordering the realm, a metaphor that is particularly vivid in Laozi’s Central Scripture. In this way, the shi underwent the same process of renegotiation as the talisman (fu 符): originally an administrative implement employed to verify the legitimacy of orders, it was later absorbed into Taoist and Buddhist ritual lore and reframed as a badge of authority over gods and demons.68 Lastly, tied to the idea of authority are the parent notions of factuality and precision. Shi board divinations were believed to be effective because they initially operated on the grounds of precise computations; they were driven by the exactness of astrocalendrical cycles, the very rhythms of Heaven and Earth. Whether the prognostications derived from shi boards were actually verifiable mattered very little since the twin burdens of factuality and precision were deferred and imposed on the officiant operating the instrument. Much in line with the Confucian views on ritual that were cited at the outset, the magic of mimesis, Taussig would argue, displaces the sleight of hand so that ‘as if’ simulation itself becomes technique, replacing the application of technical knowledge and even constituting a ‘higher form’ of that knowledge.69 What mattered was that the shi ritual would have been verified at one time, even if only once: “truth lies in a never attainable beyond and [trickery] is merely the 66

See John B. Henderson, “Chinese Cosmographical Thought: the High Intellectual Tradition,” cited in Bray, “Introduction,” 57. 67 The paired Hetu 河圖 [River Chart] and Luoshu 洛書 [Writ of the River Luo] are two classical examples of the tu as imperial sacrament; see Seidel, “Imperial Treasures”; and Bray, “Introduction.” 68 See Seidel, ibid., 291–294. It is no coincidence that the talisman also falls into the class of objects known as imperial sacraments. Seidel argues that Taoist badges of priestly investiture and communication with the unseen world—namely talismans (fu 符), but also charts (tu 圖), registers (lu 籙), and tallies (qi 契)—were elaborations upon the Han theme of imperial treasure objects, the revelation and consequent possession of which conferred both imperial and spiritual mandates to rule. This is also true of Buddhist reformulations of the talismans and diagrams. 69 Taussig, “Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism,” 306.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

226

Steavu

continuous and expected prelude to the mere possibility of authenticity, for behind this [trick] stands the receding shadow of the real in all its perfection.”70 Far from being watered-down vulgarizations, the mantic methods performed with the allegorical and figurative shi of medieval China were more potent and ‘authentic’ to practitioners and adepts than those undertaken with the instrument’s hemerological counterparts, as “the probability of an ideal being actualized increases the farther you go from home; the magic of the Other is more truly magical, and faith lies in distance and hence difference.”71 Indeed, in this light, why would carrying about an eloquent shorthand of the universe in one’s pouch or visualizing its operations in the mind’s eye be any less effective than operating a shi board through complex and lengthy heremero­logical calculations?

Works Cited



Primary Sources

Fomu da kongque mingwang jing 佛母大孔雀明王經 [Sutra of the Great Peacock Wisdom King]. Translated by Amoghavajra (Bukong) 不空 (705–774). Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō no. 982. Baopu zi neipian 抱朴子內篇 [The Master Who Embraces Simpli­city: Inner Chapters]. Compiled by Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343). Edited by Wang Ming 王明. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Hanshu 漢書 [History of the Han]. Compiled by Ban Gu 班固. 12 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962. Huangdi jinkui yuheng jing 黃帝金匱玉衡經 [The Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Gold Casket and Jade Scale]. Daozang DZ no. 284. Huangdi longshou jing 黃帝龍首經 [The Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dragon Head]. Daozang DZ no. 283. Huangdi shou sanzi xuannü jing 黃帝授三子玄女經 [The Yellow Emperor’s Scripture of the Dark Maiden Transmitted to his Three Sons]. Daozang DZ no. 285. Huangting wuzang liufu zhenren yuzhou jing 黃庭五臟六腑真人玉軸經 [Scripture of the Jade Pivot of the Perfected on the Five Viscera and Six Receptacles of the Yellow Court]. Daozang DZ no. 1402. Jingyou liuren shending jing 景祐六壬神定經 [Scripture on the Liuren (Method) for Alleviating Doubt, Compiled During the Jingyou era]. Compiled by Yang Weide 楊維 70 71

Ibid., 302–303. Ibid., 302.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

227

德 (d. after 1054). In Congshu jicheng 叢書集成 [Complete Collection from Various Collectanea]. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936. Laozi zhongjing 老子中經 [Laozi’s Central Scripture]. Third or fourth century. In Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds]. Daozang DZ no. 1032. Longxing fojiao biannian tonglun 隆興佛教編年通論 [A Comprehensive Discussion and Chronology of Buddhism Compiled in the Longxing Era (1163–1164)]. Compiled by Zuxiu 祖琇 (d. after 1164). Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō no. 1512. “Lunyu” zhushu 論語注疏 [“The Analects”, with Commentaries and Explanations]. Edited by Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849). In Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏 [Commentaries and Explanations to the Thirteen Classics]. Taibei: Yiwen chubanshe, 1985. Mengxi bitan 夢溪筆談 [Dream Pool Essays]. Compiled by Shen Gua 沈括 (1031–1095). Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1968. Sheng huanxitian shifa 聖歡喜天式法 [Cosmograph Method of the Saintly Deva Vināyaka]. 861. Compiled by Prajñācakra/Banruo Rejieluo 般若惹羯羅. Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō no. 1275. Shiji 史記 [Records of the Historian]. Compiled by Sima Qian 司馬遷 (Han-dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Song gaoseng zhuan 宋高僧傳 [Biographies of Eminent Monks Compiled in the Song], compiled by Zanning 贊寧 (919–1001). Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō no. 2061. Taiping jing chao 太平經鈔 [Great Peace Scripture Digest]. Daozang DZ no. 1101. Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太上靈寶五符序 [Array of the five talismans of the Numinous Treasure]. Daozang DZ no. 388. Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經 [Revised Tripiṭaka of the Taishō Period]. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankokai, 1924–1932. Wuda Xukong zang pusa suji dashenyan bimi shijing 五大虛空藏菩薩速疾大神驗秘密 式經 [Sutra of the Esoteric Cosmograph of the Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas for Instantaneous Great Accomplishment]. Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō no. 1149. Wuyue chunqiu 吳越春秋 [Spring and Autumn of Wu and Yue]. Compiled by Zhao Ye 趙 曄 (Han-dynasty). Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe, 2003. “Xunzi” jijie 荀子集解 [Book of Master Xun]. Edited by Wang Xianqian 王先謙. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988. Yiwei qiankun zaodu 易緯乾坤鑿度 [Weft to the Warp of the Classic of Changes on Fathoming the Profundity of Qian and Kun]. In Isho shūsei 讖緯集成 [A Complete Collection of the Apocrypha], edited by Yasui Kōzan 安居香山, and Nakamura Shōhachi 中村璋八, vol. 1, pp. 69–112. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971–1988. Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 [Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds]. Compiled by Zhang Junfang 張君房 (fl. 11th cent.). Daozang DZ no. 1032.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

228

Steavu

Ziwei doushu 紫微斗數 [Reckonings from the Big Dipper’s Palace of Purple Tenuity]. Daozang DZ no. 1485.



Secondary Sources

Abe no Seimei to Onmyōdō ten 安倍晴明と陰陽道展 [Abe no Seimei and the Way of Yin and Yang: The Exhibition]. Kyōto Bunka Hakubutsukan/Kyoto Museum of Culture.]. Ōsaka: Yomiuri shinbun, 2003. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bray, Francesca. “Introduction.” In Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, edited by Francesca Bray, Vera DorofeevaLichtmann, and Georges Métailié, pp. 1–78. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Cullen, Christopher. “The Han Cosmic Model: A Rejoinder to Donald Harper.” Early China 7 (1981–1982): 130–133. Cullen, Christopher. “Some Further Points on the shih.” Early China 6 (1980–1981): 31–46. Duquenne, Robert. “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese.” Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 77 (1988): 321–354. Feuchtwang, Stephen. The Imperial Metaphor: Popular Religion in China. London: Routledge Curzon, 2001. Harper, Donald. “The Han Cosmic Board (shih 式).” Early China 4 (1978–1979): 1–10. Harper, Donald. “The Han Cosmic Board: A Response to Christopher Cullen.” Early China 6 (1980–1981): 47–56. Ho, Peng Yoke. Chinese Mathematical Astrology: Reaching Out to the Stars. London: Routledge, 2003. Huang Ruxuan 黃儒宣. “Shitu yu shipan 试图与式盘 [The Shi Diagram and the Shi Board].” Kaogu 考古 [Archaeology], 2015.1: 92–102. Kalinowski, Marc. “Les instruments astro-calendériques des Han et la méthode Liu ren.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 71 (1983): 309–419. Kalinowski, Marc. “La transmission du dispositif des neuf palais sous les Six-Dynasties.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honor of Rolf. A. Stein, edited by Michel Strickmann, vol. 3, pp. 773–811. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1985. Kalinowski, Marc. “The Xingde 刑德 Texts from Mawangdui.” Early China 23–24 (1998– 1999): 125–202. Kalinowski, Marc. “Huangdi jinggui yuheng jing.” In The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. 3 vols, edited by Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, pp. 85–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Kalinowski, Marc. “Mantic Texts in Their Cultural Context.” In Medieval Chinese Medicine: The Dunhuang Medical Manuscripts, edited by Christopher Cullen and Vivienne Lo, pp. 109–133. London: Routledge, 2005.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

229

Kalinowski, Marc. “Time, Space and Orientation: Figurative Representations of the Sexagenary Cycle in Ancient and Medieval China.” In Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China, The Warp and the Weft, edited by Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, and Georges Métailié, pp. 137–168. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Kalinowski, Marc. “The Notion of ‘Shi 式’ and Some Related Terms in Qin-Han Calen­ drical Astrology.” Early China 35 (2013): 331–360. Katō Chie 加藤千恵. “Rōshi chūkyō to naitan shisō no genryū 「老子中經」と内丹思 想の源流 [Laozi’s Central Scripture and the Origins of Neidan Thought].” Tōhō shūkyō 東方宗教 [Tōhō Religion] 87 (1996): 21–38. Knoblock, John. “Xunzi”: Translation and Study of the Complete Works. 3 vols. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Kosaka Shinji 小坂真二. “Onmyōdō no rikujin shikisen ni tsuite (jyō) 陰陽道の六壬式 占について（上） [Concerning the Liuren Shi Board Divination of the Way of Yin and Yang (Part One)].” Cultura Antica 38, no. 7 (1986): 27–37. Kosaka Shinji. “Onmyōdō no rikujin shikisen ni tsuite (chū) 陰陽道の六壬式占につい て（中） [Concerning the Liuren Shi Board Divination of the Way of Yin and Yang (Part Two)].” Cul­tura Antica 38, no. 8 (1986): 28–39. Kosaka Shinji. “Onmyōdō no rikujin shikisen ni tsuite (ge) 陰陽道の六壬式占について （下） [Concerning the Liuren Shi Board Divination of the Way of Yin and Yang (Part Three)].” Cultura Antica 38, no. 9 (1986): 31–42. Kosaka Shinji. “Rikujin shikisen to nijūhasshuku 六壬式占と二十八宿 [Liuren Shi Board Divination and the Twenty-Eight Mansions].” Tōhō kenkyū 東方研究 [Tōhō Study] 163, no. 1 (2001): 1–37. Lagerwey, John. “Deux écrits taoïstes anciens.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14 (2004): 139–171. Lemonnier, Pierre. Elements for an Anthropology of Technology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, 1992. Lemonnier, Pierre, and Bruno Latour. L’intelligence des techniques. Paris: La Découverte, 1993. Lévi, Jean. “Huangting wuzang liufu zhenren yuzhou jing.” In The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. 3 vols., edited by Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, pp. 350–351. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Li Ling 李零. “‘Shi’ yu Zhongguo gudai de yuzhou moshi” ‘ 式’ 與中國古代的宇宙模式 [The Shi and Cosmological Models of Chinese Antiquity].” Zhongguo wenhua 中國 文化 [Chinese Culture] 4 (1991): 1–30. Li Ling. Zhongguo fangshu kao 中國方術考 [A Study of Chinese Methods and Arts]. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2000.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

230

Steavu

Little, Stephen. “Cosmos, Cosmograph, and the Inquiring Poet: A New Answer to the ‘Heaven Questions.’” Early China 17 (1992): 83–110. Liu Yongming 劉永明. “Laozi zhongjing xingcheng yu Han dai kao 「老子中經」形成 於漢代考 [Reflections on the Compilation of the Laozi’s Central Scripture During the Han].” Lanzhou daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 蘭州大學學報（社會科學版） [Lanzhou University Bulletin (Social Sciences Edition)] 34, no. 4 (July 2006): 60–66. Lu Yang 盧央. Zhongguo gudai xingzhan xue 中國古代星占學 [Astronomical Divination in Chinese Antiquity]. Beijing: Zhongguo kexue jishu, 2008. Maeda Shigeki 前田繁樹. “Rōshi chūkyō oboegaki 「老子中經」覚書 [Notes on Laozi’s Central Scripture].” In Chūgoku kodai yōjō shisō no sōgōteki kenkyū 中國古代養生思 想の総合的研究 [Collected Studies on Conceptions of Nourishing Life in Ancient China], edited by Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, pp. 474–502. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha, 1988. Miller, Daniel. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Miller, Daniel. “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” In Interpreting Objects and Collections, edited by Susan M. Pearce, pp. 13–18. London: Routledge, 1994. Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信, and Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, eds. Bukkyō daijiten 佛教 大辞典 [The Encyclopedia of Buddhism]. Tokyo: Sekai Seiten Kankō Kyōkai, 1954–1958. Nishioka, Yoshifumi. “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals.” Trans. Joseph P. Elacqua. Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 21 (2014): 137–162. Onmyōdō kakeru Mikkyō 陰陽道×密教 [At the Intersection of Esoteric Buddhism and the Way of Yin and Yang]. Exhibit Catalogue. Yokohama: Kanagawa kenritsu kanazawa bunko, 2007. Pfaffenberger, Bryan. “Social Anthropology of Technology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992): 491–516. Pregadio, Fabrizio. “Early Taoist Meditation and the Origins of Inner Alchemy.” In Daoism in History: Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan, edited by Benjamin Penny, pp. 121–158. London: Routledge, 2006. Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Rawski, Evelyn. “A Historian’s Approach to Chinese Death Ritual.” In Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, edited by James L. Watson and Evelyn Rawski, pp. 20–36. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Robinet, Isabelle. Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Roetz, Heiner. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age: A Reconstruction under the Aspect of the Breakthrough Toward Postconventional Thinking. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Allegorical Cosmos

231

Sanford, James H. “Literary Aspects of Japan’s Dual-Gaņeśa Cult.” In Ganesh: Studies of an Asian God, edited by Robert L. Brown, pp. 287–336. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Schipper, Kristofer. “Le calendrier de jade: note sur le Laozi zhongjing.” Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 125 (1979): 75–80. Schipper, Kristofer. “The Inner World of the Lao-tzu chung-ching.” In Time, Science and Society in China and the West: A Study of Time, edited by Chun-chieh Huang and Erik Zürcher, pp. 114–131. Amherst: University of Massachussetts, 1995. Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Seidel, Anna. “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of Rolf Stein, edited by Michel Strickmann, vol. 2, pp. 291–371. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1983. Sharf, Robert H. “Prolegomenon to the Study of Japanese Buddhist Icons.” In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons In Context, edited by Robert Sharf, and Elizabeth H. Sharf, pp. 1–18. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. Sutton, Donald S. “Ritual, Cultural Standardization, and Orthopraxy in China: Recon­ sidering James L. Watson’s Ideas.” Modern China 33.1 (2007): 3–21. Tambiah, Stanley J. Culture, Throught, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity. London: Routledge, 1992. Taussig, Michael. “Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism. Another Theory of Magic.” In Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment, edited by Birgit Meyer, and Peter Pels, pp. 272–306. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Tenbu no shoson 天部の諸尊 [Divine Figures in the Realm of Devas]. Exhibition Catalogue. Koyasan: Kōyasan Reihōkan, 1994. Trenson, Steven. “Shingon Divination Board Rituals and Rainmaking.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 21 (2014): 107–134. Vandermeersch, Léon. “De la tortue à l’achillée.” In Divination et rationalité, edited by J.P. Vernant et al., pp. 29–51. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1974. Xiao Dengfu 蕭登福. Chenwei yu daojiao 讖緯與道教 [Prognosticatory Weft Literature and Taoism]. Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2000. Yan Dunjie 严敦杰. “Guanyu Xi-Han chuqi de shipan he zhanpan 西汉汝阴侯墓的占盘 和天文仪器 [Concerning Early Western Han Diviner’s Boards and Mantic Devices].” Kaogu 考古 [Archaeology], 1978.5: 334–337. Yan Dunjie. “Shipan zongshu 式盘综述 [A Summary of Shi Findings].” Kaogu xuebao 考 古 [Acta Archaeological Sinica] 4 (1985): 445–464.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

232

Steavu

Yin Difei 殷滌非. “Xi-Han Ruyin hou mu chutu de zhanpan he tianwen yiqi 西汉汝阴 侯墓的占盘和天文仪器 [The Diviner’s Board and Star Chart from the Tomb of Marquis Ruyin of the Western Han].” Kaogu 考古 [Archaeology], 1978.5: 338–343.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 233

Chapter 7

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau Anne C. Klein Hailmasters are involved with harming and making trouble for the beings who bring hail. This is quite unscrupulous and I have no wish at all to be involved in such activities. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, a revered Lama and hailmaster1

⸪ 1

Overview of the Tibetan Context

When we speak of “divination” in a Tibetan context we are actually referring to a cluster of important and deeply embedded understandings of mind, body, space, landscape, and the social contract. Reflecting on these introduces a world and logic quite in harmony with the project of fending off hail through connecting with powerful non-human forces, and linking this with certain standards of everyday behavior.2 1 This and other descriptions of the actual process of hail prevention taken from Anne C. Klein and Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, “Hail Protection.” 2 The same or similar logic would apply to practices of prognostication (mo), or feats of clairvoyance and prophecy and, with some possible modification, to the use of a text such as the Yijing. I have no personal knowledge of the Yijing’s currency among Tibetans, though I have understood from Dr. Smith that there is a Tibetan (Tibetanized?) Yijing, which I have not yet seen. David Germano in an informal communication reported to me by Prof. Richard Smith seems to conclude that the case requires considerable further investigation. He suggests that one would have to consult the works of Thu’u bkwan’s predecessors, Lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje and Mgon po skyabs, to see how they rendered the title, but it does seem that in Thu’u bkwan’s case, (Thu’u bkwan p. 337 in the trans.), the Zhouyi is referred to as a text explaining Spor thang, and the latter is clearly not used as a book title (Thanks to Richard Smith for bringing my attention to this).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_009

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

234

Klein

In Tibet, where the food supply for an entire village or valley can be destroyed by a single afternoon’s hailstorm, the art of protecting land from hail is a highly valued and actively cultivated body of knowledge. Hail-protection practices involve astrology, dream analysis, meteorological expertise, as well as the classic ritual arts of Tantra. Strictly speaking only one, albeit central, element could be considered divination, namely the ability to divine, or foresee what type of clouds or malicious beings are sending hail, so that the proper remedy can be taken. The logic of hail protection involves seeing connections among apparently disparate entities. 2

Principles of Connection

By and large the central principles of the world view encompassing hail prevention have to do with how bodies, minds, and landscapes are connected. Several ideas support the sense of an interactive and visceral connection between bodies and the landscapes they inhabit. For example, the concept of life-vitality or bla (pronounced “la,” rhymes with “ma”) is a pre-Buddhist idea, related to the Turkish qut and common to a region much larger than Tibet; it gets assimilated into Buddhist understandings of mind and body at least by the 11th century. The elements that constitute persons and their environment are also seen as dynamic in their most subtle manifestation as light. Classic Buddhist understandings of mind and karma are also dynamic because of their connection to prāṇa, the steed on which all consciousness rides. Another strand of the multi-layered narratives associated with the logic of hail mastery is Tantra, which draws on all of these principles through its creation and completion phases—that is the phase of creating oneself as a luminous enlightened being, and then dissolving into the completeness of gnostically luminous space. In such ways, over time, these views are forged into a cultural logic consistent with practices such as hail protection. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, who lived the first third of his long life in pre-occupation Tibet, and with whom I studied for several decades until his passing in 2009, might have disdained the ethics and aesthetics of hail-protection practices, as in the quote above, but he never doubted their efficacy. 3

Land and bLa

La (bla), which we will translate as life-vitality, is a quality, which enriches the land as well as its inhabitants. It is a quality in which both the living and the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 235

land participate, including those Lamas (bLa ma, literally “possessors of bla”) who practice the art of Hail Protection. This life-vitality is described as especially present in mountains and lakes. The “soul lake” or “spirit lake” of Yeshe Tsogyal, for example, is the place associated with her life-vitality.3 In this kind of world, living persons are not “set against a contrasting background” of the larger world, to paraphrase Clifford Geertz’ famous expression,4 but participate with mountains and rivers in the overall dynamic of their shared environment. In this way, bla, like the other concepts discussed here, bypasses Cartesian dualism as well as Newtonian separateness by emphasizing an important resonance between “internal” and “external,” between Yeshe Tsogyal, for example, and the lake that sprang up at her birth. The stage is already being set, we can see, for human intercession in the not-so-external world. A related principle, important throughout the Asian and Buddhist cultures, is that a human body, like the universe, is constituted by the five elements (’byung ba lnga): earth (sa), water (chu), fire (me), air (rlung) and space (nam mkha’).5 The first three are visible to the eye, whereas the last two are not. All five can be identified by feel—hard, fluid, hot, moving, or expansive. The ordering of these is not accidental; in sequentially listing earth, water, fire, wind and space, one is identifying a progression from the most coarse and reified—earth—to the most refined—space. These same elements constitute the outer world as well, and therein lies a key to the intimate connections possible between them.6 All five elements, together with their related dynamic energies and associated colors, are implicitly and often explicitly present in tantric rituals, including those related to hail protection. This holistic dynamism is integral to the major cycle of tantric practices known as the Kālacakra.

3 In her biography Yeshe Tsogyal states that this spring-fed lake, which today seems more like a small pond, increased in size at the time of her birth, a geomantic metaphor, we might say, for her name, which means “Wisdom Ocean.” 4 The full statement is “The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set constrastively both against other such wholes and against its social and natural background, is, however, incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures.” Geertz, “On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding,” 48. 5 The Buddhist five elements referred to here are also known as Mahābhutā or “five big” (五大) and should not be confused with the five phases (五行) of Chinese cosmology. 6 See Klein, “Seeing Body, Being Mind: Contemplative Practice and Buddhist Epistemology.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

236 4

Klein

Exemplifying Connective Dynamism: The Kālacakra Cycle

A central principle of the Kālacakra Tantra, perhaps the last great tantric work of Buddhist India, is the profound mirroring of the macrocosm in the microcosm of the human body. Here development of the fetus is linked with the elements, which are known in Tibetan literally as “arisings” (’byung ba), a term that links them also with the Buddhist principle of dependent arising. This understanding of fetal development also accords with the Indian medical treatises that came to be so influential in Tibet. Zurchar Lodro Gyelpo (1509–1579), author of Transmission of the Elders, the most significant commentary on the Southern tradition of Tibetan medicine,7 explains that both the parents’ reproductive fluids and the transmigrating consciousness necessarily possess subtle forms of the five elements. He explains that these “arisings” “refer not to static material substances but rather to qualitative, dynamic functions [italics added]”8. In other words, talking about the elements is also a way of talking about an entity that is potentially connective and responsive in a way that materially robust earth or water can never be. The elements at their most subtle are patterns of dynamism. Zurchar Lodro Gyelpo furthers this discussion by elabo­rating on the meaning of the Entering the Womb Sutra: When the body itself is generated, the parents’ reproductive substance and blood, the four great elements and the consciousness (ngo bo) become undifferentiated, because by the earth element solidity is made, by the water element liquidity is made, by the fire element heat is made, and by the wind element movement is made.9 Just as the elements, earth, water, fire, and wind, figure in the development of the fetus who is, after all, a kind of ultimate product of the process of cyclic existence,10 so these same elements, especially the kind of energies associated with them, produce the patterns of our lives, the fruition of our past actions or karma. We call them “elements” precisely because they are the building blocks of our experience. In Tibetan, as already noted, they are simply referred to as “arisings”—the most basic description of what arises to form ourselves and the world we inhabit.

7 8 9 10

Cited by Garret, Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet, 51; see also n. 44. Cited by ibid., 143. Cited by ibid., 143. Ibid., 32.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 237

At the same time, these elemental building blocks are empty of any reified ontic status. Playing off the commonly accepted trope of elements as constitutive of human beings, Nagarjuna writes: A person is not earth, not water, Not fire, not wind, not space, Not consciousness and not all of them. What person is there other than these.11 And in the same text: Just as a mirage is like water but is Not water and does not in fact exist [as water] So the aggregates are like a self but are Not selves and do not in fact exist [as selves].12 Tantric practice as well as exoteric Buddhist philosophy engages these principles: things function, and they are fundamentally empty. They are not reified as whatever their ordinary appearance suggests. An essential part of tantric practice in Tibet is to forsake identifying with one’s ordinary body and appearance, and instead arise as an enlightened being who is vividly present, powerful, and also empty of any reified status. Tantric practitioners bring these two perspectives together through creation stage practice (skyes rim), the process of identifying with the form and consciousness of an enlightened being, in combination with completion stage practices (rdzogs rim), which emphasize the emptiness of that very identity. Such practices form the prior, and more exalted, activities of hail protection. These are followed by a set of lesser, and lower, types of activities. 5

The Prior Activities: Classic Buddhist Tantra

Thus, the first set of activities consists of well-known forms of tantric practice. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche condensed these into the four activities of (l) empowerment (dbang), (2) training in ritual practice (phyag len Ia mkhas par sbyangs), (3) accomplishing recitation and establishing oneself as a deity (lha’i 11

Nāgārjuna, and Kaysang Gyatso, The Precious Garland and the Song of the Four Mindfulnesses, 28, v. 80. 12 Ibid., 24, v. 54.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

238

Klein

bmyan sgrub), and (4) augmentation (kha sgong). These are classic tantric methods for attaining Buddhahood.13 In order to practice Tantra of any kind, the practitioner first receives empowerment (dbang), a consecration of oneself as the yi dam or enlightened being whose identity, along with crucial qualities such as attention, wisdom, and compassion, one will train to assume during the meditative ritual. In this training, a deeply settled concentration combines with a vivid experience of the emptiness taught in Madhyamaka texts (such as those by Nagarjuna, Candra­ kirti, or, in Tibet, and especially among Nyingmas, Longchen Rabjam, and Jigme Lingpa) such that the practitioner no longer has the sense of being ordinary flesh and blood. This entails a radical revocation of habitual identity—but now the practitioner has a body of an enlightened being, composed entirely of light. Once this sensibility is established, one engages the third of the four “prior” or classic tantric activities, reciting the sound, the mantra, of the enlightened being now identified as oneself and in this way “approaching” or coming close to the state of actually being such an enlightened being. One may decide to recite until certain signs of success emerge, or simply to recite a set number, usually one hundred thousand for each syllable of the mantra. This can take several weeks or a few months. Finally, the augmentation practices that conclude the tantric ritual are performed. These involve peaceful offerings consisting of twelve substances mixed together: firewood, melted butter, wheat, beans, shelled barley, unshelled barley, rice, grass roots, kusha grass, sesame, yogurt mixed with tsampa and the juice made from chopped up beetle-nuts. All these are, obviously, forms of human food, and also regarded as suitable fare for enlightened beings. These four activities, which, again, are no different than what classic Buddhist tantric training would entail, are the root of hail-protection activities. The actual hail-protection activities can then begin. This is done during a summer retreat period, the season when hail threatens young crops. Tantric meditative rituals are complex, time-consuming and steeped in Buddhist cultural assumptions as well as in classic Buddhist philosophies. They are understood to transform personal energies by releasing reified habit patterns that bind them in particular ways and also, in some cases by synchronizing them with larger, enlightened analogues to which they can open.14 In 13 14

This and the preceding paragraph are taken from Klein, “Hail Protection,” 539–540. This way of reflecting on the body brings to mind James Nelson’s words that to know the body deeply “is nothing less than our attempts to reflect on body experience as revelatory of God” (Cited by Ferrer, Participatory Turn, 13).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 239

the Kālacakra specifically, and somewhat uniquely, the body at its most subtle is revealed as part of an alternative universe that gradually displaces the ­ordinary universe in the experience of the most advanced practitioner. Dis­ place­ment comes about not through a shift in ideas or even a deepening of concentration but through an opening, refining, and actual rechanneling of the body’s deepest energies. This is deemed possible in part because, as we have seen, the subtle vitality or bla circulating in the body is deeply affected by the external world. The bla within the body moves in tandem with the seasons, the days of the week, even the hours and minutes of time through which life passes. This description shares with acts of divination the principle that there are analogical as well as energetic connections among things that may seem, to the casual observer to be distanced or unrelated. Lakes, mountains, and human bodies all have bla. So do the deities, villages, hail master, and implements associated with hail. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche comments further on this “prior activities” of classic tantric sādhana. In his remarks below he follows the Rta mkhrin gsang sgrub gyi sgo nas ser ba srung ba’i gdams pa me rlung ’khrugs pa’i gur [Text for [Holding Off ] Ferocious Fire and Water, the Instructions for Guarding against Hail through Secret Accomplishment of Hayagriva]15: Traditionally, Buddhist practices are divided into those having to do with method and wisdom: here in Tantra the stages of development and completion correspond to method and wisdom. What is the method? We take our ordinary sense of what we look like, our sense of ourselves as flesh and blood, and put it aside. Instead, we think that our body is the body of the enlightened deity associated with our practice. We practice developing a clear appearance of ourselves as the deity, and if we become accustomed to this sufficiently, it becomes possible to see ourselves this way. Not only this, we imagine that the entire world is a mandala mansion, made of light. […] But such visualization is not sufficient. We also need to understand this mansion to be empty, as discussed in Madhya­ maka and other texts. For this reason we practice the stage of completion, 15

rTa mkhrin gsang sgrub collection in Collected Works of Thu ’bkwan blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma, TBRC W21507, vol. 7 (ja) 22 folios. TBRC PDF No. 351–394. It comments on another text, Ser bsrung gnam ljags gur khang [The Iron Tent House Guarding against Hail], TBRC W23453, vol. 2 (kha), 415–439. TBRC PDF No. 425–450. This work is from the byang gter [Northern Treasure] by Rig ’dzin rgod gyi ldem phru can (1337–1409). The Iron Tent is considered a recovered treasure (gter) from the time of Songtsen Gampo (c.640).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

240

Klein

the second stage of tantric practices, especially associated with the wisdom of emptiness.16 Performing these practices carefully is said to make activities such as the stopping of hail possible, an enterprise that involves combat against beings associated with hail. According to Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, if you can clearly and with an unwavering mind visualize yourself as, for example, Hayagriva, then worldly deities cannot harm you. Even if you have not understood emptiness and thus not fulfilled the practice of the stage of completion, your own strong visualization causes these worldly spirits to see you as the fierce and powerful Hayagriva, not as an ordinary human being. Therefore one is protected, since even the most malevolent spirits would never attempt to harm Hayagriva.17 Following these time-honored tantric practices come the activities for which Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche expressed distaste in our epigraph above. After a few more observations on world view we turn to these. 6

Reconfiguring Connection

The person who conducts the rituals permitting mastery of hail is a Lama, someone by definition rich in life-vitality or bLa. As such the person of the Lama, like the name itself, unites an ancient pre-Buddhist shamanic culture with the iconic Buddhist figure of the guru, the Sanskrit term rendered in Tibetan as bLa ma. And, as we will see, the art of hail protection itself unites classic Buddhist practices with principles that are in real tension with them. Before getting to that, let us continue building our mosaic of concepts and principles forming the logic of hail protection. The classic Buddhist principle of karma emphasizes the causal property of all physical and vocal actions, as well as the activity of mind. Karma theory has its basis in the most ancient layers of Indian religion, predating Buddhism by centuries if not a millennium or so. Nothing suggests that this was explicitly developed to further a world view supportive of divination. However it is obvious that karma theory does, like the other terms we have considered, provide a bridging between the human and material realms, as well as among living beings in general. Buddhist principles of karma have their locus classicus in the Abhidharma literature of India, with extensive commentarial material in many central texts 16 17

Klein, “Hail Protection,” 540. This is a slightly modified excerpt from Klein, “Hail Protection,” 540.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 241

of the Tibetan tradition. We can touch into this through two examples, the 14th century Lam Rim Chen Mo [Great Treatise] by Tsongkhpa, founder of the Geluk order of Tibetan Buddhism, and the widely read Words of My Perfect Teacher, a 19th century text by Patrul Rinpoche, prominent in the ancient Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Synthesizing these, we find that actions have four types of effects:18 1. 2. 3. 4.

Fully Ripened Effect (rnam smin gyi ’bras bu, Skt. vipākaphala) Effect Similar to the Cause (rgyu mthun pa’i ’bras bu) a) Actions Similar to the Cause (byed pa rgyu mthun gyi ’bras bu) b) Experiences Similar to the Cause (myong ba rgyu mthun gyi ’bras bu) Environmental Effect (bdag po’i bras bu OR dbang gi ’bras bu) The Proliferating Effect (las che ba’i ’bras bu)19

In particular, “environmental effect” refers to the capacity of actions to con­ dition or shape the environment. Since a person always experiences an envi­ronment that is the effect of their own (as well as others’) actions, our relationship with our surroundings is intimate and interactive; our actions literally shape our world, no abyss separates ourselves from it, nothing is disconnected from our own personal history. Thus when one calls upon beings or forces around one, as also occurs in normative Buddhist practice and, in a particularly robust manner, in the hail-protection practice, there is an important sense in which one is calling on an aspect of oneself, on something which is intimately connected to oneself and thus could reasonably, within this cultural logic, be expected to respond to appropriate gestures. The method for calling on these beings is what constitutes the second set of activities, the very types of activities that classic Buddhism disdains and would marginalize.

18

19

More specifically, an important locus classicus of the Tibetan Tradition (especially Geluk) is Tsongkhapa, The Great Treatise, Vol. 1, 209–246. For a Nyingma presentation, also widely consulted, see Patrul Rinpoche, Words of My Perfect Teacher (Kun bzang blama’i zhal lung), 112–118. For an accessible and slightly different view of karma in the Theravāda tradition, see by the renowned Mahasi Saydaw. Mentioned in Words of My Perfect Teacher, 117 but listed as a type of karma in The Great Treatise, vol. 1, 211, although this latter text refers to what seems to be the same principle as one of the four characteristics of karma (las ‘phel che ba). Tsongkhapa here mentions “Completing Karma” (rdzogs byed kyi las) as the fourth type of karmic action.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

242 7

Klein

The Five Subsequent Activities

Once the prior activities have been completed, the hailmaster begins the first of the five subsequent activities. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Making ritual artifacts, Preparing mantra-empowered pills, Meeting the law-enforcer, Walking the protected area, and During the summer retreat, actually undertaking the activities that will protect an area from hail.

These techniques are passed from father to son. In Tibet there were almost no women who worked to prevent hail. In the 1950s a hailmaster passed his skills on to Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, his son-in-law, rather than to any of his seven daughters. Still, says Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, “these methods would work for anyone who had the ability, woman or man, American or not, and anyone who had that ability would be respected.”20 Making ritual objects: The first activity after the augmentation that closes the prior activities is the making of a triangular stand out of birchwood (shing stag pa’i byang bu). On this is attached the figure of one’s yidam, the enlightened deity with whom one has a special relationship and whom one both emulated and propitiated as part of the first set activities. On this figure’s head is placed a circular plaque inscribed with predetermined mantras and designs. This kind of plaque is not part of ordinary tantric practice. A second mantra is written on the figure’s back, as is often done in Tibetan thankas. In this case however, the mantra is incorporated into a phrase that includes the name of the place to be protected; for example, the writing on the back of the figure Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche made while staying in Texas is entirely in Tibetan except for the English word “Houston.” This ritual object must be made by the hailmaster himself, who will have been trained in the intricate designs and mantras required. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche observes that, “of course, there are some inadequate persons who really don’t know how to do all the drawings and so forth properly, but there are also those who are very well trained. It is important to make great effort to do everything correctly since success depends on this.”21 In short, these are works of art. Art is another way of bringing the internal into alignment with the external. 20 21

Klein, “Hail Protection,” 541. Klein, “Hail Protection,” 542.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 243

The Dagger: Next, one makes a traditional figure in the shape of a dagger known as a phurba and places mantras at two points on the figure; in addition, a scented packet is tied around its neck.22 Although phurbas are most commonly made of metal, for the purpose of protecting from hail one must use a phurba made from a red-hued wood known as acacia catechu (seng ldeng gi phur pa).23 Thread is wound around the phurba as well as the hair of a great lama or a great tantric practitioner, and these also are attached to the top of the phurba, fastening the packet of spices and other contents. Later the phurbas will be set up inside each of the four huts on the protected property. Empowering with mantra: Next, one empowers certain substances with especially secret mantras. The substances involved in this practice and the use made of them is not, as in tantric rituals, a case of offering something nice to the deities, of pleasing them, or helping them in any way whatsoever. This is a case of making trouble for such beings, harming or hurting them. It is also the hailmaster’s job to examine the astrological situation and learn whether the stars indicate things will go well or not, and which types of beings are involved with the hail on any particular occasion. Sixteen substances are considered antidotes that interfere with hail-bearing beings. From these substances one makes pills, inside of which are placed certain fierce mantras. The pills are then empowered through ritual recitation during the hailmaster’s twenty-seven day retreat. These sixteen antidotal substances are an evocative list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

22 23

Antidote for the earth demon is earth from a place struck by lightening. Antidote for the water deity is water from melted hail. Antidote for the earth deity leaders is earth from a place where there has been fighting (for example, rubble from a house destroyed by a cannon). Antidote to the tsen (btsan) is powdered copper. Antidote to the mother nagas is a wool-like aquatic grass plucked from very still water. Antidote to the father srin is black sulphur. Antidote to the dmu-demons (who also cause dropsy by casting an evil eye on one) is water from a rushing stream. Antidote to the lha srin, a kind of ogre, is the fangs of a musk deer or, if one cannot find this, the fangs of a mad dog.

Klein, “Hail Protection,” 542. This is a tree that bears a three-pronged leaf; when its bark is peeled back, its color is pure yellow.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

244 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Klein

As an antidote to [the worldly] Dorje Legba (rDo rje legs pa) one needs the flesh of a weasel (sre mong). As an antidote to demons (bdud) one needs the flesh of a hopoo bird. One puts mantras on this flesh, which prevents the demon from doing harm. This flesh does not help or feed the demon in any way; it has a bad smell, which turns the demon around. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche noted that it is a sin to kill a hopoo bird—or any animal—for its flesh, but difficult to obtain otherwise. Such is the dilemma of a Buddhist hailmaster. “Sometimes one inherits these items from one’s father” observed Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche.24 11. As an antidote to the four female spirits (srid mo) one needs acrid black earth. As an antidote to the female servant nagas one needs the spru ma flower, described as “a hellebore, which cures plague, fever, worms, and leprosy.” As an antidote to the worker deity group one needs earth from a place where a person has been killed. As an antidote to yama one needs earth from a crossroads. As an antidote to the tirthikas (non-Buddhists) one needs grogs shing— a kind of small clinging plant (not moss) or lichen that can grow on trees or, in Tibet, on doorways. As an antidote to bhin ya ka one needs earth from a place where there has been fighting.

Pills are made from these substances for later use in preventing hail. The contents of these pills, like the mantras that accompany them, is kept highly secret. Only those trained in hail protection have privy to them.25 Through the logic of bla and energy with which we are now familiar, these pills, like the other ritual instruments, are understood to be imbued with a certain type of force capable of helping to counter hail. But it is important to note that the substances are not considered effective in and of themselves, they must be deployed by someone capable of fully identifying in body, energy, and consciousness with the enlightened figure that was the center of long periods of meditation, such as Hayagriva in the text we are consulting. After preparing these materials in ways too elaborate to describe here, the hailmaster completes a twenty-seven day retreat to empower the ritual objects

24 25

Klein, “Hail Protection,” 543. For a description of this second set of activities see Klein, “Hail Protection,” 542–543.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 245

through his practice—through interweaving attention, sacred sound, and understanding of the illusory yet potent nature of all things. 8

How Mind Knows: Another Aspect of Connectivity

Practices around hail-protection involve substances; they also involve prolonged training in meditation, which in turn is based on certain understandings of mind. Just as the connection between living beings and landscapes is an important principle for divination-type activity, so is the relationship between mind and body. For Buddhists, the mind’s defining characteristics are its clarity and its knowing (gsal zhing rig pa). Because of these qualities sensory direct ex­perience and cognitive processes are possible. Direct perception—eye conscious­ness, ear consciousness and so on—depends on three causes. An eye consciousness for example requires a “sense power”, described as subtle matter inside the physical eye, said to be in the shape of a flower. That is the first cause. It is called a “power-base” (dbang po, indriya) meaning it has a capacity to provide the energy or dynamic force necessary for seeing. The second cause is the object that is seen (which in the case of hail-protection rituals is also a site of vitality or bla) and the third is a previous moment of consciousness. And what connects the consciousness to the object? Every consciousness rides a steed of wind—rlung in Tibetan, prāna in Sanskrit, and very much overlapping, if not the full equivalent of qi 氣 in Chinese or ki 気 in Japanese. This means that we do not see objects, including hail clouds, across an empty abyss; rather there is energetic contact with the object seen. And energies or winds do not emerge only from living bodies; “wind horse” (rlung rta) is a name given to the colorful flags—colors associated with the energies specific to the elements, earth, water, fire, wind, and space—which decorate Tibetan landscapes to this day and are understood to offer positive energies that ride the air currents passing through them, particularly from high places such as roofs or mountains, down to the beings beneath. Here too we find the principle of connection, which is central to the logic of divination in general and hail protection in particular. The cultivation of attention, a skill clearly associated with the meditative practices fundamental to divination-type abilities in Tibet, is also implicitly, and quite palpably, a training of the “steed of wind” or wind horse. Calming the mind calms the winds, calming the winds calms the mind. The two are inseparable. When the winds carrying the mind settle down, the mind’s defining characteristic of clarity flourishes. This makes certain types of seeing, and divining, possible.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

246

Klein

Clairvoyance is a well recognized category in classic Sanskrit and Tibetan phenomenologies of mind from Vasubhandhu’s 4th century Abhidharmakosha [Treasury of Knowledge] in India to the late 19th century Purbujok’s bLo rig [Minds and Awarenesses] to the many texts in between that form this classic genre of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist epistemologies. Clairvoyance is asso­ ciated with a powerful degree of one-pointed attention, gained after a set of particularly refined energies have emerged in body and mind. These refined energies are known as the winds of physical and mental pliancy, and they are necessary, if not sufficient, foundations for the development of clairvoyance. 9

Saving Crops, Gaining Power

The hailmaster stays in retreat for twenty-seven days while he empowers the ritual objects and makes pills from mantrically empowered substances. Pillmaking involves two activities: blackening them in a fire fueled by wood that was itself blackened in fire used to burn a corpse, and placing them in musk water. As we have seen already in the list of sixteen substances used in making pills, areas that have seen fighting, destruction, and death are regarded as powerful—and not just powerful in general, but powerful as protection against the menace of hail. Implicitly, the object (corpse) or motive (the anger of fighting and will to destroy) evince a capacity to overcome another destructive force, namely hail. This kind of analogy has some features of “sympathetic magic” yet the logic by which it works—such as the principles of bla, las (karma), and prāṇa mentioned above—provide articulations of its workings that are not limited to ideas of this genre of magic. Mantras, as we have said, are then positioned inside the pills as the Mantrika, or hailmaster, recites a related mantra. Mantras, which can be regarded as perfor­mative speech acts, are themselves sympathetically and dynamically aligned with the purpose for which they are recited. Analogously, in classic tantric practice, the ritual implements such as bell and scepter are empowered with mantras before being used. Still, one is not relying here on mantric power alone. The mantra within the pills is written with blood extracted from many beings on a poisonous paper made from a particular bad-smelling wood. Afterward the hailmaster keeps these with him when he walks and guards the area under his protection.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 247

10

The Social Contract

This ritual power is conjoined with socio-political power also. In the third month of the Tibetan year, prior to the hail season, a meeting between the hail­ master and the local law-enforcement takes place. At that time, the hailmaster writes out regulations to be enforced in the area that year. The law officer, a kind of sheriff, is to keep his eye out for anyone who disobeys these. Those who do are reported to the hailmaster, who may then send hail to descend on the offender. That hail will be considered the fault of the law-breaker, not the hailmaster, because the officer will have documented that this person did in fact break the law. All this is in keeping with received ideas about collective karma. Hail arrives, not only because the hailmaster lacks skill but because of the actions of people in the area. In a sense the hailmaster’s prevention of hail is interfering with the cause and effect of karma. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche observed that there was a lot of quarreling about this in Tibet. People complained that the hailmaster was supposed to protect them from hail, but did not achieve this goal. Because of the formal agreement prior to hail season, the hailmaster can state that his powers are not at issue because the villager’s bad behavior “makes my work similar to trying to plug a leak in a wall with hundreds of holes. If you behave like this, what can I do?”26 After concluding his meeting with the law-enforcement officer, the hailmaster makes his rounds of the area under protection. At this point, following whatever length of years it might have taken to fully establish his identity as the deity whose form he will assume in practice, the practitioner has spent twenty-seven days in retreat empowering the antidotal substances with mantra. Now, on completion of that retreat, he walks the land that will be under his protection and marks it with stone dividers or, in some cases, a wooden fence. He walks to one or all of the four huts that he established prior to his retreat, this time carrying the birchwood stand and ritual dagger. He also carries items such as cedar, which will be offered to the deities as a kind of bribe, asking them to withhold hail in return for the good they receive. If the assigned area is large, it might take two to three days to complete the walk; it may also be of a size that can be walked in a single day. Now he also places two stone circular plaques known as “reversing discs” (zlog ‘khor) in each of these four directional points, facing outward. These are decorated with very particular designs and mantras. Two other plaques, known as “protective discs” (srung ‘hhor), are also placed there, facing inward. These 26

Klein, “Hail Protection,” 544.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

248

Klein

are inscribed with their own appropriate mantras. Then, with the new crops in the ground, the actual three-month summer retreat for preventing the summertime hail will begin. 11

Protective Methods

There are various methods for preventing hail or altering its course. Peaceful methods include recitation of the mantra of Shakyamuni Buddha and burning tsang (cedar) for offering and using the offering vessel (gser skyems). Semiwrathful methods involve visualizing oneself as Hayagriva, with one’s flames destroying the hail clouds. Very wrathful methods involve placing substances known as epidermal flakes from a black stallion (rda bon bdug pa) in a fire, or using poison pills and a slingshot. There are other methods as well. One can make a frog out of clay and harden it in the fire. In an opening at its underside one places an enormous number of mantras and other items as well. When hail is imminent the frog is pointed at the hail cloud. A clay turtle can be used in the same way. There are also methods for trapping the hail-bringing deities underground, or for dispossessing deities of their power. This is done by burying different substances. Knowing which method to use requires knowing what type of being is bringing the hail on that occasion. This itself is an area of considerable study.27 During the summer hail season, while in retreat on the highest point of the property he protects, the hailmaster spends his time looking at the skies and analyzing his dreams to determine whether or not there will be hail that day. If hail is indicated he takes appropriate measures very early in the morning. For example, if the sun shines through two layers of cloud in a particular way, this is an indication of hail. Or, if one looks not so much at the clouds but at the light coming between them, and if the sun’s rays come very straight in a small opening between the clouds, this is also a sign of hail. If there is one set of clouds over another, and if the sun is able to get out from between them, hail will come. If two layers of clouds are vertically placed one in front of the other, and if there is space between them for the sun to shine, this too is a sign of

27

Rinpoche notes that a two-volume text on this subject was written by Lelung Shebe Dorje (Las lung shes ba’i rdorje), who was a Gelukpa, a student of Terton Lingba (Gter ston gling pa) and then became a Nyingma during the time of the fifth Dalai Lama. The text describes how one can understand which types of beings are involved either through watching the clouds or through observing dreams. I have not been able to locate this text.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 249

imminent hail. Or if there is blue sky between the two layers of clouds with the sunlight pouring out horizontally between them, hail is imminent. When rain clouds come, they cover the sky from both sides. For this reason rain is much more difficult to prevent than hail; one can target one’s energies better on the far more localized hail clouds. These are immediately recognizable. They move like bubbles rising in water, like roiling water, not in a straight path. When one does the practice, one can immediately see the cloud disappear and it cannot hail. Hail is said to occur only in the afternoon and is particularly likely to come on the fourth, eighth, eleventh, fifteenth, eighteenth, twenty-second, twenty-fifth, or twenty-ninth days of the lunar calendar be­cause the earth demons walk about on these days. In view of all we have discussed, let us look again at some of the fundamentals of hail protection.28 In particular we see that this is a social practice as well as a meditative one. We have seen this in the division of hail-protection practices into two main parts: (1) the prior higher activities aimed at accomplishing enlightenment and (2) various latter, and lower, activities specifically associated with hail protection. The former consists of classic practices of Tantra, as understood in most Tibetan traditions, in which one dissolves one’s own ordinary form into emptiness and then arises in the form of an enlightened being, in this case the wrathful appearing Hayagriva. The latter consist of a variety of ritual activities, culminating in a meeting with the local law officer, who partici­ pates in the writing of a social contract. Then the actual activities of protecting a carefully designated area from hail can begin. There are both peaceful and wrathful methods, the wrathful methods, which are understood to harm beings associated with hail, are recognized to be in significant tension with the compassionate ethos of Buddhism itself. In this way the hail master is positioned between two opposing systems of values. Successful hail masters have a great deal of social power, prestige and wealth and this too—in the view of my own late teacher Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, who was my main informant on these matters, and himself an unwilling but apparently very successful hail master—tends to corrupt the motivation of these persons. He also expressed great distaste for some of the substances involved, and especially those used in a harmful manner. He considered himself fortunate in that he never needed to resort to them but always was able to keep hail at bay through the peaceful methods described in the texts. Thus we can see that hail mastery draws on several highly developed and challenging traditional arts of classic Buddhist as well as pre-Buddhist culture. 28

Details of the textual basis and process of hail protection that follow are largely condensed from my “Hail Protection.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

250

Klein

It also draws on a widely accepted and longstanding set of cultural norms regarding the kind of relationship that exits between humans and their environment, fundamentally presuming that because both arise from the same source, and are further connected by the steeds of energy of which sensory and other forms of contact are composed, it quite naturally follows that if one trains sufficiently in all these various arts, there is every possibility of warding off the easily identifiable clouds that bring hail.

Works Cited

Ferrer, Jorge N., and Jacob H. Sherman, eds. The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Garrett, Frances. Religion, Medicine, and the Human Embryo in Tibet. New York: Routledge, 2008. Geertz, Clifford. “On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding: Not Extraordinary Empathy but Readily Observable Symbolic Forms Enable the Anthropologist to Grasp the Unarticulated Concepts that Inform the Lives and Cultures of Other Peoples.” Ameri­can Scientist 63, no. 1 (1975): 47–53. Geshe Ngawang Dargyay. The Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development. Dharamslaa: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2003. Klein, Anne C. “Seeing Body, Being Mind: Contemplative Practice and Buddhist Epistemology.” In Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, edited by Steven B. Emmanuel, pp. 572–584. London: Blackwell, 2013. Klein, Anne C., and Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche. “Hail Protection.” In Religions of Tibet in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., pp. 538–547. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Mahasi Saydaw. “The Theory of Karma.” Buddhanet. (accessed October 16, 2013). Nāgārjuna, and Kaysang Gyatso. The Precious Garland and the Song of the Four. Translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, Lati Rinpoche, and Anne Klein. Wisdom of Tibet Series 2. New York: Harper and Row; London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975. Ngawang Gelek Demo, ed. Collected Works of Thu ‘bkwan blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (1737–1802). vol. 7. Lhasa: Zhol par khang gsar pa, 2000. TBRC W21507. Patrul Rinpoche. Words of My Perfect Teacher (Kun bzang blama’i zhal lung). Translated by Padmakara Translation Group. Boston: Shambhala, 1997. Purbujok (Phur bu lcog Byams-pa rgya mtsho, 1825–1901). bLo rig/Yid yul can dang blo rig gi rnam par bshad pa [Minds and Awarenesses]. In Tshad ma’i bhung don ‘byed pa’i bsdus grva’i rnam bzhag rigs lam ‘phrul gyi sde mig [Magical Key to the Path of

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 251 Reasoning, Presentation of the Collected Topics Revealing the Meaning of the Treatises on Valid Cognition]. Buxa: n.p, 1965. Rig ‘dzin rgod kyi ldem phru can (1337–1409). Ser bsrung gnam ljags gur khang [The Iron Tent House Guarding against Hail]. Peking: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2000. TBRC W23453. 13 Folios. Vol. 2 (kha), pp. 415–440. TBRC PDF no. 425–450. Tsongkhapa. The Great Treatise. Edited by Joshua Cutler, vol. 1. Translated by Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications. Rig ‘dzin rgod gyi ldem phru can. Rta mkhrin gsnag sgrub gyi sgo nas ser ba bsrung ba’i gdams pa me rlung ‘khrugs pa’i gur [Text for (Holding Off ) Ferocious Fire and Water, the Instructions]. In rTa mkhrin gsang sgrub collection in Collected Works of Thu ‘bkwan blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma (1737–1802), 22 folios, edited by Ngawang Gelek Demo, vol. 7 (ja). Lhasa: Zhol par khang gsar pa, 2000. TBRC W21507. TBRC PDF no. 351–394. Vasubhandhu (4th century). Abhidharmakośa [Treasury of Knowledge]. In Tibetan Tripitaka. Tokyo: Tibetan Tripitaka Research Foundation, 1956. P5590 vol. 115.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

252

Klein

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau 253

Part 3 Divination and Politics

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

254

Klein

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

255

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

Chapter 8

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric Martin Kern The present essay examines two remarkable and curiously interrelated phenomena of early China: on the one hand, the near-complete elision of ancient Chinese divinatory writings from the received textual tradition, and on the other hand, the rhetorical representation of divination in the service of early political sovereignty from Shang through Han times. As much as the routine practice of divination pervaded early Chinese society on all levels—a fact now proven by a rich record of archeological discoveries—almost nothing of it has remained in the textual heritage from antiquity: the single major exception is the Classic of Changes (Zhouyi 周易, or Yijing 易經).1 Yet at the same time, even our earliest records of Chinese divination, which are also the earliest records of Chinese writing altogether, show how the actual practice of divination was transformed—in an act of Hegelian sublation, or Aufhebung—into an idealizing account of divination to support claims of political legitimation. It is of utmost importance to note that practice and account are decidedly different, and that the latter does not accurately report on the former. In fact, the account is both more and less than the practice, excising much of the latter while also imbuing it with additional significance. In other words, the received textual tradition at once erased and exalted the practice of divination in antiquity. In this way, the rhetorical and ideological appropriation and representation of divination does not diminish the original presence and importance of divination but, to the contrary, only confirms its relevance: rhetorically invoking divination for claims of political sovereignty implies acknowledging its generally respected authority. The present essay discusses a small number of separate cases to show how the rhetoric of divination played out in early China, together with some observations on the elision of divinatory practice from the literary tradition.

1 I thank Yuri Pines and Paul R. Goldin for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay. For a convenient account of the Zhouyi, see Shaughnessy, “I Ching 易經.” On the formation of the Zhouyi, see Shaughnessy, “The Composition”; and Kunst, “The Original Yijing.”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_010

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

256 1

Kern

Late Shang Oracle Texts

The extraordinary attention the early Chinese devoted to the practice of divination is amply documented. When considering the nexus between divination and power at the dawn of Chinese history, one naturally thinks of royal Shang oracle bone inscriptions. The inscriptions incised on bovine shoulder bones and turtle plastrons—in anglophone scholarship summarily called “oracle bones”—are records of royal divinations from the late Shang dynasty (ca. 1250 to ca. 1045 bce). Since first discovered in 1899 at the site of the last Shang capital near the modern city of Anyang 安陽 (Henan), some 150,000 such inscribed pieces have been found, testifying to a large-scale engagement with divination at the royal court that must have consumed very considerable resources of both labor and livestock supply.2 It is further known that bone divination was continued by the Western Zhou (ca. 1045–771 bce). Until recently, just a few hundred inscribed Western Zhou bones and plastrons had been found from that period, albeit from a variety of sites across several modern provinces from Shaanxi 陝西 in the west to Shandong 山東 in the east.3 Then, since 2003, a large cache of inscribed Western Zhou oracle bones, carrying more than 2,500 characters, have been discovered in tombs at the site of Zhou­gongmiao 周公廟 (Qishan 岐山 county, Shaanxi), but only very few inscriptions are published so far.4 Remarkably, recent excavations—with the most significant discoveries made between 1985 and 1987—have also brought to light another, much later, batch of inscribed bones: more than 30,000 pieces from the site of the Western Han (202 bce–9 ce) imperial palace near modern Xi’an.5 Yet these inscriptions are not at all divinatory in nature; they are mostly administrative records. The 2 Standard accounts of the Shang oracle bone inscriptions are Keightley, Sources of Shang History, Keightley, The Ancestral Landscape; and Eno, “Shang State Religion”; all with further references to the pertinent Chinese and Japanese scholarship. 3 See Wang Yuxin, Xi Zhou jiagu tanlun; Wang Yuxin, “Zhouyuan jiagu buci xingkuan de zai renshi he Xingtai Xi Zhou buci de xingkuan zouxiang”; Cao Wei, Zhouyuan jiaguwen; Cao Wei, “Zhouyuan xinchu Xi Zhou jiaguwen yanjiu”; Liu Yuan, “Jin liangnian lai de jiaguxue yanjiu”; Wang Hui, “Zhouyuan jiagu shuxing yu Shang Zhou zhiji jili de bianhua”; Wang Hui, “Cong Qi li, yili yu Zhou li zhi bie kan Zhouyuan jiagu shuxing”; and Men Yi, “Xi Zhou jiaguwen yanjiu.” I thank Professor Adam Smith for guidance on the Zhouyuan inscriptions and their scholarship. 4 See Li Xueqin, “Zhougongmiao bujia sipian shishi.” I thank Professor Paul R. Goldin for this information. 5 See Liu Zhendong and Zhang Jianfeng, “Xi Han guqian de jige wenti”; Wu Rongzeng, “Xi Han guqian zhong suojian de gongguan”; Li Yufang, “Lüelun Weiyanggong sanhao jianzhu yu Handai guqian” (with plates).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

257

choice of bone for such texts is utterly exceptional and must have had some significance; with bamboo and wood widely available, bones were not nearly as convenient as writing material, nor could they be neatly stacked and archived. Whether the laborious incision of administrative texts into bones was in any way related to the much earlier practice of oracle bones or had some other ritual purpose remains unclear, but something must have inspired the imperial court to spend significant resources in order to produce such a large number of routine documents in the archaic fashion. Whatever that inspiration may have been, the result is rhetorical: with no practical purpose imaginable—considering that bamboo was now the standard stationery in the service of running the imperial bureaucracy—the very material of (mostly bovine) animal bone signified the exceptional status of these inscriptions as material artifacts.6 This example of early imperial archaism may appear significantly different from the Shang bones and plastrons that do contain divination records. However, the Shang kings’ belief in divination does not explain the subsequent, extremely laborious incision of oracle records into 150,000 or more pieces of turtle plastrons and bovine shoulder bones. One could have bone and plastron divination without subsequently incising the oracular records—as confirmed by the large numbers of uninscribed bones and plastrons found at Anyang. Thus, there must have been some additional motivation, separate 6 In a contemporary analogy, one is reminded of the recent (and still ongoing) publication of the Qinghua University bamboo slips—presumably looted from a southern tomb and then purchased on the Hong Kong antiquities market—that is printed on heavy glossy paper suitable for its color photographs but then bound in traditional Chinese xianzhuang 線裝 style (and placed in a traditional blue case). This ostentatious and entirely rhetorical claim for tradition—apparently to balance the unsavory fact that Qinghua University (like the Shanghai Museum and Peking University) is now the official recipient and owner of stolen goods—is not merely useless but indeed makes the oversized and unwieldy book impossible to use, unless one also invests in two heavy bricks to hold down the pages. Another, perhaps even more pertinent example of the rhetorical use of outdated stationery is known from the United Kingdom. As reported by the New York Times on February 10, 2016, the British House of Lords finally, effective April 2016, moved to replace calfskin with archival paper for inscribing acts of Parliament and other important documents. According to the Times, the House of Lords “said that using animal skin to painstakingly record and preserve laws was hardly efficient, given, among other things, that it is more unwieldy and difficult to store than paper.” Critics of the change have called it “a reckless breach of tradition” and claim that calfskin vellum lasts about 5,000 years, compared to the expected only 250 years of high-quality archival paper. “If early civilizations hadn’t used vellum, our understanding of history would be diddly-squat!” See (last accessed February 29, 2016).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

258

Kern

from the divinations proper, to create such records. For this, our only guidance comes from the inscriptions themselves. The incised texts show the king in charge of a polity that put tight limits on the unexpected, and then responded with the appropriate sacrificial activities. The formulaic divination through yes/no alternatives strictly controlled the range of possible answers, showed confidence in a comprehensible and predictable world, and, perhaps most important, documented and propagated the king’s capacity of communicating with the spirit world. In this way, the inscribed bones and plastrons rationalized and legitimized the king’s course of action as being based on divination and hence concurring with the intent of the spirits. In short, even at that early moment in time, the inscriptions were not only religious and rationalizing— two interrelated dimensions that should not be falsely placed in mutual oppo­sition—but also fundamentally rhetorical in nature. They were, in fact, written speech acts to perform and constitute royal sovereignty, as can be seen from so-called display inscriptions in large characters, from the often neat symmetrical arrangement of the records, from traces of pigmentation that point to incisions later filled with color, and from the fact that the same divination was often recorded multiple times, without any informational gain, across a multiplicity of bones and plastrons.7 What is more, almost always when a divination record was followed by a prognostication and then, at a much later time, closed by a confirmation of said prediction, it showed the king and his diviners as having been correct—which is, plain and simple, a statistical impossibility.8 Another rhetorical feature is the increasing formularity, topical narrowing, and normalization of the contents of the oracle 7

8

See Kern, “Feature,” 339–341; Keightley, Sources of Shang History, 46, 54, 56, 76–77, 83–84, 89. On the care devoted to the inscriptions and their resulting display function, see also Bagley, “Anyang Writing,” 199–200. On verifications, see Keightley, Sources of Shang History, 42–44, 118–119. The rare cases where a verification contradicted the earlier prognostication all come from the early (Wu Ding 武丁) period, a time for which the inscriptions depict a much less normalized practice of divination, compared to the reigns of the subsequent eight kings of the Late Shang. According to Keightley, “Theology and the Writing of History,” the contradictory verifications do not explicitly or directly challenge the earlier prognostications; they simply confirm alternative events to have taken place—say, rain on other days than predicted, rather than no rain on days for which rain had been predicted. On verifications, see also Bagley, “Anyang Writing,” 196 and 200, who argues that the inscriptions did not merely (my emphasis) serve “to advertise that [the king] was in touch with the spirits. Lady Hao’s plastron is a record of a disappointment; why did the king display that? Surely not just to announce his success in prognosticating.” I agree that such display was likely not the only function of the inscriptions, but it was surely one function; moreover, the case of Lady Hao (where the verification announced the “unlucky” birth of a girl) is very exceptional

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

259

inscriptions over the course of the Late Shang, depicting divination as becoming gradually both more routine and more limited in scope, and in the end being largely focused on the king’s performances of sacrifice, another key expression of political and religious authority in Shang just as in early imperial times. Finally, as in Han dynasty Chang’an, the Shang oracle bones were found at the site of the royal capital. While not all Shang oracle texts are inscriptions of divinations initiated directly by the king, the available evidence so far shows no sign of such texts that were not controlled by immediate members of the royal family.9 On the question of whether or not the inscribed Shang bones and plastrons were kept above ground across generations before finally being buried, the archeological record remains inconclusive. If the claim by some archeologists can be substantiated that at least one of the pits at Anyang contained inscriptions spanning multiple reigns,10 and if this was not due to a joint reburial of oracle texts that had been buried separately in the first place, we would have a case where such texts from an extended past were maintained as continuous and cumulative documentation of the royal privilege and ability to communicate with the spirits. Because of their dating conventions limited to sixty-day periods, these texts could not have served as a historical archive but, instead, would have constituted an institutional memory of divination and its recording as such, and on the whole.11 On the other hand, if there was no such purpose of keeping the oracle texts over long periods of time, their “display features” are even more difficult to explain, and so is the practice of incision as opposed to brush-writing either on bamboo or even on the bones and plastrons themselves.12 Animal bones must have carried with them the promise of durability, even if not yet explicitly as in the later topos of “metal and stone”

9 10

11

12

and concerns a matter of great importance that for just that reason may have had to be reported. See Smith, “Writing at Anyang,” ch. 3. See Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Anyang gongzuodui, “1973 nian Xiaotun nandi fajue baogao.” I am once again grateful to Adam Smith for this reference, and for explaining the overall evidence from Anyang to me. In order to argue for the bones as a historical archive, one would have to assume that the inscriptions were all grouped together within their own sixty-day periods, and that, furthermore, each such period had to be stored separately (and somehow also dated or numbered, for which we have no evidence at all). If there was some system that would have allowed the specific dating of an inscription even after a longer period of time, nobody has ever been able to explain it. Bagley, “Anyang Writing,” 217–236, argues extensively for the presence of brush-writing especially for pragmatic (administrative, etc.) purposes at Anyang. Smith, “Writing at

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

260

Kern

(jinshi 金石) for bronze and jade.13 However, if the bones were discarded at relatively short intervals of several years, this promise was pursued not in pragmatic but in purely rhetorical terms. In sum, the very choices of producing records of the oracles, of producing them with the features noted above, and of painstakingly incising them into the very bones and plastrons that had been used for the divination must have been of rhetorical and ideological significance, even if we lack the evidence for other possible purposes served by the oracle texts. It is also likely not by accident that the only two types of early writing that have survived materially from the Shang and Western Zhou are oracle and bronze inscriptions: while this probably does not mean that writing was limited to divination records or, in the case of the bronzes, directly religious purposes, it does prove that the early Chinese kings spent far more effort and resources on writing in the service of these two functions, compared to all other writing they would have commissioned. 2

The Sublation of Divinatory Practice in the Literary Tradition

There can be no question that in late Shang and then Western Zhou times— the time of our earliest sources—the development and formulation of mantic knowledge was part of the larger quest for making sense of a universe that was conceptualized as fundamentally intelligible, and to some extent controllable. During these centuries at the dawn of history, and indeed all the way down to the formation of the empire, there existed no division between “knowledge” and “belief,” and the art of divination was an integral part of the systematic observation and experience-based, rational conceptualization of the cosmic order.14 At the same time, as shown for the Shang oracle texts, the practice of divination was already accompanied by the representation of that practice; it was not enough that the Shang kings divined, they also had to display their efforts.

13 14

Anyang,” 155–173, also acknowledges the presence of brush-writing but proposes a different hypothesis for the origin, development, and presence of such writing at Anyang. Brashier, “Longevity”; Kern, The Stele Inscriptions, 50–51. See, for example, Keightley, “The ‘Science.’” For the Eastern Zhou and early imperial period, we have several excellent surveys of early mantic texts as found in excavated manuscripts; see Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers”; Kalinowski, “Divination and Astrology”; Harper, “Warring States Natural Philosophy.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

261

Yet astoundingly, we would know preciously little about any of this from the received textual tradition; nothing there prepared us for the discovery of 150,000 pieces of inscribed bones and plastrons, not to mention their features of rhetorical display. Instead, divination is consistently marginalized and often even erased through its integration into larger moral and cosmological frameworks, giving rise to the false idea that the Chinese philosophical tradition since Confucius had overcome this mantic practice through a new rationality of thought. At the same time, according to historical sources such as Zuo zhuan 左傳, divination was routinely involved in political and military matters as much as in medicine and exorcism; it was crucial to the interpretation of the sky, the natural environment on earth, all forms of ritual, and human relations; it was the master tool not only for predicting the future but also for understanding the past. Four of the Five Classics—the Classic of Poetry, the Classic of Documents, the Springs and Autumns Annals, and the ritual canon—contain references to divination, while the fifth, the Classic of Changes, had itself originated as a divination manual. Divination, it seems, was everywhere. And yet, none of the philosophical texts received from the classical period, that is, the fifth through third centuries bce, places the mantic arts at the center of its discourse. As noted by Marc Kalinowski, “the literature of the Warring States, all genres combined, left little place for stories and conceptions relative to the practice of diviners and astrologers”15 but, it seems, actively elided such writings from the record. A case in point is the Zhouyi that, as a divination manual, appears to have derived from Late Shang and early Western Zhou numerological pyromancy.16 Likely composed in the ninth or eighth century bce, it has by now appeared in manuscripts from three different tombs, dating from the late fourth through the early second century bce.17 By the time it reached the Warring States, it was already transformed into a wisdom book complete with a body of commentaries later attributed to Confucius; and by the end of the Western Han, it had become the preeminent text of the Five Classics for its all-encompassing cosmology that, in the commentary of the 15 Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers,” 343. 16 Ibid., 342, with references to the relevant scholarship. 17 A Zhouyi manuscript on silk was found at Mawangdui 馬王堆 (Changsha 長沙, Hunan; tomb sealed 168 bce); another one on bamboo was found at Shuanggudui 雙古堆 (Fuyang 阜陽, Anhui; tomb sealed 165 bce); and yet another bamboo manuscript, most likely from a late fourth-century bce southern tomb from the Chu 楚 region, is part of the looted manuscript corpus that was purchased by the Shanghai Museum on the Hong Kong antiquities market; see Shaughnessy, “A First Reading of the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi Manuscript.” A much more extensive study and translation is now Shaughnessy, Unearthing the Changes, chaps. 2 and 3.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

262

Kern

Appended Phrases (Xici zhuan 繫辭傳), explained the origins of all civilization, including of writing itself.18 This is not to say that the Zhouyi was no longer used as a divination manual; as one Western Han manuscript of the Zhouyi shows, the opposite is true, even at the highest aristocratic levels of society.19 In addition, two manuscript copies of a long-lost ancient divination manual closely related to the Zhouyi, the Gui cang 歸藏, were found in a southern tomb dating to the third century bce and likewise reveal that they had been actively used for divinatory practice.20 In other words, the practice of divination continued even as its principal text was simultaneously transformed into, and celebrated as, the primary philosophical text of Chinese cosmology. As will be seen below, this is a consistent pattern in the early history of Chinese divination and its rhetoric. Aside from the Zhouyi, no text of early divination theory or practice has survived in the received tradition. We face a textual tradition that, both systematically and by accident, has lost virtually all mantic texts that once existed, together with all sorts of other technical (hemerological, medical, legal, military, administrative, etc.) writings of pre-imperial and early imperial times. As Donald Harper has noted, of the 278 titles of technical writings listed in the bibliographical treatise (“Yiwen zhi” 藝文志) in the History of the Han (Hanshu 漢書) from the first century ce, only two can be matched with surviving texts.21 Moreover, the bibliographical treatise itself—an abbreviated version of the imperial library catalogue that was compiled at the end of the first century bce—accounts for only a fraction of the technical literature from the preceding centuries. This is now clear from the countless recently discovered technical manuscripts on wood, bamboo, and silk: not one of them can be matched with 18

On the Xici zhuan, see Peterson, “Making Connections.” The Xici zhuan is already connected to the Zhouyi silk manuscript found at Mawangdui; see Shaughnessy, “A First Reading of the Mawangdui Yijing Manuscript”; see also Shaughnessy, “I Ching”. 19 This is the bamboo manuscript found at Shuanggudui; see Shaughnessy, “The Fuyang Zhou Yi.” Here again, Shaughnessy, Unearthing the Changes, chaps. 6 and 7, will supersede the earlier essay. Interestingly, while the tombs at Mawangdui and Shuanggudui both belong to members of the early Western Han high aristocracy, the Shuanggudui text not only lacks the Xici Zhuan but, as noted by Shaughnessy, is more directly concerned with the divinatory practice itself and, furthermore, includes formulaic lines reminiscent of other divination texts. 20 These are the manuscripts found at Wangjiatai 王家台 (Hubei); see Shaughnessy, “The Wangjiatai Gui Cang”; now much revised and expanded in Shaughnessy, Unearthing the Changes, chaps. 4 and 5. 21 Harper, “Warring States Natural Philosophy,” 822–823. One text is the cosmographic and mythological Shanhaijing 山海經, the other the medical text Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

263

the Han bibliographic treatise (not to mention any transmitted text). In its catalogue of technical writings, the “Yiwen zhi” is both incomplete and inconsistent: the many titles that seem related to divination are spread across virtually the entire catalogue and its manifold sections, suggesting that divination (a) was not considered a distinct discipline of knowledge in its own right while (b) pervading virtually every intellectual endeavor.22 Despite its systematic structure and long lists of texts, the Western Han library catalogue was highly selective. While the imperial edict of 26 bce ordered the collection of “the lost writings from the entire realm” (qiu yishu yu tianxia 求遺書於天下), it appears that the imperial library was never conceived as a universal one.23 Without a doubt, the archeological record contains but a fragment of the writings circulating at the end of the Western Han, yet in certain areas of knowledge, even this limited record far exceeds the listings contained in the Hanshu. The imperial library was an institution devoted not to the total inventory of writing but to a comparatively small corpus of exemplary texts deemed worth preserving for the future. In other words, the library was as much—and probably more—engaged in censoring as it was in curating. That almost none of the early technical writings, and none of the mantic texts beyond the Zhouyi, have survived in the subsequent textual tradition that for many centuries was built, lost, and rebuilt in the palace libraries of succeeding dynasties only confirms the bias against them in the imperial hierarchy of knowledge. This bias of tradition—now exposed by archeological finds— was already part of the intellectual milieu of the early imperial Chinese court and the cultural image it sought to project of itself. The archeological finds of the past four decades have given us a treasure trove of writings that in one way or another are directly related to mantic practices. From the fifth century bce onward, these texts come mostly from tombs of the Warring States areas of Chu 楚 in the southeast and Qin 秦 in the northwest, testifying to the presence and relative coherence of technical knowledge among the local elite of the time across considerable geographical distances. This knowledge, while specialized and likely developed in the lineages and textual communities of “masters of methods” (fangshi 方士) and other experts, was not isolated or esoteric. The Han aristocratic tombs of Mawangdui and Shuanggudui—as noted above, both with versions of the Zhouyi—contained canonical philosophical and literary texts side by side with mantic and other 22 23

For an inventory of the mantic works throughout the “Yiwen zhi,” see Raphals, “Divination.” Hanshu 30.1701; see also Hanshu 10.310; and van der Loon, “On the Transmission of Kuantzu,” 358–366.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

264

Kern

technical writings, just as the latter were also found in the tombs of local office holders24 such as the scribe interred at Shuihudi 睡虎地 tomb no. 11 (Yunmeng 雲夢, Hubei, tomb closed 217 bce)25 who, while literate and educated to a certain level,26 did not belong to the aristocracy or the upper echelons at court. In other words, the technical writings of which mantic texts formed a significant subset were known to, and apparently appreciated by, the various literate social strata of Warring States and Han society ranging from local clerks to the top of the aristocratic pyramid. An excellent example of how various areas of technical writings could be combined with philosophical texts and grouped together under the sponsorship at the highest level—in this case of Liu An 劉 安 (ca. 179–122 bce), King of Huainan 淮南—is the Huainanzi 淮南子.27 Thus, the educated Han elite, including the curators of the imperial library, cannot have been ignorant of mantic knowledge or of the texts in which such knowledge circulated.28 Instead, they chose to exclude most of these writings from the limited canon that was to be preserved, echoing the way in which some of the early philosophical texts polemicized against divination.29 At the same time, the joint appearance of mantic with philosophical writings in various tombs, but also the way how mantic texts are listed in various sections of the “Yiwen zhi,” indicates that Warring States and early imperial cultural and philosophical discourses aimed not to replace mantic knowledge but rather to accommodate and indeed appropriate (or, on the other hand, discredit) it gradually within larger intellectual frameworks of natural, moral, and political philosophy.30 Where mantic expertise appears in the received sources, it is integrated into a vision of knowledge that is rigorously guided by its own agenda, in particular the art of government and social order. In addition to the Huainanzi, another compelling example of this inclusion of divination within an idealized outline of government is the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli 周禮), which 24 25 26 27

See the discussion in Sou, “In the Government’s Service.” Xu Fuchang, Shuihudi Qin jian yanjiu. On the literacy requirements of local scribes, see Kern, “Offices of Writing,” 71–77. For a full translation of this text, including a substantial introduction, see Major et al., The “Huainanzi”. 28 Kalinowski, “Divination and Astrology,” 358–366, gives a list of mantic practitioners in the Han histories, which includes some of the highest-ranking officials at the imperial court. Likewise, all the major interpreters of omens during the Western Han, as they are mentioned in the Hanshu “Wuxing zhi” 五行志, were historical scholars and cosmological experts deeply steeped in the canonical texts; see Kern, “Religious Anxiety,” 29. 29 Kalinowski, “Divination and Astrology,” 352; Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers,” 391– 395. 30 Harper, “Warring States Natural Philosophy,” 866–867, passim.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

265

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

among its lists of functionaries contains the offices for the grand diviner (dabu 大卜) and the grand scribe (dashi 大史), both assisted by a large number of staff in their subordinate offices that all had their own sets of duties.31 Like the early Western Han bamboo manuscript of legal statutes excavated from Zhangjiashan 張家山 (Jingzhou 荊州, Hubei; likely dating from 186 bce), the Zhouli groups together the offices of the scribe, the diviner, and the invocator (zhu 祝),32 providing detailed descriptions of the tasks performed by these officials and their various subordinate offices. In total, it lists the impressive number of 187 functionaries for the diviners (though most of them, as in all offices outlined in the text, being low-level “couriers” (tu 徒)); for the various invocators, the Zhouli lists 227 functionaries, and for the scribes, 445.33 3

“Day Books” and “Monthly Ordinances”: Divination, Cosmology, Political Rhetoric

A list of excavated mantic texts from the Qin (221–207 bce) and Han periods34 shows that within the broad diversity of writings—divination records, prognostications of natural omens, writings on physiognomy, hemerological prescriptions, divination manuals, and others more—the hemerological “Day book” (rishu 日書) is by far the most prominent type, appearing in no fewer than seventeen of the twenty-odd early imperial archeological sites with mantic texts.35 These almanacs are also more frequent than any other type of texts interred in tombs with the single exception of tomb inventory lists (qiance 遣 31

32

33

34 35

Kalinowski, “Divination and Astrology,” 358–366. The Zhouli may well be a text composed during imperial Qin times (221–207 bce) but in parts contains knowledge that matches remarkably well the information on Western Zhou offices as it has now been confirmed through numerous bronze inscriptions. See Jin Chunfeng, Zhouguan zhi chengshu jiqi fanying de wenhua yu shidai xinkao; Schaberg, “The Zhouli”; and Kern, “Offices of Writing.” Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Han mu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Zhangjiashan Han mu zhujian (ersiqi hao mu): shiwen xiudingben, 80–82; Li Xueqin, “Shishuo Zhangjiashan Han jian ‘Shi lü,’” 55–59; Kern, “Offices of Writing,” 71–74; and most recently, Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China, vol. 2, 1084–1093. The number for the office of the “grand scribe” and its subordinates does not include the low-level scribes that populate all the offices within the Zhouli; these low-level clerks number 1,095 altogether; see Kern, “Offices of Writing,” 68–70. See Kalinowski, “Divination and Astrology,” 353–358. Ibid., 345. The title rishu was found on one of the two almanacs discovered at Shuihudi and has been used for similar almanacs since then. For a comprehensive account of the early Chinese rishu manuscripts, see Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China, edited by Donald Harper and Marc Kalinowski.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

266

Kern

冊). Astonishingly, the rishu, now excavated from sites dating from the fifth

through the first centuries bce, have left virtually no trace in the received textual tradition.36 Almost exclusively, the “Day Books” have been found in tombs of low- or mid-ranking officials who during their lifetime had run the daily routines of the imperial state on the local or provincial level, and who in death were accompanied by these books among their personal, even intimate, belongings. The “Day Books” were often placed inside the coffin close to the corpse and in some cases were the only texts interred.37 To these functionaries, their “Day books” were the essential tool to conceptualize their daily decisions and actions within a cosmological framework of time that combined the agricultural and astrological calendars with popular ideas about ghosts and spirits who were believed to exert their benevolent or malevolent influences on specific days. In other words, the “Day books” allowed their owners to predict—successfully or not—the cosmic and spiritual forces in the world within the framework of the calendar, and then to adjust their administrative, legal, military, medical, and other activities accordingly. This “optimistic” (Keightley) conceptualization of the cosmos as ultimately understandable and thus to some extent controllable—as opposed to the capricious interventions of unpredictable gods—is evident in early Chinese divination already since the Shang oracle bone inscriptions.38 The same optimistic view of the universe underlies the grand encyclopedic works of early China that in one way or another represent the world as the imperial world. In this world, the supreme ruler, overseeing the machinations of his universal administration while also conducting himself according to a strict ritual regimen, aligns both state and society with the cosmic clockwork. His efforts to time and execute royal and governmental activities in accordance with the natural universe follow the same principles that guide the “Day books” of low- and mid-ranking officials. Both have the agricultural and astrological calendars as their basis, and both rely on divination to identify the correct days for specific endeavors. While this may reflect a “trickle-down” effect of “tech­-

36 37

38

For a recent study of the rishu, see Harkness, “Cosmology and the Quotidian” (with extensive references to earlier writings on the topic). See the detailed account in Harkness, “Cosmology and the Quotidian,” 11–50. According to Harkness, 37–40, 50, so far the one possible exception of a rishu from an aristocratic site is the text found in the tomb of Wu Yang 吳陽, Marquis of Yuanling 沅陵侯 (d. 162 bce), at Huxishan 虎溪山 (Yuanling 沅陵, Hunan). Of this text, however, only a short fragment has been published. This fragment does not seem to fit the typical contents of a rishu, which has led to the suggestion that it belongs to a different type of mantic writing. See Keightley, “Late Shang Divination,” 13–14, and “The ‘Science,’” esp. 174–177.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

267

nical arts moving from a court-centered milieu to the private sphere,”39 one also recognizes that much of early Chinese natural philosophy, focused as it is on hemerology, must have emerged from the immediate concerns of an ­agricultural society where poor timing of essential tasks would have led to disastrous consequences. Moreover, as much as mantic knowledge found its way downward into the lower ranks of local administration, the grand early imperial schemes of cosmological order in turn incorporated a host of regional beliefs, including a diverse pantheon of natural spirits, that may, at least in part, have traveled upward from local social contexts. It is thus not surprising that the received ideas of imperial cosmological order share the same framework of natural philosophy and divination—minor variations included—with local mantic knowledge and practice that is now coming to light in the form of “Day books” and other divinatory texts and artifacts. Yet clearly, in the texts sponsored and curated by the court and the political elite, much of the expression of such knowledge appears rhetorical and representational. An example is the Annals of Mr. Lü (Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏 春秋), a large compendium divided into twelve “Almanacs” (ji 紀; each with five sections), eight “Examinations” (lan 覽; each with eight sections) and six “Discourses” (lun 論; each with six sections), which itself is meant as a cosmological scheme, representing the triad of Heaven, Earth, and Man, the twelve months, the five phases (wuxing 五行) of correlative cosmology, the sixty-four hexagrams of the Zhouyi, and the number Six associated with Man.40 This totalizing textual structure already reflects the basis of all early Chinese mantic thinking: the cosmos is orderly and numerological—remember the origins of the Zhouyi in numerological arrangements—its structure can be discerned, and events—from natural disasters to the fate of states or individuals—can be correctly interpreted or predicted by identifying their relation to this orderly scheme. Significantly, the textual order proceeds from the twelve almanacs, that is, a calendrical scheme that at the outset must have been a self-contained work independent from the two following sections of the “Examinations” and “Discourses”: only the “Almanacs” part is followed by a postface that dates the completion of the text to 239 bce.41 The identity and integrity of the “Almanacs” section as a self-contained text is further confirmed by its textual parallels in 39 40 41

Harkness, “Cosmology and the Quotidian,” 197. See Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 32–43; Lewis, Writing and Authority, 302–308. Knoblock and Riegel offer a complete translation of the Lüshi chunqiu. Several scholars have argued that the “Almanacs” were the only part of the Lüshi chunqiu complete in 239 bce, and that the “Examinations” and “Discourses” are of a later date; see

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

268

Kern

both the Huainanzi (submitted to the throne in 139 bce) and the Han-dynasty compilation Record of Rites (Liji 禮記) where the “Almanacs” are titled “Seasonal Rules” (“Shize” 時則) and “Monthly Ordinances” (“Yueling” 月令), respectively—titles that programmatically express the normative, prescriptive, and even legal nature of the “almanacs” and their instructions.42 Normative timeliness is given as the central device in ordering the cosmos: as all human action occurs within the natural and predictable framework of cosmic time, its preconditions can be divined and its consequences prognosticated. Within the Lüshi chunqiu, the twelve “Almanacs” proper—constituting the first section in each of the twelve chapters—are entirely systematic. As summarized by Knoblock and Riegel, each “Almanacs” section records the activities undertaken in that month. These activities are defined cosmologically by the celestial coordinates of the sun, and the zodiacal constellations that culminate at dawn and dusk. They are refined by the Five Processes correlates, including the signs of the sexagenary cycle, the di 帝 Sovereigns, their assisting spirits, animals, musical tones, pitch-standards, numbers, tastes, smells, sacrifices, and bodily organs [… They] all reflect the influence of Heaven’s operations through the movement of its celestial bodies and the influences of the Five Processes.43 Thereafter, each section offers observations of the natural phenomena for the respective month, including the weather, vegetation period, and animal behavior. From here, it proceeds to discussing the climate and natural events appropriate to their time and then gives detailed prescriptions and prohibitions of royal and social behavior both ritual and mundane, including the inevitable, and inevitably dire, consequences of enacting the prescribed activities at the wrong time of year. While the Lüshi chunqiu does not include any self-commentary, the final chapter of the Huainanzi, in a tightly rhymed passage in tetrasyllabic meter, appraises its own “Seasonal Rules” as the foundation of good governance:44 Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 27–32. This has been questioned by Paul R. Goldin in his review of their book; see 116–117. 42 The parallel between the Lüshi chunqiu “Almanacs” and the respective chapters in Huai­ nanzi and Liji is not complete, as the Lüshi chunqiu in addition includes original philosophical essays in each section. 43 Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 35. 44 For a rhetorical analysis of this passage see Kern, “Creating a Book.” For more extensive studies of the chapter, see Murray, “A Study of ‘Yao lue’ 要略”; and Queen, “Inventories of

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

269

“Seasonal Rules” provides the means by which to: 時則者，所以 above, follow the seasons of Heaven, 上因天時， below, fully explore the strengths of Earth, 下盡地力， determine standards and enact correspondences, 據度行當， merge them with the rules of Man, 合諸人則， give form to the twelve divisions 形十二節， and take them as models and guides. 以為法式， As they end and begin anew, 終而復始， revolving without limit, 轉於無極， you should follow, comply, imitate, and adhere to 因循倣依，  them so that you understand [impending] disaster and 以知禍福，  good fortune. In taking and giving, opening and closing, 操舍開塞， each has its prohibited days 各有龍忌， for issuing commands and administering orders, 發號施令， instructing and warning in accordance with seasonal 以時教期，  timeliness. 使君人者知所以從事。 [All this] will enable the ruler of humankind to  understand the means by which to manage affairs. Together with “Celestial Patterns” (“Tianwen” 天文; chapter three) and “Terrestrial Forms” (“Dixing” 墬形; four), “Seasonal Rules” (five) forms a triad of foundational chapters that follow the Huainanzi’s two opening chapters of philosophical reflection.45 As expressed in their appraisal above, adherence to the strict calendrical framework of seasonal timeliness enables the ruler to perform the right actions at the right time but also to “understand disaster and good fortune” and to observe “prohibited days,” which are, on the level of local administration, precisely the primary concerns of the “Day books.” While in the Huainanzi and in the Liji, the “Seasonal Rules” and “Monthly Ordinances” are self-contained chapters that proceed through the twelve months in repetitive monotony, the “Almanacs” of the Lüshi chunqiu are different. Here, the account of the months is not a single chapter of foundational significance but a totalizing framework that already incorporates the entirety of social, political, and ritual activities. While each month is given its own

45

the Past.” See also the annotated translation and brief discussion of the chapter in Major et al., The “Huainanzi”, 841–867. For an annotated translation of the three chapters, see Major et al., The “Huainanzi”, 109– 206. For an earlier translation and study, see Major, Heaven and Earth.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

270

Kern

chapter, each of these chapters contains a series of four essays in addition to the “Almanac” proper. Each group of essays is centered on a common theme that is perceived as cosmologically correlated to a particular time of year. Underlying this alignment of human behavior with cosmic time is an elaborate numerology all within the framework of yin-yang 陰陽 dualism and five phases (wu xing 五行) correlations. This cosmological, numerological, and specifically calendrical scheme is the framework within, and on the basis of which, all other mantic knowledge takes place in the early empire. It is not by accident that the same type of almanac appears in three different early texts, and that related calendrical schemes can be found in other received texts as well. This overall situation meshes well with the archeological record: as noted above, no other type of writing has surfaced in such abundance as the daily almanacs. Based on a mantically interpreted calendar, they are the exact equivalent of common (if still literary elite) daily life to the prescriptions and prohibitions that the royal calendar provides for the ruler. Yet there is a difference between “Day books” and the highly systematizing “Almanacs,” “Seasonal Rules,” and “Monthly Ordinances” recorded in the Lüshi chunqiu, the Huainanzi, and the Liji. Just as the Zhouyi was transformed from a numerologically organized divination manual into a wisdom book of universalist thought, where divination was rhetorically invoked but ultimately subordinated to a philosophical framework, so do the grand calendrical schemes in the received literature appropriate common mantic concerns for the purposes of representing the ideal state and its ideal ruler as acting in accordance with the cosmic clockwork. In other words, as much as the notations in the excavated “Day books” were of immediate and practical concern to their owners, and to the pragmatic tasks they performed on a daily basis, the grand calendrical schemes were rhetorical representations of good rule. This is not to say that the prescriptions given there were not actually followed by some rulers; for such an evaluation, we lack any evidence one way or the other. But it is to insist that what is outlined in grand cosmological systematizations should not necessarily be equated with actual action: the representation of divination is not the same thing as its practice. A fascinating case of the “Monthly Ordinances” in a local and pragmatic context is a wall inscription in a faraway Western outpost of the Han empire, dated to 5 ce and excavated between 1990 and 1992. Here, in Xuanquanzhi 懸 泉置 near Dunhuang 敦煌 (Gansu), an imperial edict of 101 lines titled “Document of the Edict of Monthly Ordinances for the Four Seasons in Fifty Articles” (“Zhaoshu sishi yueling wushitiao” 詔書四時月令五十條) was written in black ink within a red grid on white plaster, covering an area 2.2m wide

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

271

and 48cm high.46 As noted by Charles Sanft, there is a series of early texts from the early tradition that contain parallels to the wall inscription,47 but the three closest parallels are the chapters from Liji, Lüshi chunqiu, and Huainanzi noted above. There is no doubt that the inscription is based closely on these earlier writings; moreover, it shares language with Qin and early Han legal and administrative documents and in addition with at least one pre-imperial Qin edict from 309 bce.48 At Xuanquanzhi, the wall inscription was not the only piece of writing; in addition, a trove of documents on wood, bamboo, and paper have been found, including official documents from all levels of Han government— from the central administration, the commandery, the prefecture, and the district down to the local level of Xuanquanzhi and its sub-stations—and furthermore some personal letters written on silk.49 But what was the point of having the “Sishi yueling” at Xuanquanzhi? Both at the beginning and at the end, the edict commands the wider distribution of the document to various administrators, which implies copies on portable stationery. It remains unclear, however, to whom exactly the edict might have spoken. Apparently, the document, which also contains an (inconsistent) commentary on individual articles, was legal in nature and when “compared with the texts of the received parallels [...] is distinguished by its distinctly practical character” and focused on “coordinating practical, especially agricultural, pursuits with specific times of the year.” Moreover, “while the ‘Yue ling’ content of Lüshi chunqiu and the Li ji chapter ‘Yue ling’ mainly focus on acts prescribed for the ruler, these are not found in ‘Sishi yueling’ at all.” Some of the articles seem directed at the populace, but others are clearly addressed to “those in positions of authority.”50 In addition, nothing in the document is specific to the locality of Xuanquanzhi, and its language suggests that it was circulated in other parts of China as well. This creates another problem, as noted by a number of scholars: no single agricultural calendar would have been useful for the vastly different climates across the enormous expanse of Han China.51 The “Sishi yueling” edict says nothing about divination proper, but it is directly based on the grand calendrical schemes of the early empire that are 46

47 48 49 50 51

The definite study of this text is Charles Sanft, “Edict of Monthly Ordinances for the Four Seasons in Fifty Articles from 5 ce: Introduction to the Wall Inscription Discovered at Xuanquanzhi, With Annotated Translation.” Most of the following information on this inscription is derived from Sanft’s study. Ibid., 158–159. Ibid., 170–173. Ibid., 133–134. Ibid., 139–140, 150. Ibid., 142.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

272

Kern

indeed closely related to the correct timing of all human activity, and furthermore, as mentioned above in the passage from the Huainanzi, concerned with “understanding [impending] disaster and good fortune,” and with knowing the “prohibited days for issuing commands and administering orders, instructing and warning in accordance with seasonal timeliness.” It is also directly related to the ritual system of Han government, and it expresses Wang Mang’s 王莽 (45 bce–23 ce) “conspicuous and self-conscious classicism” that tied his activities to the ancient model of the Duke of Zhou 周公 (r. 1042–1036 bce) and that was sanctioned by the Grand Empress Dowager (taihuang taihou 太皇太后), the nominal authority behind the edict. Twice in the document Wang Mang appears in full ceremonial gear, so to speak, by way of his “impressive string of titles.”52 And yet, despite its grandiose appearance, the edict is incoherent on a number of levels. While its agricultural prescriptions were likely off the mark for the arid climate of China’s northwest, its content seems to speak to various constituencies, literate and illiterate alike. Altogether, the document sits uncom­fortably between the “Monthly Ordinances” of the received tradition—which offer prescriptions for the ruler—and the pragmatic needs of the common people, or even of the local officials, at any particular place in the empire. It exalts Wang Mang within the medium of a traditional set of legal and ritual prescriptions while seemingly addressing a populace that, as we now know from archeology, was deeply involved with organizing all forms of daily activities according to mantic prescriptions laid out in the ubiquitous “Day books.” The “Sishi yueling” reinforced the notion of timeliness that in daily life was detailed in the “Day books,” but at a level of generality that did not match the specificity and possible usefulness of day-to-day prescriptions. If the document raises such questions of purpose and applicability, its inscription on a wall adds another layer of uncertainty. As all other writings collected at Xuanquanzhi station were maintained on their perishable stationery, why was the edict written on a wall? Nothing in the text itself suggests that it should be presented that way; to the contrary, as noted above, the language suggests wide dissemination in portable media. The possible argument that the inscription may have been read out loud to the illiterate populace does not hold; first, one may just as well read aloud from a manuscript on wood or bamboo, and second, much of the document was directed at the local officials. What is more, the classical references to both the earlier “Yueling” texts and hallowed writings such as the Classic of Documents (Shangshu 尚書) will not have spoken to the local population in the far-western region of China. 52

Ibid., 145.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

273

I suspect that the somewhat dysfunctional aspects of the document and the display function of the inscription were related in that both text and display are fundamentally rhetorical. Together, they represented the ideal of human activities within a cosmic order that was constantly navigated by mantic techniques on the one hand, and the political authority and geographical reach of the empire—now under the de facto governance of Wang Mang—on the other. From the perspective of political geography, it was eminently meaningful to turn an imperial edict into an inscription right where its influence ended. Symbolically, it demarcated the imperial realm from the neighboring cultures in the south (modern Tibet), west (Central Asia), and north that had neither the agriculture, nor the imperial expanse, nor the mantic cosmology, nor the classical textual background, nor the elaborate writing system of Han China. The edict, in other words, was likely inscribed at Xuanquanzhi not despite but because of the remoteness of place. The “Sishi yueling” inscription is situated somewhere between the mantic “Day books,” the imperial legal ordinances applied to local administration, and the ritual representation of political rule that the “Yueling” of the textual tradition had framed as cosmic sovereignty. Thus, it is not merely an edict sent from the central court to the last corner of the empire but it also—indirectly but unmistakably—reflects the presence of the mantic arts among the populace. Across the empire, the edict speaks to a diverse audience already prepared for “monthly ordinances”; every local administrator who in his routine decisions sought guidance from his “Day books” was well attuned to the prescriptions of the “Sishi yueling.” 4

Divination in the Shangshu

Together with the Zhouyi and the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經), the Classic of Documents (Shangshu) forms the early core of the Five Classics, in parts possibly dating from the Western Zhou. One of the first things one notices in the Shangshu, the fountainhead of Chinese political philosophy and rhetoric, is the near-complete absence of omens. There are only two specific omens— other than just some general mention of “Heaven sending down disaster”—in the entire text: one is a brief mention of the appearance of a “crowing pheasant” (gouzhi 雊雉) in the chapter “The Day of the Supplementary Sacrifice to Gaozong” (“Gaozong rongri” 高宗肜日); the other occurs in the “Metal-bound Coffer” (“Jin teng” 金縢) chapter where, after the Duke of Zhou had been exiled for his presumed desire to usurp the throne, Heaven sent down a devastating

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

274

Kern

storm that beat down the ripe grain and uprooted great trees. Only after the infant King Cheng 成王 (r. 1042/35–1006 bce) discovered the document by which the Duke of Zhou had loyally offered himself to die in lieu of the former King Wu 武 (r. 1049/45–1043 bce), did he declare: “We shall not reverently divine [the cause of the storm...] Today, Heaven has set into motion its awesomeness to display the virtue of the Duke of Zhou!” (其勿穆卜 [...] 今天動 威，以彰周公之德) Thereafter, a benign reverse wind raised all the grain again, leading to a most fruitful harvest. In other words, no divination was needed because the cause of the storm—Heaven’s intent—was already clear. Surprisingly, this omen of the rising grains is utterly exceptional in the entire Shangshu. If in Eastern Zhou and early imperial political discourse omens and their interpretations came to occupy center stage—with the Wuxing zhi 五行 志 [“Monograph on the Five Phases,” that is, on omen interpretation] being by far the longest chapter in the Hanshu—nothing of this can be seen in the Shangshu. We do not know why this is the case, though one might hypothesize, perhaps, that since Eastern Zhou times, omens were observed and interpreted not by rulers but by their ministers. In this way, they were either directed at those in power—in attempts of admonition or persuasion—or served as historiographic judgments about them. Rarely were they part of royal or imperial speech by the ruler, the predominant genre in the Shangshu. The Shangshu, like the Shang oracle texts before and the “Day books” after it, shows divination not as a tool to understand omens or otherwise inexplicable events but as a proactive move to ensure the correctness and timeliness of one’s chosen action. Historians have long regarded the Shangshu as a text that in part, speci­ fically in the section concerned with the Western Zhou, offered a contem­poraneous account of historical events. This reading of the Shangshu as a work of history, however, strikes me as fundamentally problematic. Instead, I suggest to take the royal speeches in the Shangshu as a rhetorical text—a text not of historical writing but of the representation of Zhou political philosophy and political legitimation, and I believe this is reflected in the way divination is depicted there. In this, the question is not about the actual practice of divination—which must have been pervasive, just as it was at the Shang court—but about how royal divination was recorded in the service of Zhou cultural memory and political sovereignty. The following chart lists all the Shangshu chapters that mention divination:

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

275

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric Table 8.1

List of Shangshu chapters mentioning divination

Chapter title

“Ancient” (古) or “modern” (今) version of the text

Historical period ­referenced

“Da Yu mo” 大禹謨 “Pan Geng” 盤庚 “Xi bo kan Li” 西伯戡黎 “Tai shi” 泰誓 “Hong fan” 洪範 “Jin teng” 金縢 “Da gao” 大誥 “Shao gao” 召誥 “Luo gao” 洛誥 “Jun Shi” 君奭

“Ancient” (古) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Ancient” (古) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text “Modern” (今) Text

High antiquity Shang Fall of Shang/Rise of Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou Zhou

We do not know why divination is mentioned in just these ten chapters, and not in some others—after all, there are fifty-eight chapters in the received Guwen Shangshu 古文尚書 [Ancient Text Shangshu] and twenty-nine chapters that are believed to have been in the Jinwen Shangshu 今文尚書 [Modern Text Shangshu] available at the Qin and early Han courts. In general, the reliability of the “ancient text” version is much doubted, as it was likely compiled in the early fourth century of the common era from snippets of other received texts, writings now lost, and passages created from scratch.53 However, the pertinent passages of the two “ancient text” chapters involved here—the “Counsels of the Great Yu” (“Da Yu mo”)54 and “The Great Harangue” (“Tai shi”)55—are also recorded in other pre-Qin sources; in the case of “Tai shi,” the Guoyu 國語 even quotes the passage directly from a text titled “Da [that is, Tai] shi.”56 53

54 55 56

For the intractable early textual history of the Shangshu, see Shaughnessy, “Shang Shu 尚 書”; Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics, 120–167. Curiously, the justified doubt regarding the “ancient text” chapters, which is based on the compelling findings of Yan Ruoqu 閻若 璩 (1636–1704) and other Qing dynasty kaozheng 考證 scholars, has also led to the fetishization of the “modern text” chapters as “genuine” or “authentic,” as if we had any evidence that any of them existed in its present form before the Western Han (202 bce– 9 ce)—a full eight centuries after the purported dates of the chapters presumed to be the earliest, and despite the famous warning in Mengzi 孟子 7B.3 that “it is better not to have any Documents than trusting all of them.” James Legge, The Shoo King, 63. Ibid., 291. Xu Yuanhao, “Guoyu” jijie, 3.91 (“Zhouyu, xia 周語下”).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

276

Kern

Thus leaving the “modern” versus “ancient” text divide aside, only two of the ten records of divination are included in the chapters depicting either high antiquity or the Shang before its imminent collapse, that is, in the “Counsels of Yu the Great” and in “Pan Geng.” In the “Counsels,” Yu 禹, pressed to accept the throne from Shun 舜, asks for verification by divination. Shun, the ruling emperor, declines by saying that he has already made his decision, and that, in addition, he has already performed a divination which, because it was auspicious, shall not be repeated (卜不習吉).57 Toward the end of the chapter named after him, Pan Geng addresses his people by saying that while not ignoring their opinions, he would not dare to go against the result of the tortoise divination (各非敢違卜).58 Remarkably, the eight remaining accounts of divination are all related to the early Zhou rulers, and several show how their actions at defining historical moments were based on divination: 𐄐 In “Xi bo kan Li” 西伯戡黎 [“The Lord of the West Killed Li”], the high minister Zu Yi 祖伊 rushes forward to the last Shang king to warn him: “Son of Heaven, Heaven has already ended the mandate of our Yin [dynasty]; the perfected [wise] men and the great tortoise have not dared to foresee auspiciousness! It is not that the former kings do not aid us latter men; it is only that the king has become lascivious and dissolute and by this brings the end upon himself. Thus, Heaven has abandoned us.” (天子，天既訖我殷 命。格人元龜，罔敢知吉。非先王不相我後人，惟王淫戲用自絕。故天 棄我)59 In both its language and its content, this account is doubtlessly the

work of retrospective imagination. Foretelling the imminent and inevitable collapse of the Shang (and the successful conquest by the Zhou), which is confirmed by the moral authority of both the “perfected men” and the great tortoise, it is a piece of naked Zhou propaganda, written in Zhou times.60 Here as elsewhere in both Shangshu and Shijing, the fall of the Shang is consistently and formulaically portrayed as brought about by the immoral conduct of its last king,61 in response to which the Zhou could not but launch

57 Legge, The Shoo King, 63. Parts of the speech are also found in Zuo zhuan “Ai gong” 哀公 10 and 18, from where they were likely copied into the “Da Yu mo.” 58 Legge translates this differently as “you [that is, the people] did not presumptuously oppose the decision of the tortoise”; see The Shoo King, 246. I follow Gu Jiegang and Liu Qiyu, “Shangshu” jiaoshi yilun, vol. 2, 952; see also Karlgren, The Book of Documents, 26. 59 Legge, The Shoo King, 268–271. 60 See Gu Jiegang and Liu Qiyu, “Shangshu” jiaoshi yilun, vol. 2, 1067–1070. 61 In the Shangshu, the argument is made in nearly every “modern text” chapter referencing the Zhou, including “Xi bo kan Li” 西伯戡黎, “Weizi” 微子, “Mu shi” 牧誓, “Da gao” 大誥,

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

277

the conquest in order to “respectfully execute the punishment appointed by Heaven” (惟恭行天之罰).62 𐄐 The counterpart to the purported Shang divination announcing the fall of the dynasty is included in the “Tai shi” 泰誓 [“The Great Harangue”]. Here, after listing the crimes of the present king—that is, the last king of Shang— the future King Wu of Zhou declares that he will conquer the Shang: “Heaven is about to rule the people by using me. My dreams concur with my divination, doubling the blessed auspicious portent. The attack on Shang must succeed.” (天其以予乂民。朕夢協朕卜，襲于休祥。戎商必克)63 The passage appears verbatim in the Guoyu (whence it is probably taken), and King Wu’s divination is further mentioned in the Gui cang divination manual excavated at Wangjiatai.64 In other words, Warring States texts affirm that King Wu launched the conquest only after having divined the matter twice: once through dream divination (for which the Zhouli lists a separate official) and once again by consulting the tortoise.65 Wherever this knowledge (or retrospective imagination) may come from, the two accounts in “Xi bo kan Li” and “Tai shi” perfectly complement each other, with the first predicting the defeat of Shang and the second the victory of Zhou.

“Kang gao” 康誥, “Jiu gao” 酒誥, “Shao gao” 召誥, “Duo shi” 多士, “Wu yi” 無逸, “Jun Shi” 君奭, “Duo fang” 多方, and “Li zheng” 立政; in addition, it surfaces in the “ancient text” chapters “Tai shi” 泰誓 and “Wu cheng” 武成. In fact, the Shangshu chapters referencing the early Shang (chapters that, in fact, likewise date from the Zhou) advance exactly the same argument to rationalize the demise of the Xia and the rise of the Shang. In the Shijing, the moral argument against the Shang is made most forcefully in “Dang” 蕩 (Mao 255) and appears also in “Wu” 武 (285). 62 The full formula is used in both “Mu shi” (“The Harangue at Mu”) where it is applied to King Wu’s destruction of the Shang and in “Gan shi” 甘誓 (“The Harangue at Gan”), where it is attributed to the Xia 夏 king Qi 啟 who addresses his troops before battling rebel forces. Likewise, in the “Tang shi” 湯誓 (“The Harangue of Tang”), the first Shang 商 king Lü 履 is made to invoke the “punishment appointed by Heaven” (天之罰) before attacking the army of the last Xia king, Jie 桀, and thus establishing the Shang dynasty; see Kern, “The ‘Harangues’ (Shi 誓).” 63 Legge, The Shoo King, 291. 64 Shaughnessy, “The Wangjiatai Gui Cang,” 98 (slip 198). 65 On dream divination, see Kalinowski, “Diviners and Astrologers,” 359–362. The Gui cang is generally believed to predate the Warring States, though we do not know to which extent the third-century bce manuscript from Wangjiatai may faithfully reflect a much more ancient text.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

278

Kern

𐄐 The “Hong fan” 洪範 [“The Great Plan”] chapter, which is generally dated to the Warring States period,66 purports to contain a “divine Great Plan of governance”67 as delivered by the Shang prince Jizi 箕子 to King Wu. Yet unlike the other speeches in the Shangshu, the “Great Plan” describes the general bureaucratic system of the ideal empire—complete with office lists not unlike those found in the Zhouli—where it defines kingship as “the efficient marshaling of all the resources available to the state, especially those human resources to be found in the pool of bureaucratic candidates for office.”68 In that vein, the “Great Plan,” under the header “examination of doubts” (稽疑), offers a systematic account of divination: it first describes the duties of the officers for tortoise and milfoil divination and then proceeds to advise the king on how to resolve doubts, namely, by consulting his own heart, his nobles and officers, the people, and the tortoise and milfoil. Here, divination is not privileged as the definite way to ascertain the correctness of one’s decisions, to interpret unusual phenomena, or to foretell the future; it merely is one among a number of resources to be consulted.69 The “Great Plan” does not relate divination to any particular historical occasion and for this reason is the single outlier among the ten chapters discussed here. 𐄐 In “Jin teng” 金縢 [“The Metal-Bound Coffer”], the Great Duke 太公 and the Duke of Shao 召公 suggest to “respectfully divine” (穆卜) after King Wu has fallen ill, while the Duke of Zhou objects. Instead, he decides to offer the spirits his life in exchange for King Wu’s, writing his prayer and commitment on a set of bamboo slips. In it, he announces to the ancestral spirits that “now I will present my inquiry to the great tortoise” (今我即命于元龜).70 After divining with “the three tortoises,” he finds all of them auspicious (乃卜三龜，一習吉); thereafter, he opens “the bamboo receptacles to look at the (oracular) writings” and finds them “likewise auspicious,” concluding that “according to the configurations, the king will suffer no harm” (啟籥見 書，乃并是吉。公曰：體，王其罔害). He then hides away his written commitment to the spirits in the metal-bound coffer and is recognized for his loyalty only after having been exiled (see above).71 66

See Gu Jiegang and Liu Qiyu, Shangshu jiaoshi yilun, vol. 3, 1219–1220; Jiang Shanguo, “Shangshu” zongshu, 228–232. 67 Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics, 139. For a study of the entire chapter, see Nylan, The Shifting Center. 68 Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics, 140. 69 Legge, The Shoo King, 334–338. 70 Following Karlgren, Glosses, 254 (#1573). 71 Legge, The Shoo King, 355–356.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

279

 As

has often been noted, this narrative remained significant for over two millennia of subsequent Chinese history, raising as it does the relationship between ruler and minister, and more specifically, and precariously, between an infant ruler and a regent who could not escape the suspicion of trying to usurp the throne72—or who, in fact, did install himself as the new ruler (with Wang Mang, who exalted the Duke of Zhou as his model, being the most prominent early example). Thus, the “Jin teng” narrative is of crucial significance in two respects: first, as it depicts the critical moment when the dynasty was saved merely three years after its founding; and second, as it establishes the forever ambiguous paradigm of governance during the reign of an infant ruler.  In particular in the aftermath of its appropriation by Wang Mang, the figure of the Duke of Zhou remained ambivalent, but it had been problematic, and multifaceted, even before.73 Most fascinating today, however, is the discovery of a (looted) manuscript now in the possession of Qinghua University that is clearly another version of the “Jin teng.”74 While matching much of the received text closely and often even verbatim, the manuscript text lacks two central elements: first, the Duke does not offer his life in exchange for King Wu’s but rather suggests taking his place; and second, after the Duke’s initial objection to a divination about the King’s disease, at no point does he (or anyone else) engage in divination.75 In other words, both the central element of the traditional narrative and the Duke’s central device—that is, divination—in making his decision, are absent in the Warring States period manuscript. The question of which version may be the “correct” one is futile, given that both texts, at least in the form in which we have them, are removed from the early Western Zhou by seven or more centuries. More significant is the recognition that there were at least two different narratives of the same story, and that in these narratives the inclusion of divination was a choice. 𐄐 The “Da gao” 大誥 [“The Great Announcement”] presents the most emphatic account of divination among all the Shangshu chapters. First, the Duke of

72 Shaughnessy, “The Duke of Zhou’s Retirement.” 73 Nylan, “The Many Dukes.” 74 Qinghua daxue chutuwenxian yanjiu yu baohu zhongxin, Qinghua daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian, vol. 1, 14–17, 157–162. If genuine, the manuscript likely dates from around 300 bce. Dozens of studies of this manuscript have been published online, including Chen Minzhen and Hu Kai, “Qinghua jian ‘Jinteng’ jishi.” 75 Ribbing Gren, “The Qinghua ‘Jinteng’ 金縢 Manuscript.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

280

Kern

Zhou states that the “tranquilizing king” (寧王)76 has left him the great precious tortoise in order to transmit to him Heaven’s clairvoyance (寧王遺 我大寶龜紹天明)—which the Duke then uses to divine about military action against an insurrection that threatens the young dynasty. Thus he speaks to his officers: “Our great affairs are blessed—my divinations have all been auspicious!” (我有大事休，朕卜并吉) and then repeats with further urgency “I have obtained the auspicious divination!” (予得吉卜) When his princes and officers suggest going against the divination, he declares: “I, being the young son, do not dare to discard the mandate from God-onHigh! Heaven bestowed blessings on the tranquilizing king and gave rise to our small state of Zhou. It was the tranquilizing king who divined and acted on [the result], and thus was able to calmly receive this mandate! Now, as Heaven shall assist the people, how much more must I divine and act on it!” (予惟小子，不敢替上帝命。天休于寧王，興我小邦周。寧王惟卜用，克 綏受茲命。今天其相民，矧亦惟卜用) After further pondering the situation and his duty to secure the work of the tranquilizing king at the moment of severe peril, the Duke concludes emphatically: “Now that I have explored the divination to the utmost, how could I dare and not follow it? If I were to follow the tranquilizing man in having these fine territories, how much more so now that the divinations are all auspicious! And so with you, I will grandly march eastward. Heaven’s mandate is unerring: what the divination displays is indeed like this!” (予曷其極卜，敢弗于從。率寧人有指疆土， 矧今卜并吉。肆朕誕以爾東征。天命不僭。卜陳惟若茲)77 Here, as in “Jin teng,” the Duke of Zhou once again acts decisively after having conducted multiple divinations. In rejecting the advice of his officers, he uses a single argument: he has inherited the “great precious tortoise” from his ancestors, who had relied on it before when establishing the dynasty, and will not discard its divine guidance as it reflects the mandate from Heaven and God-onHigh. The fate of the young dynasty rests not in following human advice but in accepting the results of the Duke’s divinations, and Heaven’s will. 76

The term ningwang 寧王 (“tranquilizing king[s]”) is much debated and has variously been understood to mean King Wen, King Wu, or both. Legge, The Shoo King, 365, understands ning literally as “tranquillizing” (sic); Karlgren, Glosses, 262–263 (#1593) takes the term to refer to the dead (and therefore “serene”) kings. Qiu Xigui, reviewing earlier scholarship since Qing times, declares that it is not particularly difficult to understand that ning was an early miswriting for wen 文, which leads to the reading of ningwang as “King Wen”; see Qiu Xigui, Gudai wenshi yanjiu xintan, 73–80; likewise, see Gu Jiegang and Liu Qiyu, “Shangshu” jiaoshi yilun, vol. 3, 1266–1267. While I agree with this conclusion, I am reluctant to emend the text directly. 77 Legge, The Shoo King, 365–374.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

281

𐄐𐄐 The “Shao gao” 召誥 [“The Announcement of the Duke of Shao”] chapter is rather laconic about divination. As the Grand Protector 太保 (the Duke of Shao, also known as Prince Shi 奭) inspects the eastern localities for the site of a new capital, he finally arrives at Luo 洛, obtains a positive divination about settling there, and begins to plan the new city (太保朝至于洛，卜 宅，厥既得卜，則經營).78 In the very next chapter, “Luo gao” 洛誥 [“The Announcement about Luo”], the Duke of Zhou, after arriving at Luo, performs extensive divinations about the locale; and having obtained positive results, he sends a messenger to the king to present the divinations (朝至于 洛師。我卜河朔黎水，我乃卜澗水東，瀍水西，惟洛食。我又卜瀍水 東，亦惟洛食。伻來以圖，及獻卜). The Duke’s efforts are then acknowl-

edged by the young King Cheng: “The Duke did not dare not to revere Heaven’s blessings; he came and inspected the locality for residence. May he establish [the new capital of] Zhou to accord with the blessings! Having settled the locality, he sent a messenger to come here; and [the messenger] came here to show me how the divinations and blessings were constantly auspicious.” (王拜手稽首曰：公不敢不敬天之休，來相宅。其作 周匹休。公既定宅，伻來。來視予卜休恆吉)79 After suppressing the rebel­lion mentioned in “Da gao,” this was the Duke’s second major accomplishment; and once again, it is legitimated by extensive divinations in order to secure Heaven’s blessings. 𐄐 Finally, in “Jun Shi” 君奭 [“Prince Shi”], the Duke of Zhou, addressing his older half-brother Prince Shi (the Duke of Shao), notes how since high antiquity, virtuous ministers assisted their rulers by invariably following the divinations of the tortoise and the milfoil stalks (故一人有事于四方，若卜 筮，罔不是孚).80 While this mention of divination does not refer to any specific situation, it firmly grounds the decision-making at the royal court in the practice of divination which was “followed without exception” (罔不是 孚) in order to accord with Heaven’s mandate and to secure Heaven’s blessings. This, then, is the entire record of divination in the Shangshu, the classic of early Chinese political philosophy. Eight of the ten chapters where divination is recorded reference situations within the first years of the Western Zhou, the golden age of Kings Wen and Wu and of the Dukes of Shao and Zhou, a foundational time of glory soon to be lost—beginning with the reign of King Zhao 78 79 80

Ibid., 421–422. Ibid., 436–438. Ibid., 479.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

282

Kern

昭 (r. 977/75–957), when the king was killed during a disastrous military cam-

paign southward. While two chapters (“The Great Plan” and “Prince Shi”) mention only the general importance of divination for governing the state in accordance with Heaven’s mandate, the remaining six all focus on the four most critical moments at the beginning of Zhou rule: (a) the Shang conquest, (b) the illness and demise of the dynastic founder King Wu, connected to the rise of the Duke of Zhou and the resolution of the first succession crisis in Chinese history, (c) the suppression of the early rebellion that threatened the young dynasty, and (d) the establishment of the new capital. Also in each case, divination is the central proactive device to determine the right course of action, which then is pursued without exception. In each case, the proposed course of action is found to be auspicious, and so is the eventual outcome. There is no instance of an inauspicious divination (other than the one conducted by the Shang, foretelling their imminent defeat at the hands of King Wu, of course), nor is there any case where action determined by divination turns out to be ill-fated. In two cases—the Zhou conquest and the founding of the new capital—we are given not one but two divinations, both confirming the same course of action, and both interpreting the divinations as expressions of Heaven’s mandate: first, the pair of divinations in “Xi bo kan Li” and “Tai shi” that foretell the fall of the Shang and the rise of the Zhou; and second, the divinations in “Shao gao” and “Luo go” as they together confirm Luo as the site of the new capital. Looking at the evidence from the Shang oracle bones and plastrons, we may of course assume that before any such major political and military moves, the oracle was consulted—as it would have been on numerous other occasions and for many minor purposes as well. But the overall representation of divination in the Shangshu is strictly selective and, beginning with the highly propagandistic one in “Xi bo kan Li,” seems aimed at a single goal: to sanction the Zhou’s right to rule and to glorify the dynastic founders. In each of these cases, divination is a secondary religious and political move that is then presented as primary: first, the king or the duke decides on a course of action; second, he then divines about its auspiciousness. And third, the auspicious result is declared as expressive of Heaven’s mandate, which one does not dare to ignore. In other words, it is the very act of divination that turns a military or political goal into something altogether different: the just execution of Heaven’s will, which happens to concur exactly with the ruler’s initially proposed course of action. Thus, divination is rhetorically represented not to rationalize and explain some otherwise inexplicable phenomenon but to provide the ultimate, legitimizing rationale for the Zhou rulers’ most ambitious actions.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

283

Most obviously in the case of “Xi bo kan Li,” but just as likely in all the other cases that invariably turn out auspicious and successful, the account is, at a minimum, a retrospective ideological selection of whatever may have been the historical truth. Without a doubt, the future predicted in the Shangshu divinations was already the past by the time the text was written. Moreover, as shown by the Qinghua University manuscript that now parallels the “Jin teng” chapter, the account of divination was optional—it was a conscious choice about how to represent the early Zhou. In sum, it is this particular representation of divination, together with other aspects of the text, that reveals the Shangshu not as a collection of historical documents but as a work of political rhetoric and philosophy.81 In this work, aside from legitimizing Zhou rule, the implausibly restrictive record of divination may yet have served another important function in both political and narrative terms: to mark rhetorically the most decisive moments of early history. This essay has pursued the presence and the absence of divination in early Chinese literature, focusing on a small number of case studies. In each case, I suggest that the literary text vastly obscures and elides the widespread and routine mantic practices of the time while simultaneously imbuing divination with high political significance. In no case should we mistake this rhetorical sublation and representation of divination for “wie es eigentlich gewesen” or, in Chinese terms, a “true record” (shilu 實錄). But just as much as this rhetorical account conceals historical truth, it also reveals it, albeit merely by indirect reflection: the ancient authors of our texts could consider the rhetoric of divination compelling only because—despite all literary obfuscation—the mantic practices were real and trustworthy, as they were woven tightly into the fabric of the commoners’ daily life and the Royal Way (wangdao 王道) of their rulers alike.

Works Cited

Bagley, Robert W. “Anyang Writing and the Origin of Chinese Writing.” In The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process, edited by Stephen D. Houston, pp. 191–250. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Barbieri-Low, Anthony J., and Robin D. S. Yates. Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Brashier, K.E. “Longevity like Metal and Stone: The Role of the Mirror in Han Burials.” T’oung Pao 81 (1995): 201–229. 81

See Kern and Meyer, Origins of Chinese Political Philosophy.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

284

Kern

Cao Wei 曹瑋. Zhouyuan jiaguwen 周原甲骨文 [Oracle Bone Inscriptions from Zhouyuan]. Beijing: Shijie tushu chuban gongsi, 2002. Cao Wei. “Zhouyuan xinchu Xi Zhou jiaguwen yanjiu 周原新出西周甲骨文研究 [Research on Newly Excavated Western Zhou Oracle Bone Inscriptions from Zhouyuan].” Kaogu yu wenwu 考古與文物 [Archaeology and Cultural Relics] 4 (2003): 43–49. Chen Minzhen 陳民鎮, and Hu Kai 胡凱. “Qinghua jian ‘Jinteng’ jishi 清華簡《金縢》 集釋 [Collected Explications of the Qinghua Bamboo Text ‘Jinteng’].” Fudan daxue chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu zhongxin 复旦大学出土文献与古文字研究中心. (accessed July 6, 2013). Eno, Robert. “Shang State Religion and the Pantheon of the Oracle Texts.” In Early Chinese Religion, Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski, vol. 1, pp. 41–102. Handbook of Oriental Studies 4. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Goldin, Paul R. “Review of The Annals of Lü Buwei, edited by John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel.” Early Medieval China 7 (2001): 109–139. Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛, and Liu Qiyu 劉起釪. “Shangshu” jiaoshi yilun 尚書校釋譯論 [The “Shangshu,” Collated with Commentaries, Translations [into Modern-Day Chinese], and (Scholarly) Discussions]. 4 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005. Hanshu 漢書 [History of the Han]. Comp. by Ban Gu 班固. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987. Harkness, Ethan Richard. “Cosmology and the Quotidian: Day Books in Early China.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Chicago, 2011. Harper, Donald. “Warring States Natural Philosophy and Occult Thought.” In The Cam­ bridge History of Ancient China, edited by Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, pp. 813–884. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Harper, Donald, and Marc Kalinowski, eds. Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China: The Daybook Manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin and Han. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Jiang Shanguo 蔣善國. “Shangshu” zongshu 尚書綜述 [A General Discussion of the “Shangshu”]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988. Jin Chunfeng 金春峰. Zhouguan zhi chengshu jiqi fanying de wenhua yu shidai xinkao 周官之成書及其反映的文化與時代新考 [A New Examination of the Formation of the Zhouguan as a Book, as well as of the Culture and Time it Reflects]. Taipei: Dongda tushu gongsi, 1993. Kalinowski, Marc. “Divination and Astrology: Received Texts and Excavated Manuscripts.” In China’s Early Empires: A Re-Appraisal, edited by Michael Nylan and Michael Loewe, pp. 339–366. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Kalinowski, Marc. “Diviners and Astrologers under the Eastern Zhou: Transmitted Texts and Recent Archaeological Discoveries.” In Early Chinese Religion, Part One: Shang

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

285

through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski, vol. 1, pp. 341–396. Handbook of Oriental Studies 4,1. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Karlgren, Bernhard. The Book of Documents. Göteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1950. Karlgren, Bernhard. Glosses on the “Book of Documents”. Göteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1970. Keightley, David N. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, ca. 1200–1045 bc Berkeley: University of California and Center for Chinese Studies, 2000. Keightley, David N. “Late Shang Divination: The Magico-Religious Legacy.” In Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology special issue, edited by Henry Rosemont, Jr. Journal of the American Academy of Religion Studies 50, no. 2 (1984): 11–34. Keightley, David N. “The ‘Science’ of the Ancestors: Divination, Curing, and BronzeCasting in Late Shang China.” Asia Major, third series, 14, no. 2 (2001): 143–187. Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Keightley, David N. “Theology and the Writing of History: Truth and the Ancestors in the Wu Ding Records.” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 1 (1999): 207–230. Kern, Martin. “Creating a Book and Performing It: The ‘Yao lüe’ Chapter of the Huainanzi as a Western Han Fu.” In The “Huainanzi” and Textual Production in Early China, edited by Michael Puett and Sarah Queen, pp. 124–150. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Kern, Martin. “Feature: Writing and Authority in Early China, by Mark Edward Lewis.” China Review International 7, no. 2 (2000): 336–376. Kern, Martin. “The ‘Harangues’ (Shi 誓) in the Shangshu.” In Origins of Chinese Political Thought: Studies in the Composition and Thought of the Shangshu (Classic of Documents), edited by Martin Kern and Dirk Meyer, pp. 281–319. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Kern, Martin. “Offices of Writing and Reading in the Rituals of Zhou.” In Statecraft and Classical Learning: The “Rituals of Zhou” in East Asian History, edited by Benjamin A. Elman and Martin Kern, pp. 64–93. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Kern, Martin. “Religious Anxiety and Political Interest in Western Han Omen Inter­ pretation: The Case of the Han Wudi 漢武帝 Period (141–87 bc).” Chūgoku shigaku 中國史學 10 (2000): 1–31. Kern, Martin. The Stele Inscriptions of Ch’in Shih-huang: Text and Ritual in Early Chinese Imperial Representation. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2000. Kern, Martin, and Dirk Meyer, eds. Origins of Chinese Political Thought: Studies in the Composition and Thought of the “Shangshu” (Book of Documents). Leiden: Brill, 2017. Knoblock, John, and Jeffrey Riegel. The Annals of Lü Buwei. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Kunst, Richard A. “The Original Yijing.” Ph.D. thesis. University of California, Berkeley, 1985.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

286

Kern

Legge, James. The “Shoo King”. The Chinese Classics vol. 3. 1865. Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1991. Lewis, Mark Edward. Writing and Authority in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Li Xueqin 李學勤. “Shishuo Zhangjiashan Han jian ‘Shi lü’ 試說張家山漢簡《史律》[A Tentative Explanation of the Zhangjiashan Han Bamboo Text ‘Shi lü’].” In Zhang­ jiashan Han jian ‘Ernian lüling’ yanjiu wenji 張家山漢簡《二年律令》研究文集 [A Collection of Research Articles on the Han Bamboo Text “Ernian lüling” from Zhangjiashan], edited by Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jianbo yanjiu zhongxin 中國 社會科學院簡帛研究中心, pp. 55–59. Guilin: Guangxi shifandaxue chubanshe, 2007. Li Yufang 李毓芳. “Lüelun Weiyanggong sanhao jianzhu yu Handai guqian 略論未央宫 三號建筑與漢代骨簽 [A Brief Discussion of Weiyang Palace Building No. 3 and its Han Era Bone Inscriptions].” Wenbo 文博 [Relics and Museology], 1993.2: 3–8. Liu Yuan 劉源. “Jin liangnian lai de jiaguxue yanjiu 近兩年來的甲骨學研究 [Research on Oracle Bone Inscriptions during the Past Two Years].” Shixueshi yanjiu 史學史研 究 [ Journal of Historiography], 2010.3: 75–83. Liu Zhendong 劉振東, and Zhang Jianfeng 張建鋒. “Xi Han guqian de jige wenti 西漢 骨簽的幾個問題 [Several Issues Concerning Western Han Bone Inscriptions].” Kaogu yu wenwu 考古與文物 [Archaeology and Cultural Relics], 2006.3: 58–62. van der Loon, Piet. “On the Transmission of Kuan-tzu.” T’oung Pao 41 (1952): 357–393. Major, John S. Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the “Huainanzi”. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Major, John S., et al. The “Huainanzi”: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Men Yi 門藝. “Xi Zhou jiaguwen yanjiu 西周甲骨文研究 [Research on Western Zhou Oracle Bone Inscriptions].” M.A. thesis. Xinan shifan daxue, 2005. Murray, Judson B. “A Study of ‘Yao lue’ 要略, ‘A Summary of the Essentials’: The Huainanzi 淮南子 from the Point of View of the Postface.” Early China 29 (2004): 45–109. Nylan, Michael. The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Nylan, Michael. “The Many Dukes of Zhou in Early Sources.” In Statecraft and Classical Learning: The ”Rituals of Zhou” in East Asian History, edited by Benjamin A. Elman and Martin Kern, pp. 94–128. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Nylan, Michael. The Shifting Center: The Original “Great Plan” and Later Readings. Nettetal: Steyler, 1992. Peterson, Willard J. “Making Connections: ‘Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations’ of the Book of Change.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42 (1982): 67–116. Queen, Sarah A. “Inventories of the Past: Rethinking the ‘School’ Affiliation of the Huainanzi.” Asia Major, third series, 14 (2001): 51–72. Qinghua daxue chutuwenxian yanjiu yu baohu zhongxin 清華大學出土文獻研究與保 護中心. Qinghua daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian 清華大學藏戰國竹簡 [The Qinghua

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric

287

University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts]. Shanghai: Zhongxi shuju, 2010. Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭. Gudai wenshi yanjiu xintan 古代文史研究新探 [A New Inquiry into the Research on the Cultural History of (Chinese) Antiquity]. Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1992. Raphals, Lisa. “Divination in the Han shu Bibliographic Treatise.” Early China 32 (2008– 2009): 45–102. Ribbing Gren, Magnus. “The Qinghua ‘Jinteng’ 金縢 Manuscript: What It Does Not Tell Us about the Duke of Zhou.” In Origins of Chinese Political Thought: Studies in the Composition and Thought of the Shangshu (Book of Documents), edited by Martin Kern and Dirk Meyer, pp. 193–223. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Sanft, Charles. “Edict of Monthly Ordinances for the Four Seasons in Fifty Articles from 5 ce: Introduction to the Wall Inscription Discovered at Xuanquanzhi, with Annotated Translation.” Early China 32 (2008–2009): 125–208. Schaberg, David. “The Zhouli as a Constitutional Text.” In Statecraft and Classical Learning: The “Rituals of Zhou” in East Asian History, edited by Benjamin A. Elman and Martin Kern, pp. 33–63. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Composition of the Zhouyi.” Ph.D. thesis. Stanford University, 1983. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Duke of Zhou’s Retirement in the East and the Beginnings of the Minister-Monarch Debate in Chinese Political Philosophy.” Early China 18 (1993): 41–72. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “A First Reading of the Mawangdui Yijing Manuscript.” Early China 19 (1994): 47–73. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “A First Reading of the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi Manuscript.” Early China 30 (2005): 1–24. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Fuyang Zhou Yi and the Making of a Divination Manual.” Asia Major 14 (2001): 7–18. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “I Ching”—The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “I Ching 易經 (Chou I 周易).” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 216–228. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “Shang Shu 尚書 (Shu ching 書經).” In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, edited by Michael Loewe, pp. 376.389. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993. Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Wangjiatai Gui Cang: An Alternative to Yi jing Divination.” In Facets of Tibetan Religious Tradition and Contacts with Neighbouring Cultural Areas,

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

288

Kern

edited by Alfredo Cadonna and Ester Bianchi, pp. 95–126. Orientalia Venetiana 12. Florence: Olschki, 2002. Shaughnessy, Edward L. Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the “Yijing” (“I Ching”) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Smith, Adam. “Writing at Anyang: The Role of the Divination Record in the Emergence of Chinese Literacy.” Ph.D. thesis. University of California at Los Angeles, 2008. Sou, Daniel S. “In the Government’s Service: A Study of the Role and Practice of Early China’s Officials Based on Excavated Manuscripts.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Pennsylvania, 2013. Wang Hui 王輝. “Cong Qi li, yili yu Zhou li zhi bie kan Zhouyuan jiagu shuxing 從齊 禮、夷禮與周禮之别看周原甲骨屬性 [The Attributes of the Zhouyuan Oracle Bones in Light of the Differences between Qi Ritual, Foreign Ritual, and Zhou Ritual].” Shaanxi shifan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuikexue) 陝西師範大學學報（哲學社會 科學）[ Journal of Shaanxi Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences)], 2001.4: 77–84. Wang Hui. “Zhouyuan jiagu shuxing yu Shang Zhou zhiji jili de bianhua 周原甲骨屬性 與商周之際祭禮的變化 [The Attributes of the Zhouyuan Oracle Bones and the Changes in Sacrificial Rituals from the Shang to the Zhou].” Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 [Historical Research], 1998.3: 5–20. Wang Yuxin 王宇信. Xi Zhou jiagu tanlun 西周甲骨探論 [A Discussion of Western Zhou Oracle Bones]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1984. Wang Yuxin. “Zhouyuan jiagu buci xingkuan de zai renshi he Xingtai Xi Zhou buci de xingkuan zouxiang 周原甲骨卜辭行款的再認識和邢台西周卜辭的行款走向 [The Re-recognition of Line Patterns of Zhouyuan Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the Direction of Line Patterns of the Western Zhou Oracle Inscriptions from Xingtai].” Huaxia kaogu 華夏考古 [Huaxia Archaeology], 1995.2: 98–104. Wu Rongzeng 吳榮曾. “Xi Han guqian zhong suojian de gongguan 西漢骨簽中所見的 工官 [State Laborers as They Appear on Western Han Bone Inscriptions].” Kaogu 考 古 [Archaeology], 2000.9: 60–67. Xu Fuchang 徐富昌. Shuihudi Qin jian yanjiu 睡虎地秦簡研究 [Research on the Qin Bamboo Texts from Shuihudi]. Taipei: Wenshizhi, 1993. Xu Yuanhao 許元誥. “Guoyu” jijie 國語集解 [Collected Commentaries on the “Guoyu”]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002. Zhangjiashan ersiqi hao Han mu zhujian zhengli xiaozu 張家山二四七號漢墓竹簡整 理小組. Zhangjiashan Han mu zhujian (ersiqi hao mu): shiwen xiudingben 張家山漢 墓竹簡〔二四七號墓〕：釋文修訂本 [The Bamboo Texts from the Han Tomb at Zhangjiashan (Tomb No. 247): Revised Edition of the Transcription]. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2006. Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Anyang gongzuodui 中國社會科學院考 古研究所安陽工作隊. “1973 nian Xiaotun nandi fajue baogao 1973 年小屯南地發掘 報告 [Report on the 1973 Excavations in the Southern Area of Xiaotun].” Kaoguxue jikan 考古學集刊 [Papers on Archaeology] 9 (1995): 45–137. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies

289

Chapter 9

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies in Eighteenth-century Korea Kwon Soo Park 1

Royal Ceremonies, the Bureau of Astronomy, and the Book of State Rituals

As Confucian rulers, the Joseon 朝鮮 dynasty performed numerous rituals related to royal life and governmental affairs. The king and his subjects attended regular and irregular rituals such as sacrificial rites to dynastic ancestors in the royal shrine (Jongmyo 宗廟) and the royal tombs (Wangneung 王陵), sericulture ceremonies (Chingyengrye 親耕禮) and sericulture (Chinjamrye 親蠶禮) ceremonies, investiture rituals (Chaekbong-uisik 冊封儀式), state marriages (Garye 嘉禮), funerals (Gukjang 國葬), and others. Every phase of royal and governmental life was thus highly ritualized, and the king and his subjects were obliged to take part in the rituals and play the respective roles assigned to them. By organizing and performing these rites, the monarch and the government constantly imprinted the Joseon dynasty’s values—above all, the dignity of the royal court—in the minds of their servants and the common people. Joseon, then, was a true ‘ritual state,’ a country that placed great emphasis on ceremonies in order to strengthen national cohesion. In some of the rituals, thousands of people were mobilized for several months, and up to tens of thousands of ounces of silver (yang 兩) were spent. The Ministry of Rites (Yejo 禮曹) was responsible for regulating and overseeing the organization and execution of the various ceremonies. The Bureau of Astronomy (Gwansang-gam 觀象監), a third-grade office that was part of the Ministry, was in charge of determining locations and dates for the deployment of the considerable human and material resources involved. The services performed by the Bureau were based on official techniques for selecting an auspicious date (taegil 擇日) and selecting an auspicious site (taegji 擇地). We may gain insight into the detailed shape of the rituals and the processes of zeri and zedi as practiced during the Joseon dynasty by studying the uigwe 儀 軌 [Book of State Rites]. In this collection of books, the government recorded and illustrated everything pertaining to royal rituals such as official documents exchanged between the governmental institutions, lists of utensils, sacrificial

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_011

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

290

Park

offerings, and dresses as well as the names of officers, thousands of bier-carriers, and the participants of funeral processions. This documentation served to sustain the unity of the symbolic system by standardizing the procedures of the rituals. About four thousand uigwe books are kept at the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies (Kyujanggak-hankukhak-yeonguwon 奎章閣韓國 學硏究院) and in other libraries throughout Korea, but these numbers cover just a portion of all the uigwe books produced during the five hundred years the Joseon dynasty ruled Korea. The uigwe books also contain numerous official documents that refer to choosing auspicious dates and sites. Whatever the ritual, its time and place had to be determined beforehand to ensure that it would be practiced appropriately. In the early stages of preparing a ritual, the high officers of the Ministry of Rites and some representatives of the Bureau of Astronomy, such as geomancers (Jigwan 地官) and diviners (Ilgwan 日官), gathered and discussed the ritual’s auspicious time and place. Accordingly, we can find the records and official documents related to this process on the first pages of the uigwe books. This article examines the process of choosing auspicious dates and places by analyzing a number of uigwe books related to royal funerals in eighteenthcentury Joseon, namely three books that provide instructions for the construction of the king’s tomb (Sanneungdogam-uigwe 山陵都監儀軌): – Yeongjo-Wonneung-Sanneungdogam-uigwe 英祖元陵山陵都監儀軌 [The Construction Record of King Yeongjo’s Tomb] (1776)1 – Hyeonryungwon-Wonsodogam-uigwe 顯隆園園所都監儀軌 [The Moving and Construction Record of Prince Sado’s Tomb] (1789)2 – Jeongjo-Geonneung-Sannengdogam-uigwe 正祖健陵山陵都監儀軌 [The Construction Record of King Jeongjo’s Tomb] (1800)3 Beginning in the eighteenth century, the power of the king began to increase and surpass that of Confucian government officers. This political transformation was accompanied by a recasting of the norms for state rituals, reforms of the relevant offices as well as a reorganization of the theory of taegil and taegji. The process reached its climax during the reigns of Kings Yeongjo (1724–1776) and Jeongjo (1776–1800); during these years, the typical forms of the late Joseon 1 King Yeongjo 英祖: 1694–1776, r. 1725–1776. 2 Prince Sado 思悼世子: 1735–1762, a son of King Yeongjo. He died in a wooden rice chest by the order of his father. In 1789, the tomb of Prince Sado was moved to a new place by his son, King Jeongjo (see below). 3 King Jeongjo 正祖: 1752–1800, r. 1776–1800, a son of Prince Sado.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies

291

period’s royal rituals were shaped. Examining eighteenth-century procedures of choosing an auspicious date and site for kings’ funerals, therefore, yields important implications for understanding the role of royal rituals and the strategy of state-rebuilding in the late Joseon period. On a more general level, such an examination may add to our understanding of the relation between theoretical elements of divination and political factors in the decision-making processes of Joseon’s royal court. 2

The Process of Taegji

In the Joseon period, people believed that the space designated to perform a royal ritual had to be appropriately chosen by means of fengshui’s (K: Pungsu) logic of selection. If the place was selected inappropriately, the ritual could not be performed successfully, and its authenticity could not be realized. The process of choosing an auspicious site served to justify the selection of a place as appropriate for the ritual. The process of taegji, as practiced by the officers of the Bureau of Astronomy, was of great importance during the early stages of a ritual because it not only determined all further activities and the allocation of all the resources but also the date and time when the ritual was to be held. In other words, the auspicious time for a ritual depended on the space chosen for it and thus varied according to specific locations. According to the Kukjo-oyreui 國朝五禮儀 [Manual of the Five State Rites], published in 1474, it took five months to prepare the late king’s tomb and bury him.4 The first step in the process of determining an appropriate burial ground was to look at the potential sites for royal tombs the Bureau of Astronomy had preselected and demarcated. Palace-ascendable officials of the Ministry of Rites and the director of the Bureau of Astronomy brought geomancers to examine the candidate places. The geomancers then submitted a report on the suitable grounds for the king’s funeral. Next, the palace-ascendable officials of the State Council (Uijeongbu 議政府) examined the selected grounds again and reported their impressions to the new king. The final decision on the burial ground was made in the course of discussions between the new king and the high officials of his court. The sentences about selecting burial ground were repeated in similar terms in all the uigwe books about the construction of the king’s tomb. 4 See Shin Sukju et al., Kukjo-oyreui, 7:37a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

292

Park

Once a burial site was decided on, the officers of the Bureau of Astronomy went to the place in question, enclosed it with sticks, and conducted a sacrificial rite dedicated to the spirit dwelling in the place in order to soothe him. The enclosing process and the sacrificial ritual also served to announce the final decision on the funeral place to the public.5 3

The Process of Taegil

While with taegji it was sufficient to determine a single space for the rituals to be held in, by means of taegil a whole series of dates and times had to be determined, one for each procedure of the ritual that was to be performed. These rules instructed all the personnel involved in the ceremony as to when to perform their respective roles. In the case of a king’s funeral, the officials at the Ministry of Rites and the diviners of the Bureau of Astronomy compiled a list of selected auspicious dates and times for the ritual (taegil-danja 擇日單子) and submitted it to their superiors at the Ministry. The Ministry then notified all the institutions that would be involved in the ritual, such as the offices responsible for state funerals and the construction of royal tombs, the regional authorities near the tomb, and so on. How strict the rules for choosing auspicious dates were is highlighted by the fact that even the date of the first discussion was determined with great care. For example, in 1789 the tomb of Prince Sado was moved to a new site by his son, King Jeongjo; the Ministry of Rites ordered the Bureau of Astronomy to submit an auspicious date for the meeting during which the high officials and diviners would discuss the dates and times that were in turn thought auspicious for moving the tomb. According to the order, the Bureau of Astronomy submitted a report, informing the Ministry that it would be auspicious to discuss the choice of dates and times on 16 July, a recommendation that was strictly adhered to. As the report of selected times taegil-danja, submitted on 17 July, shows, in the further course of the proceedings nine auspicious dates and times were determined for moving Prince Sado’s tomb:6 𐄐 Starting the works (siyeok-il 始役日) at jinsi 辰時 on 20 July 𐄐 Digging the ground for T-shaped hall (jeongjagak-gaegi-ilsi 丁字閣 開基日 時) at myosi 卯時 on 22 July

5 Seong Judeok, Seowungwanji, 2: 22b. 6 Hyeonryungwon-Wonsodogam-uigwe, 1:102b–104a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies

293

𐄐 Mowing grass and digging in the new ground (chamchopato 斬草破土) at sasi 巳時 on 26 July 𐄐 Performing rites to the spirits of the terrain (sahuto 祀后土) on 26 July 𐄐 Setting up a scaffold and roof above the new burial site (wonsanggak 園上 閣) at sasi 巳時 on 26 August 𐄐 Setting the cornerstone of T-shaped hall (jeongjagak-jeongcho-ilsi 丁字閣 定 礎日時) at myosi 卯時 on 26 August 𐄐 Putting up the ridge of T-shaped hall (jeongjagak-ipu-sangryang 丁字閣 立 柱上樑) at jinsi 辰時 on 1 September 𐄐 Opening new burial ground with digging (gaegeumjeong 開金井) at osi 午時 on 3 October 𐄐 Lowering coffin into the grave and sealing (hahyeongung 下玄宮) at sasi 巳 時 on 2 November In the process of choosing auspicious dates and times for funeral rituals, the most important thing was to determine when exactly to lower the coffin into the grave. Once this date was determined, all other performances and works were determined accordingly. 4

Changes of the Selected Auspicious Date and Time

The uigwe books related to the construction of royal tombs demonstrate that auspicious dates and times were frequently changed after the first choice had been made. For instance, the schedule arranged to perform a ritual occasionally had to be adapted to changing practical circumstances. These changes sometimes happened as late in the process as during the night before the originally selected day. Such an adaption of the schedule became necessary in 1789, when Prince Sado’s tomb was moved. Though the diggers and the official responsible for the construction of the tomb gathered in the chosen place as planned, that is, on 22 July, they could not go about their work of preparing the building of a T-shaped hall in front of the prince’s tomb because the Bureau of Astronomy’s representative did not show up. As it turned out, he had been informed that the exact location of the T-shaped hall would be slightly changed, a decision King Jeongjo and his court officers had made the night before work was due to commence. Following this change of site, the diviners at the Bureau of Astronomy also made a new choice of auspicious time for constructing the T-shaped hall: Digging now was to begin on 26 July—and not on 22 July, as

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

294

Park

originally planned. The Ministry of Rites, however, was unable to communicate this sudden change to the workers on time. The selected time of lowering Prince Sado’s coffin into the new tomb, the most important activity recorded in the time-table, also got changed in the process. On 2 August 1789, a dispute between the official diviners from the Bureau of Astronomy and the invited diviners with no governmental position occurred. The subject of the argument concerned whether or not the select­ed date and time for lowering the coffin was appropriate and auspicious. Cold weather expected in November was one of the reasons why some of the diviners demanded a change of date. Following a long discussion, the date of lowering the coffin was eventually changed from 2 November to 7 October, and the diviners submitted a modified report of selected times to their superiors at the Ministry of Rites. Thus, in contrast to the solemnity implied in the phrase ‘state funerals,’ the process of selecting an auspicious time for royal rituals was in actual fact a rather flexible affair. Moreover, as the example of moving Prince Sado’s tomb makes clear, the practice of selecting an auspicious site was not always strictly based on the theory of divination; instead, it was highly affected by circumstances. 5

Changes of Selected Burial Grounds and the Influence of Political Factors

Compared to the work of selecting an auspicious time, the process of choosing an auspicious site for a king’s funeral was carried out more carefully and the place decided on was usually strictly adhered to. This was due not least to practical reasons: a sudden change during the process of construction would have meant that the works done so far were obsolete and that the government would have to deploy its resources anew in the new ground. However, there were many disputes before a final decision was made, and it usually took at least one month until all candidate sites were examined and a burial place was eventually agreed on. The site for a king’s tomb was easily determined without complex debates if the late king had already specified the place he wanted to be buried in. For instance, if the queen had died before him, his tomb was generally erected beside hers. The construction of the tomb for King Injo 仁祖7 is a case in point: As had been his own wish, King Injo was buried next to his first wife, Queen 7 King Injo 仁祖: 1595–1649, r. 1623–1649.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies

295

Inyeol 仁烈,8 whose gravesite had been chosen with the help of geomancers from the Bureau of Astronomy in 1635. In spite of the foreordainment, there occurred some dispute between the geomancers and the Ministry of Rites after King Injo died in 1649, but eventually the government decreed to bury him according to his own preparations. A different case is that of King Yeongjo, who also lost his first wife, Queen Jeongseong 貞聖,9 and carefully selected the burial site for them both. However, King Yeongjo remarried only two years after his first wife had died. When he died in 1776, his grandson, King Jeongjo, and the Ministry of Rites ordered the high officers and geomancers to reinvestigate the site he had chosen for his own burial. Prime minister Shin Hwe 申晦10 was responsible for the state funeral. On 12 March, accompanied by some geomancers, he went to Queen Jeongseong’s grave and reported that the site was very much suited and auspicious according to fengshui theory. But the political situation began to change suddenly. On 16 March, the prime minister was dismissed because he had, as the new king asserted, employed an unskilled geomancer whose verdict on the burial site was not shared by the other geomancers and officers involved. King Jeongjo ordered them to consider other places for the burial ground and to resume discussion on the auspicious site. Thus, from 22 March the court’s high officers and geomancers from the Bureau of Astronomy investigated a wide range of places around Seoul. Possible choices included those already registered as candidate sites for state funerals. Eventually, the present site of King Yeongjo’s tomb was decided on: The place where King Hyojong’s11 tomb had been first erected back in 1659 was praised as perfectly suited for any such ritual. King Jeongjo’s sudden change of mind regarding the site determined in his grandfather’s own will was probably affected by political factors. The five months it took to perform the late King’s funeral were a time of political competition and power struggles between different forces surrounding the new king at his court; for example, those high officers who had formerly opposed King Jeongjo were dismissed. The change of burial ground, therefore, must have been the result of a political compromise reached between the allies of the new king and the considerable powers surrounding his grandfather’s

8 9 10 11

Queen Inyeol 仁烈: 1594–1635. Queen Jeongseong 貞聖: 1692–1757, first wife of King Yeongjo. Shin Hwe 申晦: 1706–?. King Hyojong 孝宗: 1619–1659, r. 1649–1659, a son of King Injo.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

296

Park

second wife, Queen Jeongsun 貞純,12 whose loyalty King Jeongjo was thus able to ensure. 6 Conclusion I briefly examined the work of the Bureau of Astronomy in selecting auspicious times and spaces by means of an analysis of the archival records related to state funerals in eighteenth-century Joseon. The uigwe 儀軌 [Book of State Rites] was of prime importance in the early phase of any ritual because it determined the whole shape and direction of particular performances. An auspicious time for a funeral was chosen according to theories of divination, but, as we have seen, a date once decided on could still get changed due to situational circumstances. Also, even if a burial ground was determined according to fengshui theory, there could still be disputes that sometimes resulted in a change of sites. Such changes do not necessarily imply that the processes of taegil and taegji were practiced arbitrarily during the Joseon dynasty. Instead, they point to the huge importance of external conditions and political factors even in a time as dedicated to rituals as eighteenth-century Korea.

Works Cited

Shin Sukju 申叔舟, Jeung Cheok 鄭陟 et al. Kukjo-oyreui 國朝五禮儀 [Manual of the Five State Rites]. 1474. Kyujanggak Archives Document Number (hereafter Kyu) 2275. Seong Judeok 成周悳, Seowungwanji 書雲觀志 [Records of the Bureau of Astronomy]. 1818. Kyu 57. Yeongjo-Wonneung-Sanneungdogam-uigwe 英祖元陵山陵都監儀軌 [The Construction Record of King Yeongjo’s Tomb]. 1776. Kyu 13586. Hyeonryungwon-Wonsodogam-uigwe 顯隆園園所都監儀軌 [The Moving and Con­ struction Record of Prince Sado’s Tomb]. 1789. Kyu 13628 Jeongjo-Geonneung-Sannengdogam-uigwe 正祖健陵山陵都監儀軌 [The Construction Record of King Jeongjo’s Tomb]. 1800. Kyu 13640. 12

Queen Jeongsun 貞純: 1745–1805. At the age of fifteen, she was married to King Yeongjo in 1759.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies

297

Part 4 Divination and Individual

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

298

Park

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

299

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

Chapter 10

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven: Wen Tianxiang’s Concepts of Fate and Mantic Knowledge Hsien-huei Liao 1 Introduction Wen Tianxiang 文天祥 (1282–1236), a chief minister and an outstanding scholar during the end of the Southern Song, was known for his resistance to Mongol domination. After that failed, he was kept in captivity by the Mongol conquerors for years. Ultimately he was executed, unyieldingly sacrificing his life for the legitimate sovereign. Although he could not reverse the fall of the Southern Song, his resistance to death and his patriotism to the very end were highly revered by subsequent generations, and his name has lived on. Besides commemorating and extolling him in writing, later generations expressed their admiration by means of a large number of monuments dedicated to him.1 His patriotism, his loyalty to the sovereign, and his calm steadfastness in the face of death made him a model of Confucian ideals. Scholarly research on Wen has mostly focused on his political and military deeds, as well as on his personality and his moral integrity. Some scholars have probed his attitude toward death, his ethical spirit, and his personal qualities.2 Others have emphasized his manifestation of the Confucian virtue of dying for a just cause and his heroic loyalty.3 Some have compared his military talent and courageous temperament to that of Yue Fei 岳飛 (1142–1103), a hero of the early Southern Song,4 while still others have been interested in the formation of his image as 1 See Brown, Wen T’ien-hsiang, 44–62; Ts’ai Chia-lin, “Jin wushi nianlai de Wen Tianxiang yanjiu (1957–2007)”; “Dianxing zai suxi.” 2 See Tai Mu-ts’ai, “Lun Wen Tianxiang de renge jingshen”; Cheng Hsiao-chiang, “Lun Wenshan xian sheng zhi shengsi guan yu minzu jingshen”; Chan Shih-you, “Yi ‘fatian buxi’ de jingshen guantong lunli yu rensheng.” 3 See Song Yü, “Danxin baoguo de Wen Tianxiang”; Wang Te-Yi, “Songchao shidafu de renyi guan”; Liu Huaming, “Wen Tianxiang yu rujia wenhua”; Wan Shengnan, Wen Tianxiang; Yang Zhengdian, Wen Tianxiang de shengping han sixiang; Xiu Xiaopo, Wen Tianxiang pingzhuan; Davis, Wind against the Mountain, 133–175; Jay, A Change in Dynasties, 93–136. 4 See Lee An, “Yue Fei yü Wen Tianxiang shishi zhi yanjiu”; Lee An, Wen Tianxiang shiji kao.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_012

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

300

Liao

a paragon of loyalty, and the process by which that image spread.5 Those who have taken his poetry as a subject of study also attribute the rich dynamics and sentiment of his writings to his commitment and virtuous personality.6 Heavily influenced by the literati tradition of loyal discourse, these studies often conclude with an emphasis on his righteousness and the heroic sacrifice of his life for the cause of the country, depicting him as a typical Confucian loyalist. Wen Tianxiang was indeed unique among his contemporaries in terms of his adherence to “Confucian demeanor” and his “patriotic loyalty to the death.” Yet it is worth considering whether these two aspects are sufficient to represent his behavior, his style, his perspective on life and death, and his overall historical significance. First, while he was no doubt well versed in Confucianism (he placed first in the Song dynasty imperial examination), there was still room for other types of learning aside from Confucianism to play a role in his life. As manifested in his personal accounts, he was interested in medicine, health preservation, and chess-playing; he was also deeply involved in such mantic arts as geomancy and divination. Second, if one focuses on his fidelity manifested during the last eight years of his life (1275–1282)—i.e., the time between the Mongol invasion and his martyrdom—then one runs the risk of ignoring significant experiences that occurred earlier in his life. The various sources of his learning and the multiple social networks he developed are all crucial to grasping the complexity of his ideas and practice. Unless one examines his views about and reactions to life and death, human nature and fate, it is difficult to fully understand him. What is more, Wen’s case can serve as a window through which we can get a glimpse of the interactions between Confucian and non-Confucian learning in the lives of Song-period literati. Some recent studies published by non-academic groups pay special attention to Wen’s mantic interest.7 They point out that he had a good command of the mantic arts and often practiced them. By leaving his loyalty and martyrdom aside, these studies are able to uncover the role of mantic arts in his life. One important purpose of these studies is to elevate the socio-cultural status of the mantic arts and practitioners through association with figures of unquestionable character such as Wen. Some academic studies also touch upon Wen’s mantic activities; however, by reducing these to his examination of the theory 5 See Huber, “The Hero as the Spiritual Legacy of his Culture: Wen T’ien-hsiang and his Admirers”; Ts’ai Chia-lin, “Dianxing zai suxi.” 6 See Chang Kung-chien, Wen Tianxiang ji qi shici yanjiu, 114–116; Chang Chao-ch’i, “Wen Tianxiang de shengming yu daode xingming.” 7 Most of these groups are communities devoted to Yijing research and propagation or other mantic/geomantic societies.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

301

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

of the Yijing 易經, they usually maintain that Wen only embodied Confucian ideas and practices.8 However, some studies have begun to take his close contact with the mantic arts and experts seriously, analyzing the prognostications and practitioners he came in touch with and his attitude toward them.9 Questions that await further elaboration are where his mantic knowledge came from, how it might coexist with his Confucian cultivation, what impact it had on the structure of his knowledge, and, finally, how it influenced his ideas and actions. To give a full account of Wen’s ideas and practices, in this study I will investigate the channels through which he learned about the issue of human fate, the methods by which he accommodated different concepts of fate, and the ideas he chose to act upon in practical contexts. It is my hope that by means of my analysis, the complex course of Wen’s life and the various factors that influenced his actions will become clear. Moreover, this analysis will highlight the Song literati’s general attitude toward Confucian and mantic knowledge, and it will also look at intricate interactions between these two sources of knowledge. 2

Wen Tianxiang’s Life and the Formation of His Concept of Fate

Wen was a native of Luling 廬陵 County in Ji Prefecture 吉州 (present Jiangxi 江西). At the age of twenty-one (that is, in 1256), he took the civil service examination and obtained first place for jinshi 進士 status. Considering that the examination was highly competitive and that the average age of a successful candidate was about thirty-five, his examination life was certainly brief and smooth.10 Unsurprisingly, he had no complaints about the harshness of the examination process; his criticism was reserved for those who pursued an examination degree for profit.11 Wen’s outstanding achievement is manifest in his answers to the examination questions. His responses critically analyze the problems the country faced and provided insightful solutions.12 That his concern for national security and popular welfare went far beyond personal 8 See, for instance, Wang Nai-li, “Wen Tianxiang yü Zhouyi.” 9 See Chang Yung-t’ang, “Wen Tianxiang yü shushu”; Liao Hsien-huei, “Tiyan xiaodao.” 10 See Chaffee, The Thorny Gates, 253. 11 See Wen Tianxiang, Wenshan xiansheng quanji [hereafter WSXSQJ], 9:291–292. 12 See Songshi, 438:12988; Baoyou sinian dengkelu tiyao. The four problems the country faced to which Wen provided solutions were natural disasters, lack of talented people, weakness in military power, and the threat of Mongol invasion; see WSXSQJ, 3:55–73.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

302

Liao

interest testified to his adherence to the Confucian virtue of being a loyal and benevolent official. It is intriguing to consider the learning processes he appears to have gone through before successful ascendance to jinshi and officialdom. Had he been exposed, then, to any knowledge other than the Confucian classics and histories required for examination preparation? How did those studies shape his view of life and influence his conduct? Wen learned from several individual scholars and attended local academies as well as the county school.13 These scholars and places of study are significant, for they appear prominently in his own collected writings. The most immediate tutor in Wen’s early life was his father, Wen Yi 文儀 (1256–1215). A voracious reader and book collector, Wen Yi set a good example for his children in terms of learning. He treasured the enormous number of books he had collected and carefully classified and annotated every one of them personally.14 He engaged in study incessantly, often at the expense of eating and sleeping.15 Sometimes he invited erudite and virtuous scholars home to instruct young Wen and his brother.16 At other times he taught them personally in his own studio.17 Under his guidance, the Wen brothers studied diligently every day without interruption. Despite such vigorous training, Wen Tianxiang would recall the time when he and his brothers studied at home with their parents as the happiest period in his entire life.18 These learning experiences not only laid a solid foundation for his scholarship; they also shaped his conscientious attitude toward everything in his life. Among those invited as private tutors for Wen, Hu Jian 胡鑑 (1282–1220), styled Jicong 季從, sobriquet Guanzhou 觀洲) and Zeng Feng 曾鳳 (died in 1277, styled Chaoyang 朝陽, sobriquet Xiufeng 秀峰) are better documented. Also a native of Luling and sixteen years older than Wen, Hu Jian served as his

13

For a detailed account of his instructors and the educational institutions he attended, see Yu Zhaopeng and Yu Hui, Wen Tianxiang yanjiu, 1–18. 14 See WSXSQJ, 11:373–377. 15 See ibid. 16 Wen’s parents were consistent in their educational attitude. In order to pay the instruction fee, for instance, his mother Zeng Deci 曾德慈 (1214–1278) sold her dowry and jewels without any hesitation; see WSXSQJ, 18:654–655. For a general discussion on how Song families pursued the examination degree, see Tao Jinsheng, “Beisong shiren de qijia ji qi jiazu zhi weichi.” 17 See WSXSQJ, 11:373–377. At times, when faced with economic hardship, Wen’s mother would take him to his grandfather’s at Taihe 太和 (present Jiangxi). It is said that during these short periods of stay, he also learned from local scholars. 18 See ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

303

childhood teacher.19 As depicted in his epitaph, composed by contemporary Luling native Zhao Wen 趙文 (1315–1239), Hu studied very hard, yet was never able to pass the lowest-level prefectural examinations.20 Like many other examination candidates, he made a living by serving as a private tutor while preparing for the civil service examination. More specifically, Zhao related that “Wen Tianxiang studied with Guanzhou [Hu Jian] in his early life, and soon his achievement surpassed that of Guanzhou. Later, Xiufeng [Zeng Feng] gave him instruction in what he had learned from Master Dongxuan.”21 It seems likely, therefore, that Hu provided Wen with basic and examination-related knowledge only. Despite his own repeated failure in the examinations, he must have been a reliable tutor for primary studies—Wen later cordially invited him to serve in the same role for young family members.22 The next teacher Wen documented was Zeng Feng, also a native of Luling. Zeng advanced to officialdom through the National Academy, serving several times at the Directorate of Education (Guozijian 國子監).23 Wen studied with Zeng for less than one year, yet he treated him as a respected mentor for life.24 The clearest example is their interaction in the years 1276–1277. At this time, Wen served as the top military leader in charge of the revival of the country and he was assisted by Zeng: Despite being extremely busy and in urgent need of manpower as well as being senior in position to Zeng, Wen never treated him as a subordinate. Rather, he regarded his mentor highly and did not burden him with logistical assignments.25 According to Yang Shiqi 楊士奇 (1444–1364), the influence Zeng had on Wen pertains not only to classical learning, but also to moral cultivation.26 His moral and intellectual attainments were comparable to those of another prominent local intellectual figure, Ouyang Shoudao 歐陽守道 (1273–1209), discussed below), so Zeng’s nephew later intended to enshrine him together with Ouyang and Wen.27 These three 19 See WSXSQJ, 5:141–142. 20 See Zhao Wen, Qingshan ji, 6:14b–15b. 21 文公早從觀洲游，所詣已超越。其後秀峯又以所得於東軒者，授之; ibid. Master Dongxuan is Hu Tingzhi 胡廷直 (1220–1282), the father of Hu Jian. 22 See WSXSQJ, 5:141–142. This invitation indicates that after Wen successfully advanced to officialdom, Hu Jian was still trapped in the examination life, sustaining himself with tutorship. 23 See WSXSQJ, 16:598. 24 See WSXSQJ, 5:144–145. 25 See Zhao Wen, Qingshan ji, 2:20b–22b. 26 See Yang Shiqi, Dongli ji, 1:22b–24a. 27 See Zhao Wen, Qingshan ji, 2:20b–22b. For the development of the cults of the local worthies in the Southern Song, see Cheng Ch’eng-liang, “Nan Song Mingzhou xianxian ci yanjiu.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

304

Liao

Luling natives were in fact closely connected, and both Zeng and Ouyang played significant roles in forming Wen’s moral and intellectual being. For instance, When Wen was criticized for observing mourning incorrectly, for instance, Zeng and Ouyang both came to his defense and elaborated on the rites of mourning ceremony.28 Ouyang was the last of the principal mentors exerting a deep influence on Wen. When Wen attended Bailuzhou Academy 白鷺洲書院 in Luling at the age of twenty (1255), Ouyang was the headmaster. Although Wen stayed at the Academy for less than one year before he successfully advanced to jinshi, he remained in close contact with his mentor until the latter died in 1273. In his collected writings, Wen includes more accounts of Ouyang than of his previous two mentors, suggesting that he had a closer association with Ouyang and Ouyang’s influence on him was more profound. According to Wen, the master pursued things of benefit and utility into old age; his writing was always based on fact; his heart was as sincere as that of a newborn baby; and his virtue lay in a beneficence akin to that of one’s own mother and father.29 His thorough knowledge of classics and histories and diligence in pursuing the Way made him not only a respected teacher of many a promising young provincial, but also an intellectual successor of Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1072–1007).30 Ouyang treated his student as though he was a close kinsman; to whatever questions Wen asked, Ouyang would answer in detail and with patience. In turn, Wen provided financial assistance when his master was in straitened circumstances,31 exchanged intellectual ideas and works with him through frequent correspondence, and took care of his burial, composing the funeral oration and looking after his orphans after Ouyang’s death.32 Thanks to instruction by his father Wen Yi and the scholars just described, Wen Tianxiang became well versed in the Confucian classics, histories, and moral values, which he came to embody in the course of official service and while fighting against the Mongol invasion. Confucian ideas about “heaven” and “fate” figure prominently in Wen’s discussions of both national development and individual fortune. Regarding the development of the nation, he advocates an imitation of Heaven’s ceaselessness, explicating its principle in

28 See WSXSQJ, 5:137–139. 29 See WSXSQJ, 11:396–398. For the moral influence Ouyang had on Wen, see also Davis, Wind against the Mountain, 138–139. 30 See WSXSQJ, 10:352. 31 See WSXSQJ, 5:142. 32 See ibid., 5:216–217.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

305

terms of the Yijing and the Doctrine of the Mean.33 In other words, because the way of Heaven works incessantly, running through everything, the ruler can cultivate himself and keep the country in order through imitation of its ceaselessness. In his petition, Wen emphasizes the occurrence of disasters as a sign of Heaven’s discontent with the human world. When disasters occur repeatedly, the ruler should be modestly aware of the causes and critically examine himself.34 Moreover, Wen stresses the importance of astronomical observation, for astronomical movement is a mirror through which the ruler can investigate the consequences of one’s statecraft. When an unusual astronomical event such as a lunar or solar eclipse is predicted, the ruler can avert it through sternly cultivating his moral ethics.35 Deeply convinced by the idea that Heaven dictates the fortune of the nation, when the Song army failed to defeat the Mongols and restore its sovereignty, Wen sighed: “Alas! Wasn’t it because of Heaven?”36 As for individual fortune, Wen stresses that Heaven is also the dispenser of life and death, wealth and rank. The unrecognized talents of one of his best friends, Hu Tianyou 胡天牖 (styled Duanyi 端逸), are a typical example. According to Wen, they became good friends at school ten years previously. At that time, he strongly believed that Hu would soon be able to achieve success in the civil service examinations. Contrary to his expectation, however, Hu failed repeatedly. Why would an erudite person like Hu suffer repeated frustrations? Wen’s explanation is that “it is his fate.”37 Namely, it is Heaven that has the final say on one’s success or failure, which is far beyond one’s control. Similarly, in composing an epitaph for Liu Yuangang 劉元剛 (1268–1187), Wen attributed the vicissitudes of his official career to destiny. When Liu died right after being reappointed by the emperor and while waiting for a new assignment, Wen sighed with emotion: “Alas! Wasn’t it fate?”38 Moreover, he believed that Heaven played an important role in distributing examination resources. In his inscription on the estates for tribute scholars in Jizhou, he made it clear that the persons who manage the estates do not control them. They are merely 33 See Songshi, 418:12533–12540; WSXSQJ, 2:55–73; WSXSQJ, 19:686–701; Peng Dayi, Shantang Sikao, 84:29b. 34 See WSXSQJ, 3:90–92. 35 See WSXSQJ, 11:372–373. 36 WSXSQJ, 16:564. Though he ultimately ascribed the Song army’s failure to the will of Heaven, Wen also criticized Zhang Shijie 張世傑, the military leader in charge of the restoration. Similar criticisms are also observable in ibid., 16:565, 577. 37 蓋其命然; WSXSQJ, 5:150. Hu Tianyou eventually achieved the jinshi degree in 1271—fifteen years after Wen did. 38 嗚呼，豈非命耶?; WSXSQJ, 11:380–382.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

306

Liao

the protectors, responsible for distributing resources to those who deserve them. Those who obtained financial support were the ones recognized by Heaven.39 If Heaven has predetermined everything, how should one deal with one’s life? Must one passively accept the will of Heaven? Apparently Wen did not think so, neither is it the Confucian concept of fate. Like his ideas about national development, Wen believed that one should submit oneself to the biddings of Heaven only after one has tried his best. Take for example his reaction to his father’s illness: Wen’s father fell seriously ill when accompanying his two sons to the capital for the civil service examination. When his father was on the danger list, Wen tried first to offer him the best decoctions to cure his illness. When that proved to be of no avail, he appealed to Heaven to subtract time from his own lifespan and add it to his father’s, or even allow him to die in his father’s place. Having exhausted all possibilities in vain, he could only painfully accept his father’s death as what Heaven had arranged.40 A similar attitude is also observable in his response to a question raised by the Mongol minister Bolou 博羅: why did Wen insist on establishing a sovereign in order to preserve the imperial altar despite the fact that the Southern Song was doomed? Wen made it clear that serving the country is just like serving one’s father: one should do one’s best. As for whether or not one succeeds, that is up to Heaven.41 In a poem dedicated to his friend Zhuo Deqing 卓慶德 (1277–1205), Wen expounded on why Heaven determines individual fate and how one should submit to the decree of Heaven.42 His concept of fate was deeply inspired by Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1078–1020) Ximing 西銘 [Western Inscription]. The Ximing made him realize that since one’s nature is endowed by Heaven, it is also permanently intercommunicating with the Way of Heaven. Therefore the correct way of serving Heaven is none other than to fully embody the nature endowed by Heaven. There is no need to evade misfortune and death, for everything is up to Heaven. Instead, one should bravely submit oneself to what Heaven has arranged.43 Wen illustrated the above points to respond positively to the way Zhuo Deqing coped with adversity. According to Wen, banished from the court 39 See WSXSQJ, 9:291–292. For the organization of examination estates, see Yang Liansheng, “Kejü shidai de fukao lüfei wenti.” 40 See WSXSQJ, 11:373–377. 41 See WSXSQJ, 16:640–643. 42 See WSXSQJ, 1:3. 43 For how Neo-Confucians expounded the Ximing and on the influence it had on later generations, see Ho Ping-ti, “Rujia zongfa moshi de yuzhou benti lun”; Lü Miaw-fen, “Ximing wei Xiaojing zhi zhengzhuan?”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

307

due to slanders for more than seven years, Zhuo was content with ordinary life without any complaint.44 He not only enjoyed living and teaching in the countryside, but even prepared his own grave in advance with no qualms.45 Because Zhuo’s way of facing adversity was similar to that explicated in Ximing, Wen had high esteem for him.46 Like many contemporary would-be scholars, Wen and his family invested a huge amount of time, money, and effort in trying to achieve degrees and official status. And yet, as a close examination of Wen’s learning process and social networks reveals, these pursuits did not dominate their lives so much that there was no room left to learn things other than the Confucian classics and histories. Wen’s ideas about human fate came not only from Confucian teachings, but also from various mantic arts prevalent at the time. Within which context did he get access to and learn about those non-Confucian ideas of fate? How was it possible for different views of fate to coexist in his life, influencing his actions? Was it common for the Confucian-educated elite to indulge in both Confucian and mantic ideas of fate and to reconcile them within their lives? As with the knowledge he needed for the examination, Wen also got to know the mantic arts from instruction by senior family members. Their involvement in the mantic arts and the way they applied them in their own lives became the earliest and foremost source of his mantic knowledge. In his father’s collections, for instance, there were quite a few books of “astronomy/ astrology, geography/geomancy, medicine and divination” (tianwen dili yibu 天 文地理醫卜) aside from Confucian classics and histories. In a poem dedicated to a mantic expert, he also claims that “[t]here are a huge number of books on good fortune in my home.”47 His father treasured these books just like he did others, marking and/or transcribing them, and reading them so closely that he could even point out the page a specific event was described on.48 Clearly, Wen’s father, then, did not draw a clear line between Confucian books and mantic ones, nor did he assign priority to the former over the latter. It is thus plausible that while he studied in his father’s studio, Wen enjoyed access not just to teachings related to the imperial examination, but also to the various mantic texts his father carefully collected. This childhood learning experience might have been conducive to his interactions with mantic experts in his later 44 See WSXSQJ, 1:3. 45 See Liu Kezhuang, Houchun xiansheng da quanji, 7604:316. 46 See WSXSQJ, 1:4. 47 吾家祿書成巨編; WSXSQJ, 1:13. 48 See WSXSQJ, 11:373–377.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

308

Liao

days. At that time, he was often visited by various diviners, engaged in serious debate with them, and took part in revising certain mantic books (discussed below). Wen’s maternal grandfather, Zeng Jue 曾玨 (1262–1191), is another family member who exerted great impact on his view of fate and the mantic arts. Wen maintained that he knew everything about Zeng, for they had lived together for more than twenty years.49 According to Wen, his grandfather was a man of broad interest and knowledge who had been pursuing Buddhism and Daoism with zest for years, before turning to Confucianism. He had also dabbled in prognostication and geomancy and put his knowledge into practice. It is this eclecticism that influenced Wen the most. The way Zeng faced his own death is a case in point. On his deathbed, he summoned Wen and bade him farewell. Based on close observation and speculation, Zeng realized his imminent death. As he described it, his body had long been in decline, his spirit had become distracted, and his physical strength had weakened; all together, this prevented him from continuing to be a living being. Having such a status, he emphasized, is none other than death.50 Being cool and composed in facing one’s death is certainly congruent with Confucian ideas of life and death. Yet, Daoist and prognostic principles also constituted integral parts of Zeng’s way of knowing and foretelling fate. He demonstrated that death is not only predictable, it is also nothing to fear, since death is as natural/regular as the coming and going of day and night.51 What Zeng exemplified goes far beyond what the Confucian theory of life and death can explain. His grandfather also exerted great impact on Wen’s view and judgment of geomantic arts. Unlike many contemporary critics, Zeng acknowledged the importance of geomancy for burials. Yet he refused to be subject to lay geomancers, by whom the Zeng family had often been fooled. To be free from their manipulations and the trouble of reburying, Zeng Jue and his brother Zeng Jin 曾瑾 set out to look for geomantic knowledge themselves. They traveled from one place to another for over ten years, broadly absorbing related knowledge, and then put it into practice right after they got back. Wen notes that ever since, every burial of family members had gone smoothly, and there was no

49 See WSXSQJ, 11:382–384; Liu Jiangsun, Yang wuzhai ji, 25:4a–5b. For Zeng Jue’s influence on Wen’s moral character, see Davis, Wind against the Mountain, 133–138. 50 See ibid. 51 This idea may be associated with Zhuangzi who once articulated: “Life and death are fated, constant as the succession of dark and dawn, a matter of Heaven” (死生，命也。 其有旦夜之常，天也); Wang Hsien-chien, “Zhuangzi” jijie, 2:58.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

309

need to relocate ancestors’ graves any longer.52 Wen’s detailed account of these events in Zeng’s epitaph indicates that he not only valued geomantic knowledge, but also endorsed it. Because geomantic techniques are of practical help to settle funereal matters, maintain family stability, and avoid being cheated by geomantic practitioners, they are worth studying. Wen Yi and Zeng Jue were not the only people with interdisciplinary knowledge and interests who influenced Wen in terms of the mantic arts. As revealed in his writings, his mentors, the abovementioned Zeng Feng and Ouyang Shoudao, also had as much interest in mantic knowledge as in Confucian cultivation. In their interactions, master and pupil would not just exchange Con­fucian ideas, they also often touched upon issues related to mantic theories and techniques. In a letter to Zeng, for instance, Wen mentions two things that deserve special attention in this context. The first relates to the birth of his two sons: “Since we parted, two sons have been born. One was born at the hour of bingzi 丙子, on the day of gengxu 庚戌, in the month of wuxu 戊戌 and in the year of bingyin 丙寅. Another was born at the hour of bingyin 丙寅, on the day of jiawu 甲午, in the month of renyin 壬寅 and in the year of dingmao 丁卯. I wonder which one’s fate is better.”53 At first glance, this passage is no more than a common report of domestic affairs between associates. What is unusual, however, is that Wen gives his sons’ birth data so precisely and asks about their respective fate. Despite the fact that divination based on one’s birth time was prevalent then, it is still intriguing that Wen mentions it in the letter and asks for his mentor’s opinion. It is most likely that Zeng had long been interested in the mantic arts, and that they had discussed similar issues before.54 In that same letter we find another matter relating to geomancy which is worth keeping in mind: “As soon as I was attracted to geomancy,” Wen writes, “I obtained three locations. Yet, only men of great [geomantic] insight could determine whether they were of geomantic value or not. As for the contracted site at Niurou hollow, I realize now that it was a mistake and so I discarded it.”55 Because Wen had such a painful experience in misrecognizing land as geo52 See WSXSQJ, 11:382–384. The geomantic knowledge the Zeng brothers had obtained was very likely passed down to their descendants, as one of Zeng Jue’s sons was said to have had similar abilities; see WSXSQJ, 17:646–647; 18:653. 53 別後，得二子丙寅戊戌庚戌丙子、丁卯壬寅甲午丙寅命，不知孰勝; WSXSQJ, 5: 144–145. 54 A close friend of Zeng’s, Zhou Mi 周密 (1232–1298), wrote two first-hand accounts of him that focus on his belief in dream divination and mantic arts. See Zhou Mi, Qidong yeyu, 14:264; Guixin zashi, 124. 55 乍嚮風水，即得三地，此需具眼，以為然則然。向牛肉坑所結砌者，今知其 為大謬，為棄屣矣; WSXSQJ, 5:144.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

310

Liao

mantically auspicious, he makes a point of mentioning in the letter that it would take a person of keen acuity to identify the authenticity of the three plots of land he had obtained. We cannot know if it was his correspondent to whom Wen was referring as “having the eye” ( ju yan 具眼) for seeing and distinguishing clearly. But since Wen brought up the issue, Zeng must have been at least somewhat interested in the subject of geomancy. At the end of the letter, Wen arranges for the master to come and visit, which shows even more his acknowledgment of Zeng’s geomantic skill: “Could you please tell me when you will come to visit? If you came to visit Pangu in the spring, when the climate is temperate and the scenery beautiful, you can also observe all of the [sights] that you treasure. Moreover, I sincerely hope that you can take the time to visit and stay here for ten days before returning home.”56 The place that Wen arranges for the master to visit was the site of a residence he had started to build in a flat valley in Wenshan during a hiatus in his career at the age of thirty-six and thirty-seven (1271–1272). Because that house construction site was in the mountains, amid a wealth of natural scenery, his words in the letter “also observe all of the sights that you treasure” may very well refer to Zeng’s interest in the place’s geomantic geography. Clearly this was not the first time they discussed the topic of geomancy but a further conversation on that topic after many years of exchanging views on it. In view of these words it can even be inferred that the person Wen earlier referred to as having “the eye” for seeing and distinguishing clearly was, after all, Zeng. Ouyang Shoudao’s curiosity about techniques of reading fate and geomancy and his interactions with Wen on these matters are even easier to detect in the historical material. First of all, in his collected writings, Ouyang notes the importance of geomantic arts in handling the death of close relatives and emphasizes that they are an important factor in the success of that undertaking. The elements he stresses include how to find a trustworthy diviner of burial sites, how to recognize his usefulness, and how to cultivate one’s own discriminatory ability in everyday life—and he explicitly mentions the need to maintain contact with people who have relevant skills.57 Ouyang’s analytical insight came from his own experience. On the recommendation of his teacher and friend Li Yishan 李義山 (jinshi 1220), he made the acquaintance of a certain Tan 覃, who was known as a good diviner for burying the dead, and he completed the funeral rites for a close relative with Tan’s assistance. Besides following the recommendation of Li Yishan, Ouyang also watched the diviner 56 57

行日可得聞否？春和景明，其間一造盤谷，亦可遍觀先生所謂寶者。更願撥 剔而後來，一來須十日，乃可歸爾; ibid. 5:144–145. See Ouyang Shoudao, Xunzhai wenji, 8:10b–12a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

311

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

very closely and verified that his approach, his comments, and his program did indeed accord with moral conduct. Only then did he entrust Tan with performing geomancy for the burial of his relative.58 Ouyang also presented poems to mantic practitioners and was acquainted with a number of them. Thus, he is a typical example of a Song Confucian scholar who pursued both Confucianism and mantic knowledge, and who maintained active interpersonal relationships in both areas. Ouyang and Li Yishan often exchanged information and views on geomantic divination,59 and the subject of geomancy and fate also frequently came up between Ouyang and Wen, making their relationship even closer. For example, Ouyang was an important participant in Wen’s interaction with two experts on fate, Zhu Yuechuang 朱月窗 (Zhu Dounan 朱斗南) and Peng Shuying 彭叔英.60 Ouyang met Zhu Yuechuang through Wen and fully endorsed the latter’s words of praise for Zhu and his technique. Zhu subsequently shuttled back and forth between the two of them, the teacher and the student, and he became a regular topic of their conversation and a bridge for interaction between them. The three of them ultimately became friends who were in touch with each other often. As for Peng Shuying, he and his technique for fate prognostication were the subject of several debates between teacher and student. Ouyang and Wen sometimes praised and sometimes contested such divination techniques, and experts like Zhu and Peng served as intermediaries for them to get in contact with divination circles. The discussion above shows that although Wen performed outstandingly in the imperial examination and profoundly endorsed Confucianism, his intellectual development and actual conduct were certainly not dominated by Confucian teachings. While he studied the Confucian classics he was also in contact with knowledge from various fields of mantic arts. Moreover, the channels by which he encountered such knowledge in themselves represented an overlap between Confucianism and the mantic arts. Thus, Wen’s father, teachers, and friends not only imparted him with Confucian knowledge, but also guided him in his absorption of knowledge of the mantic arts. That Wen was able to simultaneously pay attention to Confucianism and mantic knowledge and practice may directly be ascribed to the environment in which he matured. Wen is not an exception in that regard because his father and his teachers and friends all displayed similar curiosity and interests.

58 59 60

See Liao Hsien-huei, “Bosō to fūsui.” See Ouyang Shoudao, Xunzhai wenji, 8:10b–12a; 18:9a–10b. For a detailed discussion, see Liao Hsien-huei, “Tiyan xiaodao.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

312

Liao

We can infer that knowledge of the mantic arts must have been very widespread among Confucian scholars at that time. But weren’t there discrepancies and conflicts between those different knowledge systems? On the topic of fate in particular, what are the respective standpoints of Confucianism and the mantic arts? And, for those who read extensively in these subjects, in what ways might they have considered them mutually compatible? 3

The Dialogue on Fate between Confucianism and the Mantic Arts

Before discussing how the concepts of fate of Confucianism and the mantic arts coexisted in Wen Tianxiang’s life, we must first consider in what ways the two concepts differed. In the eyes of Song Confucian scholars in particular, was it possible for these two concepts of fate to coexist, and what were their respective value systems? With regard to actual conditions, Song Confucianism absorbed many Buddhist and Daoist metaphysical ideas and thus once again became the doctrine most revered by intellectuals; nevertheless, it could not satisfy their spiritual and emotional needs. In view of the various pressures and desires in everyday life, many literati tried to find help in the spheres of religion and the mantic arts to dispel the worries they faced. Research in recent years shows that belief in the existence of divine entities and the power of shamans thrived in the Song dynasty era, and as the number of practitioners of geomancy and divination increased, scholars played an important supporting role.61 Confucianism also had a principle of “understanding the decree of Heaven, waiting for the appointments of Heaven, and establishing one’s Heaven-ordained being,”62 which was regarded by many scholars as the benchmark of fate. In reality, however, attempting to foresee or control fate by various man-made ways continued to be an attractive approach.63 A situation in which attempts at the development of an ideology ran counter to a rather eclectic reality naturally provoked worry and criticism among defenders of Confucian values. That sort of discrepancy would also put pressure on scholars and pose a challenge for them. It is in their attempts to rationalize their own conduct that the fundamental differences between the concept of fate in Confucianism 61 See Hansen, Changing Gods; Liao Hsien-huei, “Qiqiu shenqi”; Wong Cheung-wai, Zai guojia yü shehui zhijian; Liu Hsiang-kwang, “Liang Song shiren yu busuan wenhua de chengzhang.” 62 知命俟命立命. 63 This tendency persisted in the Ming and Qing eras and was even more apparent then. For related research, see Li Hsiao-ti, Zuori dao chengshi, 135–155; Ho Shu-yi, “Shidai weiji yu geren jueze.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

313

and the mantic arts—and, by implication, their respective values—become most clearly visible. There was ample justification for attacking and criticizing divination. Among the more obvious reasons to do so were: a firm belief that an individual’s destiny was both unknowable and unchangeable; doubts about the essential nature and the abilities of practitioners of divination; concern that divination created negative fatalism; and the desire to boost moral self-cultivation and the orthodox position of Confucianism. The most important criticism, however, pertained to the fundamental convictions of Confucianism that an individual should not seek to change his fate for the sake of his own material gain. Such an attempt not only deviated from orthodox Confucian thinking, it was also believed to be doomed to fail.64 What is more, the concept of fate underlying divination activities was fundamentally at odds with the Confucian idea of “Understanding ming, awaiting ming, establishing ming.” Whereas mantic practitioners believed that fate can be known in advance and controlled, so as to conform to an individual’s worldly desires, Confucians believed that “Heaven” is the ruler of fate and that the individual can only make a concerted effort to cultivate his own moral character and await the mandate of Heaven—instead of altering his resolution because of the ups and downs he encounters in his life. Defenders of traditional values considerd divination as a way to pursue personal benefit or toy with destiny and they regarded it as the most wicked excuse not to cultivate one’s moral character and conduct. In addition, many defenders of the traditional values felt that they were defending the prestige of Confucianism against a potential threat. In their view, as more practitioners of the mantic arts made pronouncements about fate, they gradually eroded and weakened the authority with which Confucianism and its adherents spoke about that subject.65 By attacking the proliferation of divination, did the defenders of Confu­ cianism generate any pressure or make scholars who were fond of divination feel uneasy? Extant manuscripts provide some clues. Take Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–1086), for example. Even though he criticized the contemporary popularity of divination and blamed the increase in the number of diviners on scholars worrying about personal gains and losses and on the attitude of craving profit, Wang himself certainly did not adhere steadfastly to Confucian principle and keep away from the mantic arts and their practitioners. Not only was he in close interaction with such people; several times he even pried into his own 64 See Liao Hsien-huei, “Exploring Weal and Woe.” 65 For a detailed discussion, see Liu Hsiang-kwang, “Liang Song shiren yü busuan wenhua de chengzhang.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

314

Liao

fate and that of his family. This goes to show that a person who publicly criticized divination may still have consulted diviners, which shows that the clamor of criticism had limited influence. For Wang, who held key posts in politics and academia, criticizing divination and the implicit pursuit of gain behind it, defining a boundary beyond which a Confucian scholar should not go, is rather like taking a public stand—a stand that one may very well contradict, however, in everyday life.66 During and after the Southern Song period, the divinatory activities many Northern Song scholars had engaged in gradually became a topic that could be openly discussed. By that time, geomancy and divination were already widespread in people’s lives. This may have been related to the fact that, as rein­ter­preted by the Neo-Confucian scholars, that the pursuit of interests behind geomancy and divination had become connected with the prosperity or decline of a household and filial piety. The construction of that space for reasoning changed the practices into something scholars could be comfortable with and would even raise boldly as a topic of discourse.67 Apart from the pursuit of benefit, altering fate, and other immediate considerations, the increased interaction between Southern Song scholars and practitioners of geomancy and divination was also due to curiosity and interest in the theory and logic of mantic arts.68 Generally speaking, in the Southern Song period, scholars had closer contact with geomancy and divination. Also, the forms that contact took were more complex, and elements motivating scholars were more diverse. All this resulted in a modification of Confucian cultivation—as was also the case with Wen’s traverse of the concepts of fate he found prevalent in Confucianism and the mantic arts. Fortunately, about fifty items of poetry and other literature written by Wen and given by him to practitioners of geomancy and divination still survive; a fact that implies that he was much more involved with mantic practitioners than other Confucian literati of his time.69 These literary items enable us to delve into the circumstances of Wen’s interactions with diviners as well as his attitude and standpoint regarding fate. First of all, he certainly did not interact with these practitioners to alter his own fate; that is, he did not use their services to try to obtain scholarly fame in the imperial examination or attain rank 66 67 68 69

See Liao Hsien-huei, “Exploring Weal and Woe.” See Liu Hsiang-kwang, “Songdai fengshui wenhua de kuozhan.” See Liao Hsien-huei, “Tiyan xiaodao.” If we include items presented to monks and Daoist priests, the number exceeds fifty, constituting about one-fifth of Wen’s early writings; see Chang Kung-chien, Wen Tianxiang shengping ji qi shici yanjiu, 114.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

315

in government service. In poems presented as gifts he repeatedly expressed the idea that he was not interested in pursuing fame and fortune. For example, when fortune-teller Lüqiu 閭丘 predicted that he would achieve prosperity as soon as he encountered water (遇水則發), Wen said in a presentation poem that he did not seek to prosper, and that what he yearned for instead was a life of seclusion and traveling.70 And after the physiognomy fortune-teller Liu Aibo 劉矮跛 had foretold Wen’s fate by reading his facial features, Wen wrote in a poem that continual change was always possible through scholarly endeavor, and he himself would not be influenced by the predictions of such practitioners.71 Similar responses appear in his writings presented to other practitioners: “Please swear not to speak lightly of fortune and calamity” (矢口莫輕談禍福);72 “There is no need to conjecture about the future, I attribute my self-preservation to Heaven” (未來不必更臆度，我自存我謂之天);73 “Do not try to convince me of a prosperous future with that divination book in your pocket. Thoroughly cleanse yourself of that old learning and read the Confucian classics instead” (袖中莫出將相圖，盡洗舊學讀吾書);74 and “With only a straw cape and leaf hat I stand fishing on a rocky cliff. I have realized that the myriad affairs are as transient as a passing cloud” (我方簑笠立釣磯，萬事浮雲都勘 破).75 Wen’s lack of interest in probing and pursuing his own fate is not difficult to corroborate in his studies and the course of his official career. Because he succeeded on the first try at the age of twenty-one, he did not undergo a long and exhausting period of studying for the imperial examination, and thus he did not desire numerous divinations to help him pry into and manipulate success or failure in that endeavor. With regard to his government career, Wen candidly petitioned the emperor several times; to remedy political conduct, he urged the emperor to immediately behead the pampered court eunuch Dong Songchen 董宋臣, who was abusing his authority to the detriment of the state.76 He was also dismissed once or twice from office due to defiance of the then powerful minister Jia Sidao 賈似道 (1213–1275), who was likewise abusing his 70 See WSXSQJ, 1:7. 71 See ibid., 1:8. 72 Ibid., 1:11. 73 WSXSQJ, 1:13. 74 Ibid., 1:11. 75 WSXSQJ, 2:50. 76 See WSXSQJ, 3:73–86, 86–90; Songshi, 418:12533–12540. He made his first petition against Dong Songchen at the age of twenty-four, when he had just finished mourning for his father, and the second one at the age of twenty-eight after Dong had been reinstated.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

316

Liao

authority.77 From early on, Wen thus showed little regard for his career prospects or for life and death, and consequently he would not have consulted a diviner with the aim of making his official career go smoothly. Wen’s many interactions with mantic practitioners and his presentation of original poetry and literature to them was not a matter of whether his own fortune would be good or bad or his status high or low. Instead, more complicated factors were involved. First of all, his own intellectual background and interests contributed to his frequent visits by mantic practitioners. His knowledge of geomancy and divination acquired in childhood, his perception of its usefulness as demonstrated by his father and maternal grandfather, as well as his continuing interest in such knowledge and practices after he grew up all made him a person mantic practitioners liked to visit. Also, according to scholarly research, the most frequent period of his contact with such practitioners was from the age of 20 to 40, a time alternating between official service and dismissal.78 One reason a scholar might have been most inclined to seek out a fortune-teller was when his official career was not going well. Thus, many practitioners may have tried to demonstrate their skill to Wen in the hope of payment. After he resigned, Wen roamed among scenic landscapes and started building a residence in Wenshan. The time he now had on his hands allowed him to personally experience geomancy and all sorts of forbidden subjects; this would have provided another good opportunity for diviners to come and demonstrate their skill and sell their services. Finally, Wen’s rank as top scorer in the imperial examination, his succession of posts at the center of authority, and his distinguished record of service as a local official also gave the writings he presented to people extraordinary social value, so of course quite a few people who visited him asked for the gift of an item of poetry. Besides giving mantic practitioners literary gifts either out of friendship or sympathy, Wen also showed an active personal interest in quite a few geomancers and diviners; indeed, he took the initiative to engage in investigation, cooperation, and debate with them. For example, his interaction with the geomancer Huang Huanfu involved two aspects: discussion of geomantic theory and exploration of actual terrain. In his discussions with Huang, Wen discovered that his previous understanding of geomancy and terrain was in fact wrong; consequently, he came to understand the true essence of observing topography and the logic behind it:

77 See WSXSQJ, 3:92–93, 4:131–132; Songshi, 418:12533–12540. 78 See Chang Kung-chien, Wen Tianxiang shengping ji qi shici yanjiu, 114–116.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

317

Having closely associated with [Huang] Huanfu and frequently discussed and debated with him, I realized that what he had in his mind was very different from others. […] frequently, Huanfu and I used to travel together up and down the elevated border paths separating the fields. Whenever I was moved and amazed, and considered something unique and magnificent, he disdained to even cast a look at it. What appeared insipid and flat to me, he praised profusely. At first, I was very astonished. After a long time, I was convinced that his words amounted to wisdom. Roughly speaking, Huanfu’s technique deemed the layers of folds found in mountain ranges to be weak for their rapidness. [He asserted that] the short­coming of plains and open fields lay in their dissipation. Observe their changes and examine their combinations; in terms of atmosphere choose tranquility, and in terms of natural features choose harmony. [The selection of auspicious] locales lies in this. 煥甫遊從日以密，講辨日以多，今也而後探其胸中之所存，果有大異 乎時人者。[…] 煥甫常與予上下阡隴，凡予動心駭目，以為奇詭雄 特，轍掉頭不謂然。至淡然平夷，漫不起人意，往往稱不容口。予甚 訝之，久而服其為名言也。大概煥甫之術，以為崇岡復嶺，則傷於 急。平原曠野，則病於散。觀其變化，審其融結，意則取其靜，勢則 取其和，地在是矣。79

Wen’s prior knowledge of the subject may have come from written texts or perhaps from what his maternal grandfather told him; however, in actual observation of terrain, it proved inadequate and contradictory. Understanding how shallow and inadequate his comprehension was in this regard, Wen sighed about how difficult it was to reach a state of geomantic excellence. He added: “I have been cheated by geomancers countless times.” (予為山人所欺者，多 矣).80 In talking with Huang, his goal was not to obtain geomantically auspicious land in order to bless his posterity, but rather to satisfy his own inquisitiveness to probe the mysteries of nature: “If I could convince Huanfu to settle down for one year, he would certainly be able to discover the treasures of the universe. Meanwhile, his discoveries would fully content me.” (使煥甫安居 一年，必能時發天地之藏，以使予欣然而不厭).81 Wen’s interest in investigating the mechanism of disaster vs. happiness by far exceeded his concern about his own fate. We find this expressed in a dialogue he had with Yang Dianfeng, a well-known teller of fortunes in the capital 79 80 81

WSXSQJ, 9:328–329. Ibid., 9:328. Ibid., 9:329.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

318

Liao

whose technique was to analyze the components of a written character.82 In contrast to ordinary scholars, who sought out practitioners in order to peek into their own fate, Wen contacted this brilliantly effective practitioner out of skepticism and inquisitiveness. He also tried Yang’s character analysis technique for many years. Even though Yang’s observations all proved true, Wen did not rashly become a believer, nor did he entrust his own fate to such predictions. On the contrary, he cited Confucian prediction theory to call into question the prediction methods used by such practitioners. According to Wen, the Confucian classics also mentioned that “foreknowledge” was pos­ sible. As for making predictions based on analyzing Chinese characters, he believed that the mind is reflected in written Chinese characters through what the hand conveys; so one can indeed see in a person’s handwriting his inborn character, his personal integrity, and whether he is rich and honored or poor and lowly. But Wen doubted that it was possible for a practitioner to base the foretelling of disaster or happiness in store for a person based on a single Chinese character he wrote at random. Such a prediction could not come true unless a supernatural being were manipulating the brush. Wen’s doubts about the capacities of the practitioner Yang Dianfeng together with Wen’s own tests and inquiries show that his curiosity about fortune-telling was aimed at understanding the principle behind it and learning how that principle compared with the principles of Confucian doctrine. Wen posed questions to Yang Dianfeng in part because he was esteemed by many scholarly officials, but also because he was someone Wen could exchange ideas and theorize with: That is not the case. Every prognostication of fortune and calamity in the world is derived solely from movement. Kangjie [Shao Yong] could not explore [the principle underlying] the flourishing and withering of trees through their stillness. A single leaf falls and gives rise to methods of prediction. People have witnessed falling leaves countless times, but few knew of the great transformation manifest in this insignificantly small thing. Your observation of a character is based on the mind [of the person who wrote it]; mine is based on the movement of the mind [of the one who wrote it]. I obtained this method from an eccentric being who admonished me not to talk about it. Why don’t you go back and think about it. 未也，天下禍福之占，於其動而已。木之榮枯，康節不能索之於其 静。一葉之墜，算法生焉。世人見墜葉多矣，誰知大化，寄此眇末。 82

See ibid., 9:329–330.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

319

子之觀字也，於其心，某之觀字也，於其心之動。是法也，得之異 人。異人誡勿言，君退思之[…] 。83

Even though Yang was admonished not to disclose this knowledge indiscriminately, it can be seen from his brief and reserved answers that his ability to understand and his expertise in this knowledge was not viewed as inferior to the knowledge of intellectuals of his time. In their dialogue, Yang grasped the crux of the questions Wen posed, and sensed his misgivings. Wen believed that a skilled practitioner could foretell the future by examining Chinese characters mainly because the characters came from the “mind.” In contrast, practitioner Yang indicated clearly that the principle of fortune-telling by character analysis was to grasp the movement of the mind, because the marvelous myriad of changes in the universe are also manifested in movement, and therefore it is through movement that one should peer into the mind and the world. Also, by referring to the thinking of the well-known Northern Song Confucian philosopher Shao Yong 邵雍 (posthumous name Kangjie 康節; 1012–1077), Yang ingeniously used Confucian theory to respond to Wen’s Confucian inquiries, explaining that the wonder of change is all accumulated in movement.84 Those words, and his recommendation that Wen “withdraw and think about it,” left the latter without a complete understanding, yet unable to rashly try to refute Yang’s response. In the face of Yang’s explanation, Wen could only attribute fortune-telling through character analysis to something the Confucian sages of the past acknowledged yet did not discuss; and he no longer questioned its validity simply because it differed from Confucian doctrine. On other topics, however, Wen held fast to a Confucian standpoint and vigorously challenged the mantic practitioners’ line of reasoning. For example, when discussing the subject of deducing fate, he and Peng Shuying, who had an intellectual background, opposed each other with equal harshness.85 Peng used astrological inferences, pointing out that Wen’s strong stars were in the majority and that in the future he would take upon himself heavy responsibility for the state. Wen did not agree. His teacher Ouyang also had an opinion about this and even used the mantic theory of sanming 三命 (three different kinds of fate)86 to argue with Peng. Wen believed that such a theory was only 83 84

WSXSQJ, 9:329–330. For further details of Shao Yong’s use of motion and stillness in discussing the shape and changes of the universe and all living things in it, see his, Huangji jingshi shu, 11:1a–2b. For his concept of foreknowledge, see Birdwhistell, “The Philosophical Concept.” 85 See WSXSQJ, 9:321–322. 86 In Wang Chong’s 王充 (27–97) theory, the three types of ming include zhengming 正命, inborn fate that is not dependent on actions; suiming 隨命, good or bad fortune that does

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

320

Liao

applicable to people such as Xiang Ji 項籍 (232–202 b.c.), Guan Yu 關羽 (160 or 162–220), Gao Ang 高昂 (491–538), and Han Qinhu 韓擒虎 (538–592), but could not be used to explain all famous generals. Although in the mingling of yin-yang material forces that gives birth to the myriad of things, human nature mainly comes in two categories: strong and weak; thus, he believed change was possible. The opportunity for change lies in scholarly endeavor; that is, by studying hard and unflaggingly, an individual could change his temperament, his personality. If fate was completely preordained by Heaven, then the revered sages need not have written so many books on human nature. Finally, Wen used himself as an example: Aware of his inherent unyielding nature, and consequently always being prudent and fearful and working hard at cultivation so as to avoid evil, he, of course, firmly believed that change was possible. Wen debated with Peng because he did not agree with his method of deduction and logic, but also, as Wen’s writings clearly point out, because Peng’s background was Confucian. On one occasion, he described him as a xiucai 秀 才, which was at that time the generic term for someone who sat the imperial examination; on another occasion, he called him ruzhe 儒者, indicating all the more clearly that Peng was a Confucian. Moreover, Peng’s ability as a Confucian scholar is shown in his brief and incisive defenses. He is able to understand Wen’s points clearly and responds precisely to the crux of the matter. His answers leave Wen with no advantage whatsoever in an argument: I am talking about destiny while you are talking about nature. Destiny, which is what I have been explaining to you, is not false. Scholars of course have their respective wishes and I would like to hear yours. Please turn to Xunzhai [Ouyang Shoudao] for a judgment. 予言命，君言性。命之矣，抑予所以為君言者，自謂不誣。士固各有 志，子之志，願聞所向，請轉與巽齋直之。87

Peng hit the nail on the head by pointing out that the differences between them stemmed from their different focal points: Peng was speaking of “fate” while Wen was speaking of “nature.” Speaking on the level of “fate,” what he

87

follow upon human actions; and zaoming 遭命, good or bad fortune which actually runs counter to good and bad deeds; see Wang Chong, “Lunheng” jiaoshi, 46–49. From the Tang-Song periods on, sanming also indicates the prevalent divination methods based on a person’s year, month, date, and hour of birth. See, for example, Luolu zi, Sanming zhimi fu, and Xu Ziping, Songben zhushu Luolu zi sanming xiaoxi fu. WSXSQJ, 9:321–322.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

321

said was all true. Possibly because he could find no suitable grounds on which to refute what Peng stood for, Wen finally concluded that his own aspirations were not something that Peng could foresee, and he quickly ended that debate. But that was certainly not the end of the story, because Wen still wanted to validate his own standpoint and refute Peng’s line of reasoning. So in an epilogue he subsequently sent to Peng, Wen continued to present his unfinished argument. This time, he no longer mixed a discussion of “nature” with one of “fate” but concentrated on the latter topic in his detailed exposition: Fate is in command. When worldly affairs reach a point of inevitability, as if Heaven is actually causing me to implement them, this is the meaning of being in command, which is natural fate. Ever since antiquity, those loyal officials and determined scholars who accomplished great achievements in their time often did so unexpectedly, and when measured against their entire lives, [such achievements] exceeded their wildest dream. […] It is neither appropriate for scholar-officials to enjoy talking about warfare, nor to avoid discussing it. […] Therefore, scholar-officials should not treat [warfare] either as a taboo or as a preference. What they should do is commit themselves to, and obey the commands of, the monarch. Since the command of the monarch is the command of Heaven, one should obey them conscientiously. 命者，令也。天下之事，至於不得不然，若天實使我為之，此之謂 令，而自然之命也。自古忠臣志士，立大功業於當世，往往適相解 后，而計其平生，有非夢想所及。[…] 士大夫喜言兵，非也，諱言 兵，亦非也。[…] 是故士大夫不當以為諱，亦不當以為喜，委贄於 君，惟君命所使。君命即天命，惟無所茍而已[…] 。88

Obviously the focus of the epilogue was “Fate is in command” and that was what Wen wanted to discuss in detail. It was common understanding among Confucian scholars that an individual’s fate was only determined by Heaven.89 Matters over which Heaven directs control are “ling,” natural fate that cannot change. Whether in life one will meet with a military disaster, and whether or not as a consequence one will win success and recognition, is all decided by Heaven, and no individual can pursue or evade it. A scholar-official must not “enjoy talking about warfare” for the sake of success and fame, nor should he 88 89

WSXSQJ, 10:349–350. For related discussions, see Puett, “Following the Commands of Heaven”; Raphals, “Languages of Fate.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

322

Liao

“avoid discussing” it in order to escape a fatal disaster. In all things, he must obey the command of the monarch, because the command of the monarch is the mandate of Heaven. What distinguishes the refutation in Wen’s epilogue from what he wrote earlier? In the earlier text, he attempted to refute what Peng said about predestination by asserting that one’s fate in life could be changed through scholarly endeavor. When Peng replied citing the difference between “nature” and “fate,” Wen’s argument lost its point of focus. So in the epilogue he changed tack and started out anew with an appreciation that “Fate is in command,” acknowledging that many things are indeed decided by Heaven and human effort can do nothing to change them. But he also stressed that fate as decided by Heaven was not foretold fate as astrological diviners like Peng said. There were two reasons, one involving the question of what principle underlies the prediction mechanism of astrological diviners, and the other involving the question of the essential nature of the mandate of Heaven.90 An astrologer reads a person’s fate by looking at aspects of celestial bodies at the time of the person’s birth. In Wen’s view, such a method does not conform to logic and lacks any reasoning. He believed that because the constellations in the sky are in constant motion, and on the ground people are being born all the time, it is inevitable that the game of life will often go the same way for some people, but one cannot therefore infer that they will all succeed in their undertakings. Also, whether an individual prospers or fails affects only that individual. There is no point in treating an individual’s achievements unconditionally as a crucial point affecting the safety or danger of the world. A second reason why Wen opposed Peng’s reading of fate from aspects of celestial bodies at the time of a person’s birth concerned questions about the nature of the mandate of Heaven. Wen pointed out that what the Confucian sages meant by ming in “Understanding ming, awaiting ming, establishing ming” was the mandate of Heaven; that is, “What should be according to the principle of Heaven” (天理之當然者). However, this is outside the scope of what Warring States period astrological diviners such as Gan De 甘德 and Shi Shen 石申 would have understood. Peng, who predicted fate based on astrological theory, of course had no grasp of the details of the theory.91 Wen used the epilogue to summarize the entire course of the debate. He criticized Peng for being a Confucian who was not following the Confucian view of fate and instead was adhering to what astrological diviners said. What is more, he wanted to let Ouyang know the content of this round of the debate, and join in. 90 See WSXSQJ, 10:349–350. 91 See WSXSQJ, 10:349–350.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

323

Overall, Wen and Ouyang were both critical of Peng’s astrological method. Their criticism was based on both the mantic practitioners’ sanming theory and the Confucian ideal of scholarly endeavor and “mandate of Heaven” theory. Judging by its external components, the Confucian view of fate seems to dominate Wen’s argument. But that does not mean that he considered Confucian knowledge underlying the mantic arts as antithetical. On the contrary, Ouyang as well as Wen had dabbled in both knowledge systems. What they were deliberately criticizing was astrological methods, but not all predictive arts. Wen actively supported Confucianism’s mandate of Heaven theory and rejected the idea that this mandate could be foretold by means of the astronomic calendar; nevertheless he remained interested in why the mandate of Heaven was as it was and whether or not there was a way to know it in advance.92 Wen’s interest in discussing fate was stimulated by that inquisitiveness. Through contact and interaction with experts in different techniques of fortune-telling, he continually searched for channels by which he might infer disaster and happiness and glimpse signs of creation. He had already made that motivation known in his dialogue with the character analysis practitioner Yang Dianfeng, but he obviously did not find a satisfactory solution. In his refutation of Peng Shuying, he clearly rejected the idea that astrology is capable of making visible traces of creation. He indicates that he found one book most satisfying. This was Baigu shanren michuan shu 白顧山人秘傳書 [Secretly Transmitted Book by Diviner Bai Gu] owned by fortune-teller Zhu Dounan.93 Wen admired this book so much because, in contrast to the many other books on the subject of fate he possessed, it provided him with an accurate method of prediction. In an item of commemorative prose presented to Zhu, Wen not only again denied the effectiveness of prediction by way of the astrological calendar, he also criticized sanming theory which he thought was too general and incapable of accurately inferring what an individual’s future held. While a (now-extant) mantic book entitled Taiyi tongji 太乙統紀 [Complete Records of the Supreme Unity] received his praise, Wen still hoped to be able to find some other books about fate to corroborate what it said. The appearance of Baigu shanren michuan shu was a very pleasant surprise for Wen because it displayed a meticulous grasp of the fate of the individual in terms of the criss-crossing 92 Confucius professed “at fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven” (五十而知天命), but he did not explain how the mandate of Heaven works or how to find out about it. This led to different interpretations by people who came after him, among them the Japanese Tokugawa Confucians; see Huang Chun-chieh, Dechuan riben “Lunyu” quanshi shilun, 261–304. 93 See WSXSQJ, 9:326.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

324

Liao

relationships between the ten heavenly stems, the twelve earthly branches, and the five phases. Not only did the book corroborate the Taiyi tongji, it could even greatly reduce the prediction error rate from twenty to thirty per cent to two or three per cent. Wen was extremely pleased with that degree of accuracy. The above discussion shows that although Confucianism and the mantic arts had different views on fate, in actual daily life quite a few scholars followed both knowledge systems. Differentiating and demarcating their public and private spheres, they allowed the two systems to coexist in their lives. Some people used actual functions to rationalize their practice of the mantic arts and to stress the necessity of its existence. Others started out from a Confucian view and incorporated mantic knowledge into the scope of their exploration and practice; Wen was in that category. He always bore in mind the Confucian viewpoint when looking at the fate of the state and of the individual. But that certainly did not deter him from contact and interaction with mantic practitioners and their arts. And as long as he did not attempt to pry into or manipulate his own fate, there was no conflict with what a Confucian saw as fate determined by Heaven. Wen even increased his understanding of the Confucian concept of fate by considering the principles of prediction in quite different knowledge systems and their methods of comprehending the mandate of Heaven and catching a glimpse of traces of creation. When faced with difficult methods of prediction, he worked hard to understand them and posed questions directly to those who practiced them. When encountering an irrational predictive art, he would argue with practitioners and criticize the theory. And when discovering a book on fate which could help him peek at mechanisms of creation, he felt as excited as if he had found a treasure. In Wen’s life, the two knowledge systems of Confucianism and the mantic arts were certainly not as incompatible as fire and water. The two systems occasionally overlapped, occasionally blended together, and occasionally explored each other. That same situation can be found in the case of Wen’s father and among his teachers and friends—a fact that should make us more cautious about the extent to which Confucianism dominated the lives of scholars in their times. 4

Concepts of Fate in Practice

Wen believed that everything in the world is controlled by Heaven, and he used the Confucian concept of the mandate of Heaven to explain developments in the state of the nation and the things his friends and relatives encountered. But what about his own life—did he display the same attitude

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

325

when, for example, reflecting on setbacks in his official career or threats to his life? In the course of his career as an official, Wen was dismissed from office twice due to impeachment by the censors. The first period was from the first to the third year of the Xianchun 咸淳 reign (1265–1267, that is, when he was thirty to thirty-two years old); the second period was from the latter half of the sixth year until the beginning of the ninth year of that reign (1270–1273, when he was age thirty-five to thirty-eight). During both periods of dismissal he chose to return to his native place, where he devoted himself to appreciating the wilds of the mountain forests. During his first period of dismissal he began settling in his native place, Wenshan. During the second period he built his own residence there and henceforth, albeit temporarily, enjoyed a life of seclusion, paying no attention to the affairs of the world. What made him feel so contented was that he could frequently get together with friends for dinner or visit scenic locations. His description of this life of seclusion clearly shows how happy he was with it and how he wished he could spend the rest of his life that way.94 Wen’s attitude toward his predicament was completely in line with what he expressed in the poem he gave to Zhuo Deqing noted above. He commend­ed Zhuo for not bearing a grudge over leaving office for seven years because he was slandered, for being content with a life of seclusion, and even preparing his own burial. Wen saw this attitude as expressive of an ability to see beyond the issue of life or death and defer to the mandate of Heaven. When he faced a similar predicament, he coped with it in the same manner, proving that he did not see the Confucian concept of fate as just an idea; he put that idea into practice. At the juncture of life and death, Wen brought the Confucian view of the mandate of Heaven all the more vividly into play. In Zhinan lu 指南錄 [Guide­ book]95 he recorded in detail how in the first month of the second year of the Deyou 德祐 reign (1276), he received an imperial order to go to the Mongol camp to negotiate. He was detained in the Mongol camp until he finally succeeded in escaping back to Wenzhou 溫州 (present Zhejiang). During that episode his life was in danger, and his description shows his attitude toward death. According to what is recorded in the postscript to the Zhinan lu, Wen faced eighteen death threats in less than three months. For instance, when he argued with the enemy commander-in-chief, he lashed out at him and cursed him in a rage, which might have resulted in his execution. He planned to commit suicide on several occasions, and he could have been hunted down and 94 See WSXSQJ, 16:605; 17:619–620, 622; 6:179. 95 For analyses of this work, see Jay, “Memoirs and Official Accounts”; and Brown, Wen T’ienhsiang, 10, 16–17.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

326

Liao

killed while fleeing by either the enemy army or the Song army.96 Wen summarized his attitude in the face of the threat of death as follows: “Life and death are affairs [as natural as] day and night” (死生，晝夜事也).97 That attitude was clearly influenced by his maternal grandfather Zeng Jue, who had said the same thing to Wen when facing his own demise. This attitude of not trying to evade life and death but daring to obey the law of Heaven also reflects the influence that Zhang Zai’s Ximing had on Wen. He made it clear that he hoped in the record he kept while in flight, that later generations would recognize his utmost concern for the nation’s distress and his inability to satisfy both loyalty and filial piety in every thrilling scene. The postscript to Zhinan lu was written by Wen after that experience, and in the commemorative prose he reveals his attitude in hindsight.98 From the various chapters of Zhinan lu one can see in detail Wen’s reaction to each of the death threats. One characteristic reaction was having no fear of life or death (死生畏無). Because Wen firmly believed that life and death were arranged by Heaven and were beyond individual control, he advanced bravely, leaving the decision over life and death for Heaven to make. For example, when fleeing the enemy camp, he knew the Southern Song general in command of the Yangzhou 揚州 garrison would be skeptical about his loyalty and dependability and would want to kill him,99 but Wen nevertheless decided to go there in the hope of discussing with him a general plan to restore the state. Besides his eagerness to save the nation, his firm belief that Heaven decides fate was another reason behind that decision: “Entrusting my life to Heaven, I simply made my way to Yangzhou” (予委命於天，只往揚州);100 “[I] will head for Yangzhou no matter what. I trust [Heaven’s] command!” (只往揚州，莫管。信命去!);101 “Whether [I] live or die will be determined within the walls of Yangzhou” (生則生，死則 死，決於揚州城下).102 The several times he faced pursuit and capture by enemy sentries, Wen indicated that “Heaven” would be the judge about whether he lived or died: “In both life and death [I] submit to the will of Heaven” (聽生死於天矣);103 “[I] entrust [my] life and death to Heaven’s design” 96 See WSXSQJ, 13:436–438. 97 Ibid., 13:437. 98 According to Wen’s account, it was written the month after he returned from this adventure, which would be May of the first year of the reign of Duanzong Jingyan, 1276. 99 Li Tingzhi 李庭芝, a fellow loyalist, was ensconced at Yangzhou at that time. On his role in the late Southern Song, see Jay, A Change in Dynasties, 115–118. 100 WSXSQJ, 13:461. 101 Ibid., 13:462. 102 Ibid., 13:462. 103 Ibid., 13:466.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

327

(生死信天緣).104 After having dodged death, he wholeheartedly thanked Heaven for its assistance: “Wasn’t it because of [the will of] Heaven that [I] survived the war?” (其不死於兵，豈非天哉?);105 “Is it possible that Heaven’s will was also operating therein?” (豈亦有天意行乎其間?).106 It is worth noting that in Wen’s eyes, “Heaven” was not just the abstract Confucian heavenly principles, “Heaven” could also appear in the form of a supernatural entity. Thus, in his literary works of gratitude, Wen’s “Heaven” appears in various manifestations: “It was as if divine merits came to help [me] out of danger” (若有神功來救助);107 “[I] suspected that gods were giving secret support” (疑有神明相之);108 “It was as if the Buddha had descended” (如佛下 降);109 “[I wondered] if it was the gods who dispatched you” (莫是神明遣汝 否),110 etc. Wen thanked Heaven several times for helping him avoid death, and that gratitude shows his understanding of death. Though he did not fear death, he gave it particular consideration. In contrast to ordinary people, what he dreaded was not “death” itself, it was that there was no way to die a worthy death (所其得死). When he fled in panic to Gaosha 高沙 (present Jiangsu), he soon recovered from the shock but was worried about meeting with disaster in the wilderness. He hoped to die heroically for his country, and not without rhyme or reason in some wilderness, unnoticed by anyone: “Who will know if I throw myself upon the wilds” (委骨草莽誰復知).111 Wen expressed his longing for dying a worthy death several times during his interactions with the Mongol army. When the enemy detained him, took him north, and imprisoned him in the Mongol capital Dadu 大都 (Beijing), he carefully considered the time and place of his suicide. During his trip north as a prisoner, he was constantly hoping to find an opportunity to commit suicide before crossing the border of the Southern Song territory. But things turned out contrary to his wishes when the poison he took failed to accomplish its goal.112 Later, as he passed by his native place Luling, he chose suicide by hun104 Ibid., 13:471. 105 Ibid., 13:463. 106 Ibid., 13:468. 107 Ibid., 13:467. 108 Ibid., 13:470. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid., 13:478. Wen seems also to endorse the Daoist fate-deciding deity Yuan Huang 元皇; see WSXSQJ, 9:294. For his association with Daoism, see Zhang Songhui, “Wen Tianxiang yü daojiao.” 111 WSXSQJ, 13:472. 112 See WSXSQJ, 14:493–494; 16:579; 17:636.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

328

Liao

ger strike to demonstrate his loyalty and dependability as well as his desire that his remains be returned to his native place for burial, but that plan did not succeed either. Ultimately, considering that throwing himself into a desolate river (委身荒江) would not demonstrate his integrity and thus would not serve his goal of dying as a heroic martyr, he did not attempt suicide again during the course of being sent northward.113 From his behavior thereafter, we can see that for him to attempt to express his loyalty to his country in front of the Mongol ruler and his ministers tallies with his expectation of dying a worthy death. From conducting negotiations under imperial orders to imprisonment in Dadu, Wen considered a third response, which was to deliberately seek death by the hands of the enemy. To die unyieldingly while menaced by the Yuan court was not just dying a worthy death, it also made it possible for his name to go down in history, famed for dying for his country. Before going to the northern camp to negotiate, he had sworn an oath to die if necessary, so he was able to denounce his adversary for breaking his promise and to list the charges against him.114 While a prisoner in Dadu, he repeatedly made it clear that as a prime minister of the Song dynasty, he ought to die along with his country, and since the country was defeated and he was under arrest, nothing more needed to be said but the order for execution. His mind was made up, and he was not going to change it because of some action by his adversary. He described that persistence as being like the nature of ginger and cinnamon, the older the spicier; or like metal and stone, the older the harder.115 His persistence went on for three years, and finally the Yuan court gave him the beheading he wished for. In his poems and other writings from the time of his captivity, Wen repeatedly expressed the longing to die for his country: “[I will] sacrifice myself for the Way rather than live a life of degradation” (以身殉道不苟生);116 “Since I pitied myself for not having died early, how could I again expect to return alive?” (自憐今死晚，何復望生還);117 “While this life seems better than not having been born at all, how can I cope with not dying in spite of my desire to do so?” (雖生得似無生好，欲死其如不死何);118 “Attaining death resembles advancing to the rank of immortality” (得死似登仙).119 When looking forward to 113 See WSXSQJ, 14:493–494; 15:539–540; 16:580, 581. 114 See WSXSQJ, 16:570–571. 115 See WSXSQJ, 17:641–643; 16:571; 16:584. 116 WSXSQJ, 14:488–489. 117 Ibid.,14:502. 118 Ibid.,14:520–521. 119 WSXSQJ, 15:551.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

329

dying for his country, Wen also prepared well to face the end of his life. Not long after he was locked up in Dadu, he wrote a final letter before death.120 Because his two sons had both died young in the turmoil of those times, he had taken his brother’s son Wen Sheng 文陞 as a stepson who would light incense for him in their ancestral hall.121 Anticipating the arrival of his death, he began writing his farewell words to his family.122 When the Yuan court issued the order to behead him, Wen displayed a fourth reaction to death; namely, cheerful acceptance. In his last testament he says he is a prisoner of war from a defeated army and ought to have died for his country long ago. A beheading at the hands of the Yuan court appears to him as an opportunity bestowed upon him by Heaven to achieve Confucius’s principle of “dying for a righteous cause” (成仁取義) and also as something to be sought in earnest after intensive reading of the Classics of the sages. He says this is the moment to show Heaven and Earth that his conscience is clear.123 Those few brief lines of text demonstrate that he is looking forward to death and imparts meaning to death. For him, death frees his physical body and the spirit from suffering, the proper outcome reflective of Confucian doctrine. He reveals no fear, nor any reluctance to part with this world. When Wen finally faced execution, was his viewpoint the same as when he wrote his farewell letter? Corroboration that it was the same can be obtained from a description by Deng Guangjian 鄧光薦 (1232–1303), a close friend from the same place of origin who shared Wen’s trials and tribulations and was appointed by Wen to compose his epitaph.124 Deng described three actions that attest to Wen’s frame of mind and determination as he faced execution. When an envoy arrived to announce that it was time to go to the execution site, Wen “cheerfully” replied, “My work is finished” (吾事了矣). As he departed for the execution site, he remained composed. When he arrived at the execution site, he asked which direction was south, then bowed respectfully in that direction, and said, “Here ends my service to my country” (臣報國至此矣)125; after this, he calmly accepted the penalty. When he faced death, then, Wen was not in the least nervous, afraid, hesitant, or defiant. His patriotic sentiment and conviction that fate was in Heaven’s hands enabled him to see through death 120 Ibid. 121 See WSXSQJ, 17:646–647; 18:653. 122 See WSXSQJ, 17:644–647; 18:653. 123 See WSXSQJ, 17:647. 124 Wen did so because he felt that Deng Guangjian “entirely knew [his] mind and intent” (具知吾心事); ibid. On Deng, see Jay, A Change in Dynasties, 64. 125 WSXSQJ, 17:649.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

330

Liao

and face it with dignity and a clear conscience toward Heaven and Earth. It is apparent that his conviction did not change, whether he was in easy and comfortable circumstances or in peril and turmoil. Wen’s philosophical persistence and his habitual way of handling matters are also manifest in his contacts with and study of the mantic arts. Already during his youth he encountered quite a few texts on the mantic arts and settings in which to apply them. That cursory contact and understanding sparked his later interest in the mantic arts and caused him to engage in some practice of them. But he did not blindly accept the related knowledge and techniques. Instead, he both supported and criticized the mantic arts, and the standards by which he criticized them were both theoretical analysis and proof in action. With regard to geomancers or diviners whom everyone endorsed, he would observe them carefully and verify things for himself. He would even seek the advice of those practitioners, or argue with them, so as to understand the degree of credibility of their techniques and their theoretical foundation. In that process, he not only assessed the practitioners’ abilities and the good and bad points of their knowledge of the mantic arts, he also gradually increased his own knowledge in this area—though occasionally he would still lament his own ignorance and inadequacies. Wen’s collected writings record a great deal of study and practice of geomancy, and knowledge and techniques thereby accumulated. The two periods during which he was dismissed from office and returned to his native Jiangxi allowed him to “Look for unusual landscapes in mountains every day” (日在山 間搜奇剔怪),126 that is, explore and practice geomantic theory. At least four items within Wen’s collected writings are poems or other literary works presented to practitioners of geomancy. According to these gift writings, all of his contacts with said practitioners must have taken place during his time out of office. His attitude toward the mantic arts clearly changed according to who he was dealing with and what were the theory and practices of the person in question. In the poem presented to geomancer Wei (Wei Shanren 魏山人), for example, he points out that both taking up an official post and retiring from it into seclusion may be very different from what the world believes these experiences to be like: a staunch and upright official can exit the stage into misery because he provoked Heaven’s anger, whereas someone living in seclusion can enjoy the pleasures of the landscape because of Heaven’s favor. And for that reason he doubted that it was possible to predict whether a site was auspicious or inauspicious for building a house to raise future officials in.127 Apparently, 126 WSXSQJ, 5:149. 127 See WSXSQJ, 1:14.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

331

the practitioner had previously asserted something to that effect, trying to link the fengshui 風水 of the site with the prosperity and decline of the household in obtaining official posts. Such an appeal obviously did not resonate with Wen, who was indifferent to fame and wealth, and so he presented just a brief poem to Wei and raised doubts about geomantic theory in it. The other three items were presented to practitioners who came from the same native place as Wen, and all of them hailed from families with generations of experts in geomancy. Wen interacted with them more closely and the literary gifts he gave them were more substantial; and yet his assessment of the three clearly differed according to their geomantic knowledge and skill. First there was Huang Lin 黃璘, a youthful, vigorous, dauntless practitioner. Wen expected him to work harder if he was to become aware of the minute and subtle points of the geomantic arts.128 His words show that Wen was not urging this young practitioner on solely on the grounds of being an elder from the same homeland; instead, he was acting as an expert in geomantic knowledge guiding a young novice. Li Duanji 黎端吉 was another geomancer who received a literary gift from Wen. Wen expressed lavish praise for him and even said he “regretted that they had not met sooner” (恨相見晚矣).129 What attracted Wen about Li was his understanding of geomantic knowledge, as well as his consummate skill in geomantic observation. According to Wen, Li could within just a short period of time make someone clearly understand a hundred years of changes in human affairs. When observing terrain, Li could quickly memorize every detail of the geomantic position of mountains and rivers as if he had grown up among them. What Wen regretted was that as he was preparing to observe the sites Li had recommended, Li had to leave because of a prior engagement. All Wen could do was present Li with a piece of writing upon his departure, expressing his hope that Li would visit him again.130 However, the practitioner with whom Wen interacted for the longest time and who merited his strongest affirmation was the abovementioned Huang Huanfu. In commemorative prose presented to Huang, Wen mentioned that they had known each other for thirteen or fourteen years131 and that he had 128 See WSXSQJ, 9:329. 129 Ibid., 9:322. 130 See WSXSQJ, 9:322–323. 131 If this literary gift dates from the second period Wen was out of office, then thirteen or fourteen years earlier may have been precisely the time when he was worrying about his father’s funeral arrangements.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

332

Liao

twice given Huang literary gifts. Each time Wen interacted with Huang, he afterwards felt that he had learned something new. One time, the two of them had a lengthier and more concentrated discussion of geomancy and went into the wilds of a mountain forest to observe the terrain there. In the course of the hours they spent there together, Wen discovered that Huang definitely surpassed others in the ability to read mountains, rivers, and other landforms; he also realized how inadequate his own knowledge of geomancy was. According to the text presented to Huang, Wen learned four things from him: first, the selection of a geomantically propitious site takes a lot of time; second, none of the sites identified by previous practitioners were considered geomantically propitious upon inspection by Huang; third, because of his own ignorance, he had been deceived by quite a few of the geomancers who had approached him; and fourth, the only geomancer who truly did not deceive him was Huang.132 We cannot definitely determine the years in which these four literary gifts were written or the order in which Wen wrote them. But from the commemorative prose presented to Huang it can be inferred that it was probably composed after that presented to Li. Wen’s attitude toward both of these practitioners was positive, and there is a certain contradiction in his praise for Huang and his affirmation of Li, a contradiction that stemmed from his own inadequate understanding of geomancy. For example, though Huang taught Wen that the identification of a geomantically propitious site could not be accomplished quickly, it, in fact, took Li very little time to do so. In the commemorative piece to Li, Wen does not mention the theory by which Li selected a site, nor did he observe mountains, river, and other landforms on site together with him. This indicates that the geomancers whom he thought “cheated him countless times” very likely included Li. In any case, Wen’s interactions with practitioners of geomancy were an opportunity to verify the knowledge and skills he had learned and heard about since childhood as well as an opportunity to learn, to continually revise his own ability to understand and to recognize. His motivation did not come from a pursuit of fame and power for himself or good fortune for his progeny. Instead, he sought to verify from theory and from practice the essential properties of that knowledge and the feasibility of putting it to actual use. In his view, geomancy was not just a technique for choosing a plot of land; it was a system of knowledge which encompassed the profundity of the cosmos and of nature. Could Wen ultimately realize within himself the accumulation of geomantic knowledge and the verification in actual practice of his ability to recognize? In his final months and years of turmoil and captivity, he left behind many 132 See WSXSQJ, 9:328–329.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

333

items of poetry and other writing that express his resolution to do so. These items mostly focus on lamenting the misfortune of his family and the nation, and include expressions of his longing to die for his country without qualms. But it is worth noting that despite these urgent matters and the profound influence of Confucian doctrine, Wen did not relegate his concern for the mantic arts to the back of his mind. In his farewell letters to his friends and relatives, he gave particular instructions about where his body was to be buried. Anticipating that it would be difficult to return his skeleton to his native place, in a letter to his maternal uncle he made it clear that he wished at least his hat and clothes to be buried there, in a cenotaph.133 Wen’s emphasis on geomantic knowledge is even more apparent in the farewell letter he wrote to his younger brother Wen Bi 文璧.134 One of the many things Wen entrusted to Wen Bi was the handling of his funeral arrangements, and he made it clear that he did not want his body to be buried in the site his uncle had proposed because it was not a geomantically auspicious. The site his uncle had offered was located in “the hollow at western Tanlu (潭盧之西坑),” which must be classed as flat or lowland terrain. According to the Zangjing 葬 經 [Book of Burial], however, “burials in arid lands should be shallow, whereas burials in lowlands should be deep” (藏於涸燥者宜淺，藏於坦夷者宜深),135 that is, in the circumstances given in Wen’s case, the body should be buried deep in open, flat terrain. But at the site chosen by his uncle, the surface of the earth was shallow, so Wen thought it was not a suitable place to be buried.136 Wen suggested that Wen Bi instead purchase a different site on a nearby hill to serve as his place of burial, and it is likely that he did so because he considered that place geomantically superior. Given that it would prove impossible to bring his bones back to his native place, he suggested that his brother could instead “Call back his spirit and seal it tight” (招魂以封之).137 The letter not only demonstrates Wen’s concern for and knowledge of geomancy, it also shows that sometime previously he must have looked carefully at the site his 133 See WSXSQJ, 18:653. 134 Although we do not learn the content of this letter from Wen’s own account, his letter to his maternal uncle allows some speculation as to what it said. 135 Guo Pu, Guben Zhangjing, 665:1a; Guo Pu, Liu Jiangdong jiacang shanben “Zangshu”, 9a–9b; Guan Luo, Guanshi dili zhimeng, 657:1a. This sentence was sometimes mistakenly transcribed as “Burials in arid lands should be deep, whereas burials in lowlands should be shallow.” According to the Qing scholar Wu Yuanyin’s 吳元音 annotation, it is one of the most unbearable distortions often found in various versions of the Book of Burial. Wu Yuanyin, “Zangjing” jianzhu, fanli 1b–2b; 3a, 10a–10b. 136 See WSXSQJ, 17:646–647. 137 Ibid., 17:647.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

334

Liao

uncle offered him—and he requested another burial site because of the geomantic flaws he discovered in it. Interestingly, in the letter to his uncle, Wen agreed to his place proposal, whereas he instructed his younger brother to buy a different site. Why did Wen not express the same opinion about that plot of land in both letters, especially since they were written as his execution approached? Since there was not much of an interval between the two letters, it is unlikely that he changed his mind at the last minute. Wen’s uncle must have gained a considerable grasp of geomantic selection of sites from instruction by his father Zeng Jue and his uncle Zeng Jin. So the offer he made to Wen must have been the result of some observation and comparison, not of just a casual look. The record Wen left does not provide us with a clear answer, but it does allow some rational conjecture. When his uncle first offered the land, Wen may have felt that it was an auspicious site and therefore said that his bones ought to lie there some day. But as his geomantic knowledge and skills accumulated, he may have gradually discovered the flaws in the site. In his farewell letter, he may have continued to voice agreement with his uncle’s choice of land because he did not want to disappoint him. But when he briefed his younger brother on how his posthumous affairs were actually to be handled, he said straightforwardly that the site’s fengshui was not good, instructing his brother to buy a more suitable plot nearby.138 Wen’s emphasis on the Baigu shanren michuan shu and the way he threw himself into revising that book illustrate his view that in reading fate, stress must be placed on both theory and practice. As we have seen, he believed that the book could effectively compensate for the flaws and omissions in the Taiyi tongji and greatly reduce its rate of error. Nevertheless, to grasp the main points of the Baigu shanren michuan shu requires consulting the Taiyi tongji and applying those two works on fate in concert with each other. This is a difficult task not only because much of the text in the Baigu shanren michuan shu can only be grasped within one’s innermost being, and not be expressed in words, but also because the two works were compiled in completely different styles. 138

His brother Wen Bi finally buried Wen in the open country at Muhu 20 li southeast of Futian (富田東南二十里木湖之原). We cannot determine for certain whether that was the site Wen’s maternal uncle had offered, a site Wen himself had chosen, or still another site selected by the burial master whom Wen Bi engaged, Wang Renshan 王仁山. The two letters quoted above are not very specific about locations and just describe in general “a place in the hollow at western Tanlu” (潭盧之西坑有一地) and “a depression in the hill on its right (其右山上有穴),” making a precise localization impossible. See WSXSQJ, 17:646–647, 647–650.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

335

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

It is for these reasons that Wen decided to revise the two works.139 His goal was to present them to the world in a uniform style of writing in a single person’s hand, so as to resolve their discrepancies and difficulties of understanding and emphasize their complementarities. During the Southern Song period, quite a few Confucian scholars devoted themselves to compiling, editing, and revising books on the mantic arts, but Wen’s project was somewhat different. The average Confucian scholar, when discovering such works in a bookshop, would criticize them either for “recklessly increasing the shallow sayings of mediocre and preposterous men” (被庸謬之流，妄增猥陋之說)140 or for “being heterogeneous” (病其蕪雜).141 With this in mind, the scholar would attempt to “expunge their depraved and absurd sayings” (去其邪誕之說) by abridging and revising them and thus ensure that the public would no longer be “deluded by absurd remarks, nor immersed in heretic doctrines” (不惑於 異說，不溺於他岐).142 The standard by which scholars abridged and revised would often be to conform to “Confucian sayings” (儒家之言)143 or “books that clarify the principle” (明理之書).144 In contrast to such a stand of safeguarding orthodoxy and proper thinking, Wen definitely did not start out from the demands of Confucian education in good manners. Instead, he revised the two works on fate from the angle of affirmation and popu­larization. Why did Wen endorse the Baigu shanren michuan shu like that and exert so much effort on making it more accessible? Besides the high degree of accuracy in that work’s predictions, what other factors prompted Wen to write pieces commemorating it, as well as to re-compile it? A clue may be detected in a preface Wen wrote for Zhu Dounan, who owned a copy of the work. At the very end of that preface, Wen notes: “The cases in which the arrival of Heaven’s command comes from an individual’s momentary speculative insight are innumerable. However, as I have observed, [Zhu] Dounan’s discourse on [Heaven’s] commands is not just unique, but also the best. Therefore, I wrote this preface for him.” (天命之至矣，出於人之所俄度者，不可一言而盡也。 吾所見斗南論命，就其一家。真白眉哉！是為序).145 It has already been mentioned that Wen’s interest in books about fate and in fortune-telling did not lie in concern for his own good or bad fortune or a desire to manipulate it, 139 See WSXSQJ, 9:326. 140 Wu Cheng, Wu wenzheng ji, 23:12a–12b. 141 Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao, 109:2b. 142 Ke Shangqian, “Zhouli” quanjing shiyuan, Zouli tongjing xulu, 17a–17b. 143 Zhu Yizun, Pushu ting ji, 35:14a–15a. 144 Ouyang Shoudao, Xunzhai wenji, 11:6b–8b. 145 WSXSQJ, 9:326.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

336

Liao

but rather in probing the mechanism that controlled good and bad fortune. The conclusion of the preface indicates clearly that that “‘mechanism” is “Heaven.” The profundity of the “mandates of Heaven” cannot be measured by human effort. Uniquely, however, Zhu Dounan’s theory of fate yielded an accuracy of 97–98%, which was excellent for fortune-telling. That was a major reason Wen composed that preface. In other words, in Wen’s mind, there was not necessarily a contradiction or a wide gap between the Confucian view of fate and the theory of fate in the mantic arts. He believed that Confucianism could not clearly state how to know the “mandate of Heaven”; however, an answer could be found by way of the mantic arts, through their theory of fate as well as with their techniques of predicting an individual’s good and bad fortune. Then again, the books on fate which Zhu owned not only allowed Wen to obtain certain answers as he explored the mechanism which controlled fate, but also prompted him to lament: “Can mantic books be abolished” (命書 可廢也耶)? As an impeccably righteous Confucian and faithful official, he allowed the existence of the mantic arts and books on fate to secure substantial approval.146 5 Conclusion Wen was not just a Confucian scholar who was exceptionally accomplished in his studies. He was also one of the small number of loyal officials who were able to display their courage and moral integrity at a time of national disaster. Besides the Confucian classics, a “must-read” for an intellectual, his scholarly interests and achievements were also manifest in his concern for the knowledge and skills of the arts of geomancy and fortune-telling. Ever since the Han dynasty, many Confucian scholars had regarded Confucian doctrine and the mantic arts as learning of different levels. The former was “knowledge” that allowed a person to reach a goal, and it was what a gentleman ought to study. The latter, in contrast, was a kind of “skill”: while of practical value, it was of no help in accomplishing any great undertaking, and a gentleman ought not to devote himself to it. The higher-lower distinction is clear. What is more, Confucian-educated elite and practitioners of the mantic arts, of course, took markedly different stands on the matter of fate. Scholars of Confucianism stressed that Heaven bestows certain gifts on a person that no human effort can change, and that an individual’s resolution should not change in the face of disaster or happiness, honor or disgrace. Those who believed in 146 See WSXSQJ, 9:326. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

337

the mantic arts, on the other hand, believed that by dabbling in geomancy or other mantic techniques, they could exert specific influence not only on the fate of an individual but even on the fate of his family. Wen’s beliefs differed from that accepted wisdom of his day. He did not meticulously differentiate between Confucianism and the mantic arts nor did he consider one to be higher than the other. On the contrary, he absorbed and practiced Confucian doctrine and the mantic arts simultaneously, he thought both were worthy of inclusion in the sphere of knowledge, and he could clearly see intercon­ nections between the two. When his official career suffered a decline and he retired to the countryside, the Confucian idea of complying with the mandates of Heaven enabled him to accept his lot calmly. Observing the mysteries of the natural landscape and studying geomancy enabled him to live a quiet and contented life filled with knowledge and exploration. While continuing to believe in the Confucian theory of the mandate of Heaven and acting according to it, he was still curious to find out what that mandate was. Various theories about fate from the mantic arts provided him with knowledge that could explain fate. Wen’s knowledge and philosophy also found expression in his courageous display of patriotism, death for a righteous cause, awe-inspiring righteousness, and compliance with the mandates of Heaven—all of which were precisely in line with Confucian doctrine. But his attitude toward life and death, the way he understood the mandate of Heaven, and his close attention to how his remains were to be buried all attest to the fact that knowledge systems other than Confucianism also influenced his thinking. The Daoist view of life and death that he had learned from his maternal grandfather enabled him to see the transition from life to death as analogous to day turning to night. His use of the terms “deities,” “miracles,” and “the Buddha” to express “Heaven’s” influence on his fate show that his belief system consisted of a mixture of elements from different religions. In his farewell letters to his relatives and friends, mantic theory impacted heavily on his considerations about the arrangements for his funeral. His rationale in doing so was similar to that expressed by Cheng Yi 程 頤 (1033–1107): “Divining for a tomb site should be aimed at discovering the excellence of the land, not what the yin-yang specialists call fortune or misfortune.”147 In hindsight, it is easy to detect that Wen’s attitudes changed with time. Some contradictions, such as his changing views regarding geomantic evaluation and decisions, he himself was already aware of, and he reflected on 147

卜其宅兆，卜其地之美惡也，非陰陽家所謂禍福者也; Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, Ercheng wenji, 11:4a–5b. However, Wen did not select a site in accordance with Cheng Yi’s method. Cheng recommended a spot of “land that is bright and moist and which has a flourishing growth of plants and trees on it” (土色光潤，草木茂盛) and warned of the “wuhuan 五患” (five problems) one should avoid when picking a burial site. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

338

Liao

them. Other contradictions await further analysis. An example is the question of whether what he encountered in life was the same as what fortune-tellers had predicted. For instance, Peng Shuying had foretold that Wen would “take heavy responsibility for the state upon himself,”148 and yet Wen went to great lengths to deny the validity of astrology, and he criticized the idea of entrusting the prosperity or decline of the world to a single person. In Jinian lu 紀年錄 [The Chronological Record],149 Wen records a past conversation with Jiang Wanli 江萬里 (1198–1275) in which he regrets having taken on heavy responsibility for the state: In the summer of that year [the ninth year of the Xianchun reign, 1273], I met Master Guxin, Jiang Wanli, in Changsha (present Hunan). While discussing the present situation of the state, the Master, with a look of pity on his face, said: “I am old. As I observed the order of nature and the affairs of men, [I knew that] there would be [political] upheaval. Having read countless people, I realized that the responsibility for upholding the morals of the time rests with you.” One year later, when the upheaval occurred and the country fell apart, Changsha fell into enemy hands. Master Guxin drowned himself rather than live with the disgrace [of defeat]. I did my best to prevent the country from falling apart by shedding my blood and living the life of a refugee. However, in the end, as an isolated force, I ended up being defeated by the enemy, and brought no benefit to the world. Whenever I recollect Master Guxin’s words, I shed tears.150 Jiang Wanli was a Confucian scholar for whom Wen had tremendous respect and admiration. In their meeting, Jiang said in effect the same thing Peng Shuying had said, namely that responsibility for the prosperity or decline of their world rested on Wen’s shoulders. Because those words came from a 148 149

150

可為國家當一面者; WSXSQJ, 9:321. The complete title is Song shaobao you chengxiang jian shumi shi xinguo gong wenshan xiansheng jinian lu 宋少保右丞相兼樞密使信國公文山先生紀年錄 [The Chronological Record of Master Wenshan, Lesser Protector, Grand Right Councilor, concurrently Commissioner of Military Affairs and Domain Duke of Xin]. On the content of this work, see Brown, Wen T’ien-hsiang, 19–21. 是年夏（咸淳九年），見古心先生江萬里於長沙。公從容語及國事，憫然 曰：「吾老矣，觀天時人事，當有變。吾閱人多矣，世道之責，其在君 乎！」居一年而難作，公家番昜，城陷。義不辱，自沈而死。予 灑血攘袂， 顛沛驅馳，卒以孤軍陷沒，無益於天下。追念公言，轍為流涕; WSXSQJ, 17:622. It was Jiang who commended Ouyang Shoudao to serve as the headmaster of Bailuzhou Academy.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

339

respected elder, Wen’s initial reaction was not as emotional as it had been with Peng. But when the moment arrived when the country was ruined and people were starving, those words about assuming responsibility for the world certainly made him sigh and weep. Whether or not his assessment of Peng changed as a result, Wen’s ultimate failure in taking responsibility for everything obviously gave rise to guilt and unease that was hard for him to dispel. Wen’s success in the imperial examination and his selfless martyrdom for his country obviously make him stand out from the crowd in the final years of the Song dynasty. However, his interdisciplinary research interests, as we would call them today, and the way he put his eclectic knowledge into practice in everyday life did not make him exceptional. The reason he read so widely (though often cursorily) and put so much effort into verifying what he had learned was that his close relatives, teachers, and friends all shared that same pursuit. For example, his father read extensively and had ample understanding of both Confucianism and the mantic arts; over the course of his life, his maternal grandfather had converted from Buddhism and Daoism to Confucianism. Both of these efforts contributed to Wen’s ability to translate a “broad grasp of knowledge” (botong 博通) into everyday action. Zeng Feng and Ouyang Shoudao not only instructed him in Confucian classical learning; knowledge gained from their research in the mantic arts was also something they frequently exchanged with him. Thus, Wen had considerable practice in how to merge these two schools of philosophy. Wen’s example demonstrates that in the social environment of his day, while Confucianism was a very important part of an intellectual’s life, it did not completely dominate all academic pursuits. As geomancy and fortune-telling began to circulate and gradually flourish in society, they attracted a following among quite a few individuals with aspirations of advancing their status and the prominence of their families in society. Contact between the Confucian elite and mantic practitioners, already quite common in the final years of the Song, contributed to raising the status of the mantic arts; that is, rather than being seen as xiaodao 小道 (minor arts), in which the superior man must not engage, or dismissed as merely an attempt to foresee and manipulate fate, it could be viewed as a subject of serious theoretical research and debate.

Works Cited

Abbreviation SKQS

Jingyin wenyuan ge siku quanshu 景印文淵閣四庫全書 [The Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries]. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1983.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

340

Liao

Sources

Baoyou sinian dengkelu tiyao 寶祐四年登科錄 [A List of the Successful Civil Service Candidates for the Fourth Year of Baoyou]. SKQS vol. 451. Birdwhistell, Anne D. “The Philosophical Concept of Foreknowledge in the Thought of Shao Yung.” Philosophy East and West 39, no. 1 (1989): 47–65. Brown, William Andreas. Wen T’ien-hsiang: A Biographical Study of a Sung Patriot. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center Publication, 1986. Chaffee, John W. The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Chan Shih-you 詹世友. “Yi ‘fatian buxi’ de jingshen guantong lunli yu rensheng 以「法 天不息」的精神貫通倫理與人生 [To Thoroughly Understand Life and Morality through ‘Imitation of Heaven’s Ceaselessness’].” Zhongguo zhexue shi 中國哲學史 [History of Chinese Philosophy], 2002.1: 122–128. Chang Chao-ch’i 張肇祺. “Wen Tianxiang de shengming yu daode xingming 文天祥的 生命與道德性命 [Wen Tianxiang’s Life and Morality].” Wenyi yuekan 文藝月刊 [Literature and Art Monthly] 35 (1972): 53–57. Chang Kung-chien 張公鑑. Wen Tianxiang shengping ji qi shici yanjiu 文天祥生平及其 詩詞研究 [Study on Wen Tianxiang’s Life and Verses]. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1989. Chang Yung-t’ang 張永堂. “Wen Tianxiang yü shushu 文天祥與術數 [Wen Tianxiang and Mantic Arts].” In Di shisi jie guoji yixue dahui lunwen ji 第十四屆國際易學大會 論文集 [The Fourteenth International Conference of Yi-ching Learning: Collection of Conference Papers], edited by Zhonghua minguo yijing xuehui 中華民國易經學會 [The Yi-Jing Association, Republic of China], pp. 437–457. Taipei: Zhonghua minguo yijing xuehui, 1998. Cheng Ch’eng-liang 鄭丞良. “Nan Song Mingzhou xianxian ci yanjiu 南宋明州鄉賢祠 研究 [Study on Local Worthies in Southern Song Ming Prefecture].” Ph.D. thesis. Chinese Culture University, 2008. Cheng Hao 程顥, and Cheng Yi 程頤. Er Cheng wenji 二程文集 [Literary Collection of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi]. SKQS vol. 1345. Cheng Hsiao-chiang 鄭小江. “Lun Wenshan xiansheng zhi shengsi guan yu minzu jingshen 論文山先生之生死觀與民族精神 [On Master Wenshan’s View of Life and National Spirit].” Kongmeng yuekan 孔孟月刊 [Kong-Meng Monthly] 39, no. 1 (2001): 27–31. Davis, Richard L. Wind against the Mountain: The Crisis of Politics and Culture in Thirteenth-Century China. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996. Guan Luo 管輅. Guanshi dili zhimeng 管氏地理指蒙 [Mr. Guan’s Geographical Indicator]. In Qinding Gujin tushu jicheng 欽定古今圖書集成 [Synthesis of Books and Illustrations Past and Present], edited by Chen Menglei 陳夢雷, Bowu huibian 博物彙編 [Category of Science], Yishu dian 藝術典 [Section of Arts], scroll 657. Taipei: Dingwen chuban she, 1985.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

341

Guo Pu 郭璞. Li Jiangdong jiacang shanben “Zangshu” 劉江東家藏善本葬書 [The Rare Edition of the “Book of Burial” in Liu Jiangdong’s Family Collection]. Banqiao: Yiwen yinshu guan, 1966. Guo Pu. Zangshu 葬書 [Book of Burial]. SKQS vol. 808. Guo Pu. Guben “Zangjing” 古本葬經 [The Ancient Edition of the “Book of Burial”]. In Qinding Gujin tushu jicheng 欽定古今圖書集成 [Synthesis of Books and Illustrations Past and Present], edited by Chen Menglei 陳夢雷, Bowu huibian 博物彙編 [Category of Science], Yishu dian 藝術典 [Secotion of Arts], scroll 665. Taipei: Dingwen chuban she, 1985. Hansen, Valerie. Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127–1276. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990. Huang Chun-chieh 黃俊傑. Dechuan riben “Lunyu” quanshi shilun 德川日本《論語》 詮釋史論 [A History of the Interpretations of the “Analects” in Tokugawa Japan]. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2006. Ho Shu-yi 何淑宜. “Shidai weiji yu geren jueze: yi wanming shishen Liu Xiquan de zongjiao jingyan weili 時代危機與個人抉擇：以晚明士紳劉錫玄的宗教經驗為例 [Crisis and Self-determination: The Religious Experience of Liu Xixuan in Late Imperial China].” Xin shixue 新史學 [New History] 23, no. 2 (2012): 57–106. Ho, Ping-ti 何炳棣. “Rujia zongfa moshi de yuzhou benti lun: cong Zhang Zai de Ximing tanqi 儒家宗法模式的宇宙本體論：從張載的西銘談起 [The Universal Ontol­ogy of Confucian Patriarchal Pattern: Based on Zhang Zai’s Western Inscription].” Zhexue yanjiu 哲學研究 [Philosophical Researches], 1988.12: 64–69. Huber, Horst Wolfram. “The Hero as the Spiritual Legacy of His Culture: Wen T’ienhsiang and His Admirers.” Analecta Husserliana 21 (1986): 309–336. Jay, Jennifer W. “Memoirs and Official Accounts: The Historiography of the Song Loyalists.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50, no. 2 (1990): 589–612. Jay, Jennifer W. A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China. Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1991. Ke Shangqian 柯尚遷. “Zhouli” quanjing shiyuan 周禮全經釋原 [Source of Explanations on the Complete Classic of the “Rites of Zhou”]. SKQS vol. 96. Lee An 李安. Wen Tianxiang shiji kao 文天祥史蹟考 [Study on the Historical Traces of Wen Tianxiang]. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1972. Lee An. “Yue Fei yü Wen Tianxiang shishi zhi yanjiu 岳飛與文天祥史事之研究 [A Study of the Historical Events (in the Lives) of Yue Fei and Wen Tianxiang].” Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 [The Eastern Miscellany] 14, no. 9 (1981): 23–35. Li Hsiao-ti 李孝悌. Zuori dao chengshi: jinshi Zhongguo de yile yu zongjiao 昨日到城市： 近世中國的逸樂與宗教 [Visiting City Yesterday: Pleasures and Religions in Modern China]. Taipei: Lianjing chuban gongsi, 2008. Liao, Hsien-huei 廖咸惠. “Exploring Weal and Woe: The Song Elite’s Mantic Beliefs and Practices.” T’oung Pao 91, no. 4–5 (2005): 347–395.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

342

Liao

Liao Hsien-huei. “Bosō to fūsui: Sodai ni okeru chirishi no shakai teki ichi 墓葬と風水： 宋代における地理師の社會的位置 [Burial and Geomancy: The Social Status of Song Geomancers].” Toshi bunka kenkyū 都市文化研究 [Studies in Urban Culture] 10 (2008): 96–115. Liao Hsien-huei. “Qiqiu shenqi: Songdai keju kaosheng de chongbai xingwei yu minjian xinyang 祈求神啟：宋代科舉考生的崇拜行為與民間信仰 [Praying for A Revelation: The Mental Universe of Song Examination Candidates].” Xin shixue 新史學 [New History] 15, no. 4 (2004): 41–92. Liao Hsien-huei. “Tiyan xiaodao: Songdai shiren shenghuo zhong de shushi yu shushu 體驗小道：宋代士人生活中的術士與術數 [Experiencing the ‘Lesser Arts’: The Mantic Arts and Practitioners in the Lives of Song Literati].” Xin shixue 新史學 [New History] 20, no. 4 (2009): 1–58. Liu Huamin 劉華民. “Wen Tianxiang yu rujia wenhua 文天祥與儒家文化 [Wen Tianxiang and Confucian Culture].” Changshu ligong xueyuan xuebao (Zhexue shehui kexue) 常熟理工學院學報（哲學社會科學） [Journal of Changshu Institute of Technology (Philosophy and Social Sciences)], 2008.1: 102–106. Liu Jiangsun 劉將孫. Yang wuzhai ji 養吾齋集 [Literary Collection of Liu Jiangsun]. SKQS vol. 1199. Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊. Houchun xiansheng da quanji 後村先生大全集 [Complete Writings of Liu Kezhuang]. In Quan Songwen 全宋文 [Complete Song Prose], edited by Zeng Zaozhuang 曾棗莊 and Liu Lin 劉琳, vol. 330. Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chuban she, 2006. Liu Hsiang-kwang 劉祥光. “Liang Song shiren yü busuan wenhua de chengzhang 兩宋 士人與卜算文化的成長 [Literati and the Growth of Divination Culture in Song China].” In Guimei shenmo: Zhongguo tongsu wenhua cexie 鬼魅神魔─ 中國通俗文 化側寫 [Ghosts, Demons, Deities, and Mara: A View of Chinese Common Culture], edited by Poo Mu-chou 蒲慕州, pp. 221–277. Taipei: Maitian chuban she, 2005. Liu Hsiang-kwang. “Songdai fengshui wenhua de kuozhan 宋代風水文化的擴展 [Development of the Culture of Geomancy in Song China].” Taida lishi xuebao 台大 歷史學報 [Historical Inquiry] 45 (2010): 1–78. Luolu zi 珞琭子. Sanming zhimi fu 三命指迷賦 [Essay on Dispelling Doubts about the Three Fates]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Lü Miaw-fen 呂妙芬. “Ximing wei Xiaojing zhi zhengzhuan? Lun wanming renxiao guanxi de xin yihan 西銘為孝經之正傳？論晚明仁孝關係的新意涵 [The Xi­ming as the Orthodox Interpretation of the Xiaojing? New Discourse on the Relationship between Humanity and Filial Piety during the Late Ming].” Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu jikan 中國文哲研究集刊 [Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy] 33 (2008): 139–172. Ouyang Shoudao 歐陽守道. Xunzhai wenji 巽齊文集 [Collected Works of Ouyang Shoudao]. SKQS vol. 1183. Peng Dayi 彭大翼. Shantang Sikao 山堂肆考 [Extended Investigations from the Mountain Hall]. SKQS vol. 974–978. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Exploring the Mandates of Heaven

343

Puett, Michael. “Following the Commands of Heaven: The Notion of Ming in Early China.” In The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, edited by Christopher Lupke, pp. 49–69. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Raphals, Lisa. “Languages of Fate: Semantic Fields in Chinese and Greek.” In The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture, edited by Christopher Lupke, pp. 70–106. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Shao Yong 邵雍. Huangji jingshi shu 皇極經世書 [Book for the Supreme Ordering of the World]. SKQS vol. 803. Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 [Critical Catalogue of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], edited by Yong Rong 永瑢 and Ji Yun 紀昀. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1983. Songshi 宋史 [The History of the Song]. Compiled by Tuo Tuo 脫脫 et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004. Song Yü 宋裕. “Danxin baoguo de Wen Tianxiang 丹心報國的文天祥 [The Loyal-hearted Wen Tianxiang].” Mingdao wenyi 明道文藝 [Ming Dao Literature and Arts] 246 (1996): 111–119. Tai Mu-ts’ai 戴木才. “Lun Wen Tianxiang de renge jingshen 論文天祥的人格精神 [On Wen Tianxiang’s Moral Integrity].” Daojiao wenhua 道教文化 [Daoist Culture] 2, no. 3 (1998): 7–11. Tao Jinsheng 陶晉生. “Beisong shiren de qijia ji qi jiazu zhi weichi 北宋士人的起家及 其家族之維持 [The Rise and Family Maintenance of the Northern Song Literati].” Xingda lishi xuebao 興大歷史學報 [Chung-Hsing Journal of History] 3 (1993): 11–34. Ts’ai Chia-lin 蔡佳琳. “Jin wushi nianlai de Wen Tianxiang yanjiu (1957–2007): huigu yu taolun 近五十年來的文天祥研究(1957–2007): 回顧與討論 [Studies on Wen Tianxiang over the Last Fifty Years (1957–2007): A Review].” Lishi jiaoyu 歷史教育 [History Education], 12 (2008): 187–204. Ts’ai Chia-lin. “Dianxing zai suxi: MingQing shiqi Wen Tiangxiang zhongjie dianfan de xingsu yu liuchuan 典型在夙昔：明清時期文天祥忠節典範的形塑與流傳 [Typical in the Past: The Formation and Transmission of Wen Tianxiang’s Loyal Model].” M.A. thesis. National Taiwan Normal University, 2009. Wan Shengnan 萬繩楠. Wen Tianxiang 文天祥 [Wen Tianxiang]. Taipei: Zhi shufang. 1999. Wang Chong 王充. “Lunheng” jiaoshi 論衡校釋 [“Discussions Weighed in the Balance”, Collated and Explained]. 4 Vols. Annotated by Huang Hui 黃暉. Beijing: Zhonghua shuji, 1990. Wang Hsien-chien 王先謙. “Zhuangzi” jijie 莊子集解 [Collected Commentaries on “Zhuangzi”]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987. Wang Nai-li 王乃俐. “Wen Tianxiang yü Zhouyi 文天祥與周易 [Wen Tianxiang and the Changes of Zhou].” Zhongnong xuebao 中農學報 [Journal of Taichung Agricultural Senior High School] 3 (2007): 69–88.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

344

Liao

Wang Te-yi 王德毅. “Songchao shidafu de renyi guan 宋朝士大夫的仁義觀 [The Concept of Benevolence and Justice during the Song Dynasty].” Taida lishi xuebao 台大歷史 學報 [Historical Inquiry] 38 (2006): 1–23. Wen Tianxiang 文天祥. Song shaobao you chengxiang jian shumi shi xinguo gong wenshan xiansheng jinian lu 宋少保右丞相兼樞密使信國公文山先生紀年錄 [The Chronological Record of Master Wenshan, Lesser Protector, Grand Right Councillor, concurrently Commissioner of Military Affairs and Domain Duke of Xin]. In Wenshan xiansheng quanji 文山先生全集 [Complete Collected Works of Master Wenshan], scroll 17. Taipei: Qingliu chuban she, 1976. Wong Cheung-wai 王章偉. Zai guojia yü shehui zhijian: Songdai wuxi yanjiu 在國家與 社會之間：宋代巫覡信仰研究 [Between State and Society: A Study of Shamanism in Song China]. Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 2005. Wu Cheng 吳澄. Wu wenzheng ji 吳文正集 [Collected Works of Wu Cheng]. SKQS vol. 1197. Wu Yuanyin 吳元音. “Zangjing” jianzhu 葬經箋註 [Notes and Commentary on the “Classic of Burial”]. Shanghai: Bogu zhai, 1920. Xiu Xiaopo 修小波. Wen Tianxiang pingzhuan 文天祥評傳 [A Critical Biography of Wen Tianxiang]. Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe. 2002. Xu Ziping 徐子平. Songben zhushu Luolu zi sanming xiaoxi fu 宋本注疏珞琭子三命消 息賦 [Exegesis of the Essay on the Vicissitudes of the Three Fates by Luolu Zi, Song Edition]. Nanjing: Jiangshu guji keyin she, 2001. Yang Liansheng 楊聯陞. “Kejü shidai de fukao lüfei wenti 科舉時代的赴考旅費問題 [A Discussion of the Travel Expenses for the Civil Service Examination].” Qinghua Xuebao 清華學報 [Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies], new series, 2 (1961): 116–130. Yang Shiqi 楊士奇. Dongli ji 東里集 [Collected Works of Yang Shiqi]. SKQS vol. 1238–1239. Yang Zhengdian 楊正典. Wen Tianxiang de shengping han sixiang 文天祥的生平和思 想 [Wen Tianxiang’s Life and Thought]. Jinan: Qilu chubanshe. 1992. Yu Zhaopeng 余兆鵬, and Yu Hui 俞暉. Wen Tianxiang yanjiu 文天祥研究 [Studies on Wen Tianxiang]. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2008. Zhang Songhui 張松輝. “Wen Tianxiang yü daojiao 文天祥與道教 [Wen Tianxiang and Daoism].” Zongjiao xue yanjiu 宗教學研究 [Religious Studies], 1997.2: 61–63. Zhao Wen 趙文. Qingshan ji 青山集 [Literary Collection of Zhao Wen]. SKQS vol. 1116. Zhou Mi 周密. Guixin zashi 癸辛雜識 [Guixin Miscellany]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997. Zhou Mi. Qidong yeyu 齊東野語 [Scattered Talk from East of Qi]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997. Zhu Yizun 尊彝朱. Pushu ting ji 集亭書曝 [Literary Collection of Zhu Yizun]. SKQS vol. 1317–1318.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

345

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

Chapter 11

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination* Yung Sik Kim Confucian scholars in traditional East Asia usually showed a critical attitude toward fengshui 風水 (p’ungsu), date selection (taegil 擇日), and divination. Today, many might consider all of these activities as ‘superstitious’ or ‘occult.’ Yet, there was no theoretical ground for traditional scholars to reject these activities; they were actually practiced by many people, including many Confucian scholars themselves. The basic beliefs and assumptions underlying these practices were not in direct, irreconcilable conflict with the Confucian view about the world and man. It was possible, in any case, to accommodate them into it. This was especially the case with the Yijing 易經 [Classic of Changes] divination because it was a practice based on a key text of the Confucian canon. Confucian scholars thus showed a very complex attitude to the practice—not a full devotion, but never a complete rejection, either. Such an attitude can also be found with Chŏng Yak-yong 丁若鏞 (1762–1836), who is widely regarded to have completed the late Chosŏn “solid learning” (sirhak 實 學) by revising some key aspects of the Zhu Xi learning that had dominated Chosŏn Confucian scholarship. Chŏng Yak-yong’s attitude toward divination was very complex. He was critical of divination in general, saying that “occult techniques” (sulsu 術數) like divination, physiognomy (gwansang 觀相), and astrology “delude” (hok 惑) people and thus cannot be considered proper “learning” (hak 學).1 He rejected the physiognomical belief that one could find out someone’s habits (sŭp 習) by examining the person’s facial features (sang 相) and asked, “How can one ask questions to bamboo stalks and tortoise [shells] to [find out] the right and the wrong of our Way (do 道; Ch: dao)?2” Yet, Chŏng Yak-yong did not question the possibility of having a “foreknowledge” (jeonji 前知) of what will happen in the * I would like to thank Professor Youngsun Back of Sungkyunkwan University, who read the manuscript thoroughly and provided many valuable suggestions and corrections, especially concerning my translation of texts.” 1 “Ohak ron 5” 五學論五 [On Five Learnings, no. 5] in Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ, Part I 第1 集, vol. 11 第11 卷, 23b (hereafter cited as “Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.23b”). 2 “Sang ron” 相論 [On Facial Features]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.13b–14a; “Ohak ron 5”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.4.58b.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_013

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

346

Kim

future. He said, for example, that “gwisin 鬼神 can know beforehand [what will happen]”3 and believed that humans could also have that ability: Commenting on the passage from the Zhongyong 中庸 (Doctrine of the Mean), “The way of extreme sincerity can know beforehand [what will happen],” he said that “if one is extremely sincere, one can know Heaven. If one knows Heaven, one can know [what will happen] beforehand,” and went on to distinguish the foreknowledge of sages like Zhou Gong 周公 (Duke of Zhou) and that of those who use wicked techniques (sasul 邪術) and resort to occult things (gwimul 鬼物).4 What he criticized was the widespread habit of his time of relying excessively on those who claim to have the ability of foreknowledge.5 Such ambivalence can also be detected in Chŏng Yak-yong’s attitude toward Yijing divination. Although he criticized various other divination practices, he did not reject the possibility of telling fortunes by means of Yijing divination. On the other hand, he never practiced such divination himself and emphasized that he did not. In this paper I will reexamine what Chŏng Yak-yong said and wrote about Yijing divination and try to make sense of his complex attitude. In spite of much work done on the topic by modern scholars, this still remains somewhat confusing.6 1 Chŏng Yak-yong admitted that in ancient times divination had its function as a method to find out Heaven’s will. In particular, he made it clear that the Yijing was originally a book for divination: It was written by the sages in order to “request the command (myŏng 命) of Heaven and to follow Heaven’s intention.”7 Yijing trigrams and hexagrams (kwae 卦) were made to provide ways for Heaven to respond to the request of the sages, and for the sages to interpret the command of Heaven.8 He interpreted such expressions in the 3 Chungyong kang’ŭi po 中庸講義補 [Supplements to the Lectures on the Doctrine of the Mean: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.4.58b. 4 Chungyong kang’ŭi po: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.4.49b. The Zhongyong passage comes from chapter 24. Note of the editor: See also the discussion of this concept in Dominic Steavu’s essay in this volume, p. 255. 5 See “Ohak ron 5”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.23b. 6 Among the recent studies on Chŏng Yak-yong’s discussion of the Yijing divination, the following two are most helpful: Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong”; Kim Yŏng-u, “Tasan-ŭi poksŏ- yŏk yŏn’gu.” 7 “Yŏk ron 2” 易論二 [On the Yijing, no. 2]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2a. 8 See “Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.3a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

347

Yijing as “prior to Heaven” (sŏnch’ŏn 先天), “posterior to Heaven” (huch’ŏn 後 天), and “Heaven’s time” (ch’ŏnsi 天時) in the context of divination: “‘To be

prior to Heaven’ means to act without divining; ‘to be posterior to Heaven’ means to act after divining [auspicious] dates. The sage’s obeying ‘Heaven’s time’ is no more than this.”9 In his essay, “Discussion of the Yi[jing]” (Yŏk ron 易論), Chŏng Yak-yong described the process in which the sage made the Yijing diagrams. Although the sage can request earnestly, Heaven cannot command in detail. Thus, even if heaven wants to tell [the sage] that [an act] will succeed and wants to advise [him] to do it, there is no way [for Heaven to do so.] Also, even if [Heaven] wants to tell him that it will fail and wants to prevent him from doing it, there is no way, either. The sage felt sorry about this, and thought about it day and night. Looking up to Heaven, and looking down over the earth, he thought about the way to follow the brightness of Heaven and request Heaven’s command. One morning, [the sage] cheerfully hit the table, stood up, and said: “I have the method (術).”  Then he used his hands to draw on earth the shapes (形) of “odd and even, hard and soft” and said: “These are the images (象) of heaven, earth, water, fire and the changes and formations of the things” (This refers to the eight trigrams). Thereupon, regarding them as tendencies (勢) of ‘advancing and retreating, disappearing and growing,’ [he] said: “These are the images of the four seasons (四時)” (This refers to the twelve pyŏkkwae 辟卦). Also, taking them as conditions of ‘rising and sinking, going and coming,’ [he] said: “These are the images of the myriad things” (This refers to the fifty yŏngwae 衍卦).  Then [the sage] took what had been drawn on earth to be the tendencies of ‘odd and even, hard and soft,’ pondered over their images, and thought about their similarities. Once he realized what was similar to them, he gave them names and said: “This is a horse, and that is a cow. This is a cart, and that is a palace. These are weapons, and those are bows

9 Maengja yoŭi 孟子要義 [Essential Meanings of the Mencius], chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.5.26b. These expressions appear in Yijing 易經 Qiangua 乾卦 Wenyan 文言 (“When the sage is ‘prior to heaven,’ heaven is not contrary to him; when he is ‘posterior to heaven,’ he obeys ‘heaven’s time’”: 聖人先天而天弗違。後天而奉天時). See Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 370–71.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

348

Kim

and arrows.” He recorded these as “models” (法式) and hoped that Heaven would use them according to their names.10 In this manner, the sage created the Yijing diagrams. Using these, he symbolized the workings and mysteries of the world.11 It is to be noted that Chŏng Yak-yong considered the Yijing diagrams not as something Heaven conferred on man but as something the sage devised to use in receiving and interpreting Heaven’s command. In the passage quoted above he explicitly says that the diagrams and their names were made by the sage, that is, by a human being. What is important, however, is the belief that, when conferring its command, Heaven will use these man-made diagrams and their names: Although [they are] names established by men and not what Heaven considered to be real, nevertheless if Heaven desires to examine my sincerity and tell [me] about the event, after all [Heaven] will probably use these according to what I have named them.12 This, then, is the reason why man can interpret Heaven’s command by means of the diagrams. Chŏng Yak-yong described the process of interpreting their meanings and telling fortunes based on them in the following way: Then the sage took the images said to be similar to a horse, a cow, a cart, a palace, weapons, bows, and arrows and examined the traces of their rising and sinking, going and coming. Their shapes being complete or deficient, agreeing or opposing, and their conditions being relaxed or tense, favorable or worried, safe or dangerous—all these he pondered about by means of what was similar to them. (This refers to divining the fortune.) After having pondered if it is truly fortunate, he then stood up and said: “Heaven ordered me to do it.” After having pondered if it is truly unfortunate, he was cautious and did not dare to do it. This is how the 10

“Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2a–2b. The original notes were included in the quotation in parentheses. The same content is found in Chuyŏk sajŏn 周易四䇳, chapter 4: Yŏyu­ dang chŏnsŏ II.40.15a. 11 Kŭm Chang-t’ae described this as “the process in which the sage labored to find out the method to know Heaven’s intention”: Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏkesŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong.” 12 “Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2b. Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏkesŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 345.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

349

Yijing was composed. This is the reason why the sage requested the command of Heaven and followed Heaven’s intention.13 2 Chŏng Yak-yong’s views, then, were based on some kind of interaction between Heaven and man. He compared the act of receiving Heaven’s command through Yijing divination to the hearing of echoes: On usual days [a gentleman (君子)] looks at the images of the diagrams and lines, and ponders over the words of the sages. When things happen, he looks at the changes of the divining stalks and ponders the diviner’s prognostication. He only follows [Heaven’s] command, receives the command like [hearing] echoes, and does not dare to act dissolutely with selfish thinking. Therefore he receives Heaven’s help, and there is nothing unfavorable in going ahead.14 In Chŏng Yak-yong’s view, it is because Heaven responds to the sincerity (song 誠) of the diviners that such interaction becomes possible— as quoted above, “if Heaven desires to examine my sincerity and to tell [me] about the event, after all [Heaven] will probably use these according to what I have named them.” The diviner’s sincerity is also stressed in Chŏng’s comments on the expression “yuan-heng li-zhen 元亨利貞” (K: won hyŏng ri chŏng) in the text for the first hexagram qian 乾, namely in his explanation of the character heng 亨: ‘Heng is ‘to go through’ (通). To stimulate (感) and eventually to go through. If one empties the mind and becomes sincere (誠) and faithful (信), then, extreme sincerity is reached, Heaven’s mind wins the enjoyment, the time and the command (命) meet each other, and the fortune (運) goes through (通). This is the so-called “fine meeting” (嘉之會). [...] If the extreme sincerity does not cease, [it] stimulates and eventually goes through. It necessarily enjoys Heaven’s mind. Therefore the divination goes through.15

13 14 15

“Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.3a. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 8: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.4a. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 1, Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ 2.37.35a–35b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

350

Kim

Such a view was possible in the Confucian tradition, which accepted the interaction between ki 氣 (Ch: qi) and mind (sim 心). This kind of attitude of Chŏng Yak-yong toward the Yijing divination is congruent with his views about the “Lord on High” (sangje 上帝; Ch: shangdi). As Kim Yŏng-u has pointed out, it was based on the belief that the Lord on High “knows the result of men’s actions beforehand and tells men of the direction of those actions.”16 Chŏng Yak-yong actually said, “Ancient people served ‘the divine brightness’ (sinmyŏng 神明), and thereby served the Lord on High. Therefore they divined and thereby heard the command.”17 Kŭm Chang-t’ae has noted that Chŏng Yak-yong “clearly showed the religious aspect of the Yijing” by interpreting it in terms of divination.18 Of course, this was a religious sentiment. But it was entirely different from that of Christianity: it was basically in line with the Confucian notion of Heaven showing its will not by actual words but by the workings of the natural world. This is evident, for example, in the Lunyu 論語 [The Analects] 17.19: “Why would Heaven speak? The four seasons run their course, and hundreds of creatures are born, [but] why would Heaven speak?”19 Yijing divination, then, was the method for finding out the will of Heaven, or the Lord on High, which, unlike the Christian god, does not show its will by means of words.20 3 Chŏng Yak-yong did not think that Yijing divination could be used for all purposes at all times. He spoke in detail about when the sage requests Heaven’s command and when he does not. In general, if the event comes from ‘fair and correct goodness (公正之善)’ and if it is possible to consider that Heaven will necessarily help accomplish it and will provide the blessing, the sage does not further request 16 17

Kim Yŏng-u, “Tasan-ŭi poksŏ- yŏk yŏn’gu,” 256. Yŏkhak sŏŏn 易學緖言 [Beginning Words on the Studies of the Yijing], chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.17a. 18 Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 342. Kŭm Chang-t’ae also notes that in Chŏng Yak-yong’s view the Yijing was composed from a “religious demand to request and follow heaven’s command concerning the problems encountered by men” (ibid. 366)—and he even speaks of the “religious aspect” of Confucianism (ibid. 342). 19 Ibid., 343. 20 See Sŏng T’ae-yong, “Tasan ch’ŏrhak-e issŏ kyesi ŏmnŭn sangje,” 111.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

351

[Heaven’s command]. Even if the event comes from fair and correct goodness, if it is possible to consider that the time and the situation are unfavorable so that the event will necessarily fail and will not be able to receive the blessing, the sage does not further request. If the event does not come from fair and correct goodness and goes against heavenly principle (天理) and damages man’s discipline (人紀), then, even if the event will necessarily succeed and bring about immediate blessing, the sage does not further request. Only if the event comes from fair and correct goodness and there is no way of seeing beforehand and fathoming its success or failure and fortune or misfortune, then the sage requests.21  Even if the event is correct, if it is easy to see whether it will succeed or fail, one does not divine. Even if the advantage is clear, if it does not accord with ‘righteousness and principle’ (義理), one does not divine. Only when, having considered various meanings, it is not clear whether [the event,] though c­ orrect, will succeed or fail, or will be favorable or not, [can] there be divination.22 Chŏng Yak-yong composed a treatise, Poksŏ ch’ong’ŭi 卜筮總義 [General Meanings of Divination], in which he gathered, from the Zuozhuan 左傳 [Commentary of Zuo], the Zhouli 周禮 [Rites of Zhou] and the Liji 禮記 [Record of Rites], examples of legitimate cases of divination—for example, before enthroning kings, moving capitals, and waging wars.23 Chŏng Yak-yong criticized what he considered illegitimate divinations that do not satisfy the above conditions.24 Above all, it was necessary to have a proper attitude: divining before the event and following Heaven’s command after divining. Thus, Chŏng Yak-yong warned those who divine after the event has begun because “it would be to spy on Heaven’s secret (ch’ŏngi 天機) and test Heaven’s will, [and it] is a great crime.”25 He said that before divining one should consider “whether it is to receive [Heaven’s] command or to spy it, and if it is to spy it, then one should stop it quickly.”26 After one has obtained the “divination words” (chŏmsa 占辭), it is important to have a will to follow 21 22

“Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2a. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.19b. Zhu Xi also said similar things about proper divination:, Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, 73.1a. 23 Included in Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: see Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.18a–19b. 24 Kŭm Chang-t’ae holds that the condition allowing divination can be characterized by a “legitimacy of the motivation” and an “uncertainty of the situation”; see Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 350. 25 Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 8: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.6b. 26 Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.19b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

352

Kim

them—this is what he means by his remark, quoted above, that the diviner “only follows [Heaven’s] command, receives the command like [hearing] echoes, and does not dare to act dissolutely with selfish thinking.”27 Noting that the divinations carried out in his time deviated greatly from such a proper attitude, he denounced them by saying: “People nowadays basically do not serve Heaven. How dare they divine?”28 4 Although Chŏng Yak-yong discussed Yijing divination in such detail, he seems to have believed that in his time it could no longer be used as a method to request and receive Heaven’s command: If someone says that he is already clear about the cases of the Yijing (易 例) and thus can divine by means of them, not only will the result of his

divination go astray, but he will also frequently fall into difficulties. This is what I greatly fear. Nowadays those who hold on to correctness must abolish divination.29

He even said: “People nowadays must not divine. They also must not employ yin-yang specialists (ŭmyangga 陰陽家; Ch: yinyangjia) to select [ominous] dates, but should base their decisions on the advise of ‘respectable elders’ (chonjang 尊長).”30 In fact, Chŏng Yak-yong never practiced Yijing divination. Believing, as we have seen, that “serving Heaven” is a precondition for divination, he said: “In general, those who do not serve Heaven do not dare divine. As for me, I would say that I would not dare to divine even though I serve Heaven now.”31 In a letter to his brother, Chŏng Yak-chŏn 丁若銓 (1758–1816), he said that although 27 28

29 30 31

See note 14 above: Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 8: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.4a. “Tap Chungssi” 答仲氏 [Answering Letter to the Second Elder Brother]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.15b. In another place a similar formulation occurs: “People nowadays do not serve the divinity (sin 神) on usual occasions. If they spy by divining whether they will succeed or fail only after encountering some events, their despising Heaven and desecrating the divinity are extreme indeed” (Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.17a). Chŏng Yak-yong also criticized those who divined only when they had to find a grave; see Sang’ŭi chŏryo 喪儀節要 [Essential Points on the Funeral Rites], chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ III.21.36b. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.17a. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.16a. “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.16a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

353

he had exerted himself in the study of the Yijing for ten years since 1804, he had never practiced Yijing divination, and added that if his wish to be released from exile is fulfilled, he will ask the government to strictly forbid divination.32 The question naturally arises why Chŏng Yak-yong, who accepted Yijing divination as a method to request and receive Heaven’s command, did not practice it himself and even wanted to forbid and abolish it. One reason he mentions is the fact that divination has degenerated in his time. When Yi Kang-hoe 李綱會 asked him why divination should be abolished, Chŏng Yakyong answered: “The meaning of divination is to connect to Heaven’s brightness. [...] [Yet] since Qin and Han divination has become the first among the wicked techniques.”33 And in the Poksŏ t’ong’ŭi 卜筮通義 [Comprehensive Meaning of Divination] he said: “Various divinations recorded in the Zuozhuan were already without the [correct] ancient meanings. Later on, Qin and Han divinations have gradually sunk into the wicked techniques and no longer have the original meanings of the former kings.”34 Toward the end of the Poksŏ t’ong’ŭi, Chŏng Yak-yong describes the process of degeneration divination has suffered after the Spring and Autumn (chunqiu 春秋) Period. To sum it up, the method of divination at the beginning was to receive Heaven’s command and to “prepare for people’s needs (前民用).” [...] In the Spring and Autumn Period this method was already abused. Those who divined their fortunes did not go beyond seeking glory, salary, position, and fame. Those who divined plans and plots did not consider the distinctions of righteousness and profit, opposing and following. As the meaning of receiving the command eventually became obscure and the intention of spying on the command arose, then vicious, illusory, and bewildering techniques and crafty, cunning, and incoherent words could intersect and disturb [the divination method] in the meantime. [People] did not realize that they had fallen into the fault of despising Heaven and desecrating the divinity.35 In such a situation, he concluded, “the method of divination already disappeared. As the method disappeared, there is no way to divine.”36 32 33 34 35 36

See ibid. Sang’ŭi chŏryo, chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ III.21.36b. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.17b. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.19b. The expression “qian min yong 前民 用” appears in the Xici zhuan 繫辭傳 [Commentary on the Attached Words], A11. Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.19b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

354

Kim

Chŏng Yak-yong had other reasons, too, for advocating the abolition of divination. He argued that the institutions and customs of ancient times should not be used if they were not suitable for the present situation. For him divination was such a case, and thus people “should not practice divination” any more “even for the correct events.”37 In his letter to Chŏng Yak-chŏn, he wrote: The ancients [adopted] the feudal system (封建), but nowadays [people] do not [adopt] the feudal system. The ancients [adopted] the well-field system (井田), but nowadays [people] do not [adopt] the well-field system. The ancients [used] corporeal punishment (肉刑), but nowadays [people] do not [use] corporeal punishment. The ancients [practiced] imperial inspection (巡守), but nowadays [people] do not [practice] imperial inspection. The ancients erected puppets for the deceased corpses (尸), but nowadays [people] do not [erect] puppets. Divinations are not practicable in the present time, far less so than all these things.38 It is for this reason that in explaining why he rejected divination Chŏng Yakyong said: “I am not saying that today’s divination is not the ancients’ divination. Even if King Wen (文王) and the Duke of Zhou were born in the present time, they would never divine their doubts. Gentlemen of the later times also must know this principle of the things.”39 5 While advocating the abolition of divinations, believing that they have degenerated and were not suitable for his time, Chŏng Yak-yong still exerted great effort in studying the Yijing and wrote treatises on it, such as the Chuyŏk sajŏn 周易四箋 and the Yŏkhak sŏŏn 易學緖言.40 Among his writings on the Yijing, he seems to have most highly regarded the Chuyŏk sajŏn, which he revised four

37 Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.18a. 38 “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.16a. 39 Ibid. 40 On Chŏng Yak-yong’s study of the Yijing, see Yi Ŭl-ho, Tasan-ŭi yŏkhak; Kim Ok-yŏn, “Tasan-ŭi yŏkhak sasang.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

355

times during the four years following the completion of the first draft in 1804.41 In a letter to his sons, he wrote: The Chuyŏk sajŏn is a writing in which I received Heaven’s help. It is not at all something that man’s power can penetrate or [man’s] knowledge and thought can reach. [...] The Sangrye sajŏn 喪禮四箋 is a writing in which I earnestly believed in the sages. [...] If I were to receive the grace [of pardon], and if these two books were handed down [to posterity], then it would be all right even if the rest were destroyed.42 In particular, Chŏng Yak-yong worked very hard to restore the correct method of Yijing divination, which, he believed, had not been handed down to in his time. In writing the Chuyŏk sajŏn, he composed a separate commentary “Sigwaejŏn” 蓍卦傳, in which he collected contents related to the divination methods selected from the Xici zhuan.43 He pointed out the difference between his method, based on the original method, and the method of Zhu Xi, calling the latter “the method that came up later (後來之法).”44 He also reconstructed the theoretical basis of Yijing divination, focusing on the methods of ch’uyi 推 移, mulsang 物象, hoch’e 互體, and hyobyŏn 爻變, which he called “the four methods of the principle of the Yijing” (yŏkri sabŏp 易理四法).45 For him, these “four methods” were “the principles for composing the Yijing and for verbally expressing the images (sang 象) of the trigrams and hexagrams (kwae 卦) and the lines (hyo 爻)” as well as “the way in which to derive the ‘images of things’ (mulsang 物象) from the images of the diagrams and the lines, and to give 41

See Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chuyŏk sajŏn-kwa Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi yŏk haesŏk pangbŏp,” 222–224. Chŏng Yak-yong said that there would be more need to make revisions if he added ten more years to study the Yijing: see “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.28b. 42 “Si yija kagye” 示二子家誡 [Teaching the Family Admonitions to the Two Sons]: Yŏyu­ dang chŏnsŏ I.18.5b. 43 See “Sigwaejŏn” 蓍卦傳 [Commentary on the Divinatory Hexagrams]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.15a–27b. Upon receiving the draft of the “Sigwaejŏn,” his brother, Chŏng Yak-chŏn, praised it with the following words: “I don’t know with what numinous mind Miyong 美 庸 [that is, Chŏng Yak-yong] has [reached] a subtle understanding like this. It makes people just feel like shouting crazily and dancing wildly.” Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.30a.) For the content of the “Sigwaejŏn,” see Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yakyong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 354–65. 44 “Sigwaejŏn,” Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 8: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.18b. For differences between Chŏng Yak-yong’s and Zhu Xi’s interpretations of the Yijing, see also Kim Yŏng-u, “Tasan-ŭi poksŏ- yŏk yŏn’gu,” 264. 45 For the ‘yŏkri sabŏp,’ see Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chuyŏk sajŏn-kwa Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi yŏk haesŏk pangbŏp,” 249–263; Kim Yŏng-u, “Tasan-ŭi poksŏ- yŏk yŏn’gu,” 262–66.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

356

Kim

meanings to them.”46 The words about the diagrams and the lines were all composed by the sages of Zhou based on the four methods. Thus, the entire book of the Yijing is based on the images, and one cannot understand its meanings without understanding the “four methods of the principle of the Yijing.”47 Chŏng Yak-yong made it clear that his own study of the Yijing did not serve purposes of divination but was meant to elucidate the meaning of the Yijing.48 His study was directed mainly at correcting the errors in the interpretation of the Yijing that had piled up since the times of Confucius.49 The Yijing, for him, was a canon to be studied in order to clarify and understand the original meanings of the sages that were contained in it. 6 There were methods other than Yijing divination that man could use “to request heaven’s command.” For example, Chŏng Yak-yong admitted that the divination method that used tortoise-shells was “better than the Yijing if, encountering a great event, it is used to request Heaven’s command and follow Heaven’s brightness.” But he added right away: “[A]s for pondering about the words on ordinary days, examining the causes (ko 故) for advancing and retreating, and thus surviving and perishing, and finding out how to behave personally, only the Yijing has [something relevant for] that, and thus for the sages, there was only the Yijing.”50 He discussed this aspect of the Yijing in the following manner: The way (道) of the Yijing, in its great aspects, can rule over Heaven and Earth, make the two qi smooth, and keep the four seasons in sequence; in its small aspects, it can examine the flying and jumping of lice and flies; in its lofty aspects, it can verify the principle (理) of disappearing and growing, and expanding and contracting, and thus know the reason for advancing and retreating and going out and staying; in its humble aspects, it can investigate winning and losing horses, cows, dogs, and chickens; in 46 47

Ibid., 263. See ibid., 262–63. Kim Yŏng-u goes on to suggest that as the “hyobyŏn” theory was systematized during Zhou times, the four methods were reestablished, and the Yijing became a book for morality and statecraft in addition to divination (ibid., 264). 48 See Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.17a. 49 See Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chuyŏk sajŏn-kwa Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi yŏk haesŏk pangbŏp,” 267. 50 Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.40.16a. See also “Yŏk ron 2”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.3a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

357

its distant aspects, it can reach guishen and examine Heaven’s command, and thus understand the causes of wind, rain, drought, and flood; in its nearby aspects, it can deal with the changing relations of father-son, ruler-subject and husband-wife, and the movements of ears, eyes, mouth, nose, the four limbs, and the hundred body-parts. It can also know their omens beforehand.51 In Chŏng Yak-yong’s view, then, the Yijing contained the key to the workings and mysteries of the whole world, including the natural world and human affairs, and Confucian scholars should study and understand such workings and mysteries. He expresses the same view in the following remark: “The Yijing is [a book] in which the rites of the people of Zhou exist. Confucian scholars cannot but elucidate what the ‘intricate words and subtle meanings’ (miŏn myoŭi 微言妙義) in [the Yijing] display.”52 Chŏng Yak-yong himself tried to “elucidate” these “intricate words and subtle meanings” by “the four methods of the principle of the Yijing” mentioned above. For him, the words for the Yijing diagrams and lines were based on real facts and the real principle (silri 實理) of the world. He said that “the ancient sages checked them with ‘the real principle’ and made them examples of divination,” and noted that “the specialists of the occult techniques in later periods expanded and attached [their own theories] to make such theories as ‘mutual conquest’ (sanggŭk 相克) and ‘mutual production’ (sangsaeng 相生).”53 To be sure, the sages give only clues (tan 端) as to the “intricate words and subtle meanings” and have people think about and understand them by themselves.54 Yet, Chŏng Yak-yong rejected the belief that the content of the Yijing is “hidden” (yu 幽), “mysterious” (sin 神), or “impenetrable” (pulgagyu 不可窺), or that it is “impossible to know ‘the soyiyŏn’ 所以然 (the reason why something is as it is).” Instead, the difficulties in understanding the meanings of the Yijing are due to the fact that “there are places where [people’s] knowledge does not reach. It is not the intention of the sages.”55 He continued:

51 52 53 54

55

Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.25a. “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.16a. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.37.34a. See “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.16a. Chŏng Yak-yong regretted that his discussion in the Chuyŏk sajŏn was too detailed and too explicit and was thus not very interesting: see ibid. “Yŏk ron 1” 易論一 [On the Yijing, no. 1]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.1a–1b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

358

Kim

Also, what is still there in the Yijing that is hidden? For it [the sages] wrote the Shuogua 說卦 Commentary and taught the images of the sheep, the cow, the horse, and the pig; it [they] appended the commentaries to manifest the traces of pushing and shifting, and going and coming; for it [they] called [the lines] nine and six to display the functions of their changing and flowing. The diviner (占人) divines events. [There are] eight such low [level] agents [doing this]. The prognosticator (簭人) judges fortunes and misfortunes. There are two such middle [level] agents. [They] resolve the doubts of the country and prepare for people’s needs. What is still there in the Yijing that is hidden?56 Thus, the sages would not do such things as “making up things that people cannot understand, being enrapturing and glistening, weird and deceiving, and transforming their bodies and throwing them before stupid men and women, and making them frightened and sweating.”57 7 Chŏng Yak-yong did not believe that the meanings to be elucidated by the study of the Yijing were confined to divination; they furthermore included the aspect of “righteousness and principle” (ŭiri 義理). For example, in the course of explaining the text for the third line of the hexagram qian, he said, “These words are for the use of advancing virtues and pursuing study, and are not for divination.”58 He clearly pointed out that the Yijing from the beginning had both the aspect of “righteousness and principle” and that of divination: At the beginning when Zhou Gong composed the words, he feared that those who study the Yijing might devote themselves exclusively to divination. So he inserted this one item specifically in the hexagram ‘qian’ and let the scholars know that the use of the Yijing does not cease with divination. Thus, Confucius’s explanation of the Yijing mostly emphasizes ‘righteousness and principle.’ As for the “Commentary on Judgments” (Tuan zhuan 彖傳) and the “Commentary on Great Images” (Daxiang 56 57

58

“Yŏk ron 1”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2a. “Yŏk ron 1”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.1b. Chŏng Yak-yong also criticized those who used the Hetu 河圖 and the Luoshu 洛書 in interpreting the Yijing. See “Yŏk ron 1”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.1b–2a; Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 3: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.47.35b. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.37.39b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

359

zhuan 大象傳), their origins came from King Wen (Wen wang 文王) and the Duke of Zhou—and did not begin with Confucius.59 Also, while explaining the phrase “There will be advantage if one has a place to go to” (li you you wang 利有攸往), which appears in the hexagrams fu 復 and bo 剝, Chŏng Yak-yong said that “the sages necessarily examine and ponder on the clues of disappearing and growing of yin- yang and take them to be the essence of going out and staying, and advancing and retreating.”60 His remark that the Yijing is “a book of the sages correcting errors and moving toward goodness” (gaegwa ch’ŏnsŏn 改過遷善) also shows his recognition of “right­eous­ness and principle.”61 This aspect of “righteousness and principle,” however, is connected with the aspect of divination and must be incorporated in the system of Yijing divination, according to Chŏng Yak-yong. He said, “The sages establish the images when they seek for the hexagrams, and they let the ‘numinous brightness’ indicate them [that is, the hexagrams] according to the images. This ‘intricate will and subtle meaning’ must not be altered even slightly.”62 Thus, he did not approve of those who interpret the Yijing exclusively in terms of “righteousness and principle”: their understanding, he said, will be “discordant” and will not fulfill the original purpose of “preparing for people’s needs”: If one tries to attribute the words on the 64 hexagrams and 386 lines of the two parts [of the Yijing] simply to the principle of Heaven and Earth, and ‘nature and command (性命) and tries to have the meanings of advancing and retreating, and surviving and perishing, reside therein, then one will often behold them to be discordant and not fitting each other.63  The way (道) of the Yijing, in its great aspect, can fill Heaven and Earth with it and, in its small aspect, can be studied to practice sorcery (巫) and medicine (醫). If one always tries to attribute all the 450 words to the great ‘righteousness and principle,’ then one will not be able to ‘prepare for people’s needs’ with it.64 59 60 61

Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.37.40b. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.40.21b. Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 8: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.3b; Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 1: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.37.28a. See Kŭm Chang-t’ae, “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong,” 373–75. 62 “Sigwaejŏn”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.44.18b. 63 Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.26a. 64 Chuyŏk sajŏn, chapter 6: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.42.42a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

360

Kim

In Chŏng Yak-yong’s view, it was exactly such an exclusive devotion to the eousness and principle” that had led the study of the Yijing into “right­ confusion: Those who discussed the Yijing in later ages only admired what was great and exerted efforts on what was hidden and distant. Moreover they commented on those trivial and familiar meanings endlessly till [they become as vast as] the Milky Way. This is why the Yijing has become obscure, the simple teachings of the sages have turned into abstruse, mysterious, and illusory methods, and no one has reached an awakening.65 8 Chŏng Yak-yong’s attitude toward Yijing divination, as discussed so far, stands in conflict with his criticism of what is referred to as the “correlative thinking.”66 The “correlative” mode of thinking, which divided all things and events of the world—both the human realm and the natural world—into categories and held that those things and events belonging to the same category are associated and can interact with one another, flourished among the Chosŏn scholars of the time.67 It would have been natural for Chŏng Yak-yong, who strictly separated the human and the natural worlds, to reject such associations between human values and natural phenomena—exactly the kind of associations frequently used in the Yijing divination. This conflict, which poses a problem for us in understanding Chŏng Yak-yong’s thinking, and his views on the Yijing divination, in particular, must have been a problem for him also. As I showed in the preceding sections, Chŏng Yak-yong did not completely reject correlative thinking in spite of his generally critical attitude toward it. He did not have a ground for completely rejecting such a mode of thinking. To be sure, he criticized and rejected many concrete examples of basic correlative associations and interactions involving such categories as yin-yang and the five phases. But he could not reject the possibility of the existence of such associations and interactions. 65 66 67

Yŏkhak sŏŏn, chapter 4: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II.48.25a–25b. For a discussion on “correlative thinking,” see Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. See Pak Kwon-su, “Sŏ Myŏng’ŭng-ŭi yŏkhakchŏk ch’ŏnmun’gwan”; Moon Joong-yang, “Traditional Cosmology Associated with the I-ching and Anti-Cosmological Discourses in 18th-Century Korea.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

361

The same tendency can be seen in his attitude toward various occult techniques (sulsu 術數), portents (chaeyi 災異), and other beliefs and practices that appear ‘superstitious’ and ‘supernatural’ to many.68 We have already noted that he did not reject the possibility of foreknowledge. He did not completely reject the possibility of portents, either. For instance, he believed in the portentous significance of the occurrence of strange phenomena such as “the grain rain” (uryul 雨栗) or a horse with a horn, calling them “inauspicious things” (pulsangjimul 不祥之物). He even took them as omens foretelling him that his exile would not end soon.69 Nor did he reject all occult techniques, but believed, for example, in the efficacy of the respiratory techniques (toin 導引).70 And although he generally rejected the technique of “winds and waters” (p’ungsu 風水), he accepted common beliefs about the proper directions appropriate for the various parts of a house.71 It must have been impossible for him to establish clear sets of criteria in order to distinguish what he could accept from what he could not. In fact, such an attitude toward occult and superstitious beliefs and techniques was not confined to Chŏng Yak-yong alone; it continued to be held by Confucian scholars ever since Zhu Xi had expressed a more or less similar attitude. Dedicated to constructing a philosophical basis of reality countering what he saw as the empty and speculative tenets of the Buddhists and the Daoists, Zhu Xi was firm in his rejection of what appeared to him as superstitious. Above all, he was staunchly opposed to admitting into his system of thinking “occult” beings and powers beyond the qualities and activities of qi because he believed that qi underlies every object and phenomenon of the world. Yet Zhu Xi did not reject occult phenomena themselves. Instead, he offered explanations in terms of qi for those strange phenomena that could have been attributed to occult causes, and in so doing he incorporated them into his all-encompassing system. By attributing such phenomena to qualities and activities of qi rather than to some occult causes, Zhu Xi accepted and “rationalized” their existence and occurrence.72 68 69 70 71

72

See Kim Yŏng-sik, “Misin-kwa sulsu-e taehan Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi t’aedo.” See “Yŏk ron 1”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.2a. See “Sang Chungssi” 上仲氏 [Letter to the Second Elder Brother]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.24a; “Tap Chungssi”: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.20.28a. He referred to such beliefs as “the spontaneous tendency of yin-yang” (陰陽自然之勢) or “the invariable principle of qian and kun” (乾坤不易之理). “Mun Dongsŏnambuk” 問 東西南北 [Questions on the Four Cardinal Directions]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.9.3a. See Yung Sik Kim, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130–1200), 98–101. In other words, Zhu Xi’s anti-superstitious stance led him to reject “superstitious” beliefs about strange things and events, but rarely to reject the things and events themselves. In fact, given the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

362

Kim

Zhu Xi’s attitude to divination was essentially of the same character. He accepted Yijing divination into his system and did not entirely reject other methods of obtaining foreknowledge. Two aspects of Zhu Xi’s thought seem to have provided ground for this kind of attitude. First, like Chŏng Yak-yong after him, Zhu Xi also considered the Yijing to be a book originally composed by the sages for the purpose of divination, and he criticized the scholars of his time who devoted themselves solely to the “righteousness and principle” hidden in the Yijing while ignoring the aspect of divination.73 He thus believed that divination based on the Yijing was a perfectly legitimate activity for a Confucian scholar. In his view, Yijing divination was something that reproduced the cosmic processes. Through manipulating and pondering about the Yijing diagrams, the ‘images’ of which symbolize things and events of the world, the diviner could apprehend the cosmic pattern.74 Another aspect to be considered is the wide purview of the concept of qi, especially the possibility of the interaction between qi and the mind. In Zhu Xi’s view, qi constituted and underlay everything, not just physical or material objects and phenomena in the world. For example, qi constituted the human mind. Mind, for Zhu Xi, was really nothing but qi, its “essential and refreshing” (jingshuang 精爽) or “numinous” (ling 靈) portion, to be more specific. Thus, qi was endowed with qualities of mind and could interact with the mind. The mind-qi interaction was not restricted to man’s qi and his own mind, but was extended to the qi of the outside world and to the minds of others. This was so because humans received their qi and mind from Heaven and Earth.75 The interaction of qi and the mind was also important in Zhu Xi’s discussion of the divination. According to him, it is possible for humans to read, through divination, the pattern in the various workings of the qi of Heaven and Earth exactly

73 74

75

wide purview and adaptability of the concept of qi and of conceptual schemes such as yin-yang and the five phases, it was possible for him to come up with explanations for any phenomenon, however strange it may appear. Thus, Zhu Xi rarely rejected reports about strange things and events outright. His characteristic attitude toward them was that they need to be thoroughly understood. He suggested that it is those who do not understand the principle (理) of such things that stubbornly refuse to believe in them and insist on their nonexistence; if one understands their principle, their strangeness will be resolved. See Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, 138.10a. For a good discussion of Zhu Xi’s ideas on the Yijing and the Yijing divination, see Smith et al., Sung Dynasty Uses of the “I Ching”, chapter 6. Miura Kunio 三浦國雄 calls this an “imitative reproduction of the sequences of the generation of Heaven and Earth by means of the divining bamboo stalks.” See his Shushi to ki to shintai, 172. See Kim, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi, sections 3.2 and 11.4.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

363

because the human mind and the qi of Heaven and Earth interact with each other: “Once man’s mind moves, it must reach the qi [of Heaven and Earth]. And with this [qi] contracting and expanding, coming and going, it mutually stimulates and moves. Things like divination are all thus.”76 It was therefore possible to explain divination in terms of the interaction of the mind of the diviner with the qi of Heaven and Earth. The ambivalence toward occult techniques, portents, and superstitions that we have seen in Zhu Xi can be found in many later Confucian scholars, who did not have sufficient ground to reject the possibility of such things. For example, Yi Ik 李瀷 (1681–1763), who had much influence on a number of Chosŏn scholars including Chŏng Yak-yong, did not completely reject divination and occult techniques.77 Yi Ik did not reject correlative associations and had no reason to reject divinations based on such associations. Nor did he reject the practice of choosing auspicious dates (taegil 擇日), which is recorded in classics like the Yijing, the Zuozhuan, and the Shujing 書經 [Classic of Documents],78 and he even encouraged the study of occult techniques like divination and astrology (sŏngmyŏng 星命) because they were based on the classics and their com­mentaries.79 Compared with these earlier Confucian scholars, Chŏng Yak-yong showed an attitude more critical of occult techniques, portents, and superstitions. The practical, or pragmatic, character detectable in many aspects of his thought and work seems to have made him more critical of such things. His criticism was mainly directed at the fact that such things were difficult to understand and lacked practical utility. The actual ways in which he argued that occult techniques cannot be efficacious also characterize him as a typical pragmatist. For example, he asserted that the specialists of “winds and waters,” if they thought the sites they found would really bring great benefits, and would use the sites for themselves and would not give them away to other people for a small amount of money.80 He also mentioned cases in which battles were waged and sacrifices offered successfully without prior recourse to divination, or in which descendants became rich and prosperous although they had not followed the technique of “winds and waters” in burying their ancestors.81 He 76 77 78 79 80 81

Zhuzi yulei, 3.2a. For Yi Ik’s views about occult techniques and portents, see Pak Kwon-su, “Sulsu-wa Chaeie taehan Yi Ik- ŭi kyŏnhae.” See Yi Ik, Sŏngho sasŏl 星湖僿說, chapter 1, “Sŏnhu kapkyŏng” 先後甲庚. See Yi Ik, Sŏngho sasŏl, chapter 26, “Kwak Pak Yi Sunp’ung” 郭璞李 淳風. See “P’ungsu ron 2” 風水論二 [On ‘Winds and Waters,’ no. 2]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.31a. See “Kap’ ŭl ron 1” 甲乙論一 [On the Ten Celestial Stems, no.1]: Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ I.11.30b.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

364

Kim

did not practice Yijing divination and even argued for its abolition; while the original purpose of divination was “preparation for peoples’ needs,” he found that in his own time the harmful effects of the practice outweighed its benefits.

Works Cited



Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Chŏng Yak-yong 丁若鏞. Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ 與猶堂全書 [Complete Works of Yŏyudang (Chŏng Yak-yong)]. Seoul: Yŏgang ch’ulp’ansa, 1985. Yi Ik 李 瀷. Sŏngho sasŏl 星湖僿說 [Detailed Discourse of Sŏngho (Yi Ik)]. Seoul: Kyŏnghi ch’ulp’ansa, 1967. Zhu Xi 朱熹. Zhuzi Yulei 朱子語類 [Classified Sayings of Master Zhu]. Taibei: Zhengzhong Shuju, 1962.

Henderson, John B. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Kim Ok-yŏn 金玉淵. “Tasan-ŭi yŏkhak sasang 茶山의 易學思想 [Tasan’s Thought on the Yijing].” In Chŏng Yak-yong 丁若鏞, edited by Yun Sa-sun 尹絲淳, pp. 147–171. Seoul: Koryŏ taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 1990. Kim Yŏng-sik 金永植. “Misin-kwa sulsu-e taehan Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi t’aedo 迷信과 術 數에 對한 丁若鏞의 態度 [Chŏng Yak-yong’s Attitude toward Superstition and Occult Techniques].” Tasanhak 茶山學 [Studies on Dasan (Chŏng Yak-yong)] 10 (2007): 7–54. Kim Yŏng-u 金永友. “Tasan-ŭi poksŏ-yŏk yŏn’gu” 茶山의 卜筮易 硏究 [Tasan’s Study on Yijing Divination].” Han’guk sirhak yŏn’gu 韓國實學硏究 [Studies on Korean Practical Learning] 4 (2002): 245–268. Kim, Yung Sik. The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130–1200). Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2000. Kŭm Chang-t’ae 琴章泰. “Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi ‘yŏk’ haesŏk-esŏ poksŏ-ŭi pangbŏp-kwa hwaryong 丁若鏞의 ‘ 易’ 解釋에서 卜筮의 方法과 活用 [The Method of Divination and Its Application in Chŏng Yak-yong’s Interpretation of the Yijing].” Tasanhak 茶 山學 [Studies on Dasan (Chŏng Yak-yong)] 8 (2006): 341–383. Kŭm Chang-t’ae 琴章泰. “Chuyŏk sajŏn-kwa Chŏng Yak-yong-ŭi yŏk haesŏk pangbŏp 『周易四箋』과 丁若鏞의 易解釋 方法 [Chuyŏk sajŏn and the Method of Chŏng Yakyong’s Interpretation of the Yijing].” Tong’a munhwa 東亞文化 [East Asian Culture] 44 (2006): 221–268.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination

365

Miura Kunio 三浦國雄. Shushi to ki to shintai 朱子と氣と身體 [Zhu Xi and Qi and Body]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1997. Moon, Joong-yang. “Traditional Cosmology Associated with the I-ching and AntiCosmological Discourses in 18th-Century Korea.” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 12 (1999): 177–227. Pak Kwon-su 朴權壽. “Sŏ Myŏng’ŭng-ŭi yŏkhakchŏk ch’ŏnmun’gwan 徐命膺의 易學的 天文觀 [Sŏ Myŏng’ŭng’s Views on Astronomy Based on the Yijing].” Han’guk Kwahaksa Hakhoeji 韓國科學史學會誌 [Journal of the Korean History of Science Society] 20 (1998): 57–101. Pak Kwon-su. “Sulsu-wa Chaeyi-e taehan Yi Ik- ŭi kyŏnhae 術數와 災異에 대한 李瀷의 견해 [Yi Ik’s views on Occult Techniques and Portents].” Sŏngho hakpo 星湖學報 [Journal of the Society of Sŏngho Studies] 3 (2006): 99–134. Smith, Kidder Jr., et al. Sung Dynasty Uses of the “I Ching”. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Sŏng T’ae-yong 成泰鏞. “Tasan ch’ŏrhak-e issŏ kyesi ŏmnŭn sangje 茶山 哲學에 있어 啓示 없는 上帝 [‘Lord on Heaven’ (shangdi) without Revelation in Tasan’s Phi­ losophy].” Tasanhak 茶山學 [Studies on Dasan (Chŏng Yak-yong)] 5 (2004): 103–126. Yi Ŭl-ho 李乙浩. Tasan-ŭi yŏkhak 茶山의 易學 [Tasan’s Study of the “Yijing”]. Seoul: Min’ŭmsa, 1993.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

366

Homola

Chapter 12

From Jianghu to Liumang: Working Conditions and Cultural Identity of Wandering Fortune-Tellers in Contemporary China Stéphanie Homola Itinerant diviners, well-known characters of Chinese popular literature, are back on the roads of post-Maoist China, as a result of increasing mobility, the economic development, reduced repressions against superstitions, and a cultural revival. Although very common, itinerant fortune-tellers do not belong to a clearly defined social category but rather to a ‘cultural nebula’ associated with vagrant lifestyle, poverty, and China’s long tradition of mantic arts. I assume that the combination of the low status and the rich cultural representations attached to wandering fortune-telling is precisely why this trade appeals to marginalized individuals. Through daily close contacts with the geographical and social diversity of China, they can gain social standing as cultural specialists. Their unfettered way of life on the fringe of society may even develop into a dissident and individualistic counter culture. The present investigation into the nomadic lifestyle of street fortune-tellers mainly relies on the case study of a professional itinerant practitioner, Mr. Yao, a native of Qingdao, whom I regularly met between 2008 and 2011. Yao’s example from the late 2000s can be usefully compared with a “reportage” (baogao wenxue 报告文学) of 1993, Yi Ren’s Fortune-Telling Fever in Contemporary China [Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre 当代中国的算命热], which depicts the lives of half a dozen wandering fortune-tellers in Beijing in the early 1990s. This well-documented semi-fictional work evidences the growth at that time, especially among the most humble ones, of those mantic practices which required little financial and cultural capital—such as street fortune-telling. In line with this literary genre which denounces the evils of Chinese society under cover of fiction, Yi depicts street fortune-tellers in a human light and presents them as victims of poverty and blind repression. The first part of this paper focuses on the working conditions of wandering fortune-tellers, such as the temporal and spatial organization, legal frame, and resources of the trade. The second part analyzes Mr. Yao’s life story, references, and techniques that shape his professional identity. The final part explores the different cultural representations of wandering fortune-tellers, from the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_014

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

367

From Jianghu to Liumang

traditional characters of jianghu 江湖 (wanderers) and beggars to the more contemporary liumang 流氓 (‘hooligans’). 1

Working Conditions of Wandering Fortune-Tellers

1.1 Daily Practice I came across Yao in the fall of 2008 as he was working at one of his favorite spots near the Guangji Temple 广济寺 in Beijing. Passers-by lingered to look at a large poster he had spread out on the floor featuring a table of Chinese surnames framed with the maxims, “Don’t need to tell anything, I can guess your name” and “Give me your hand and I know your destiny.”1 In addition, a small poster described the services performed by Yao: “Classic of Changes, marriage, career, wealth, education and exams, promotion, going abroad, children, explaining dreams, solving problems, resolving crisis, geomancy of dwellings and graves, fengshui, etc.” Two small folding stools and a flexible rule completed the fortune-teller’s equipment. Yao himself attracted attention by his looks: his bright white hair and goatee contrasted with his black Chinese-style jacket and hat. A cane and a big jade ring gave him an air of traditional respectability while fashionable sunglasses added a touch of modernity to this half-scholar, half-gangster style. But his dubious clothes, potbellied silhouette, and the mischievous way he addressed passers-by made him look like a vagabond. In the street, Yao usually performs palmistry (shouxiang 手相) and physiognomony (mianxiang 面相). He attracts clients by guessing their name as announced by the poster and then undertakes a more thorough consultation. In Beijing, Yao regularly changes location to reach a broader customer base. He often works in the popular district of Fengtai but also likes to test new spots. He chooses busy places next to temples or hospitals where he can target a particular clientele such as the faithful or patients and their families who are more likely to be confronted with questions or problems. In the early 1990s, the fortune-tellers described in the reportage also looked for high traffic areas near bus stops or universities, where they discreetly caught clients’ eyes: one of them put a small “I practice physiognomy” sign (kanxiang 看相) in an underpass next to other street vendors; others simply wrote “kanxiang” on their palm or hailed clients directly. They were also careful to change location every day and change districts every three or four days. 1 Buyong kaikou bian zhi nin xing shenme 不用开口便知您姓什么 and liang shouzhang bian zhi nin yisheng mingyun 量手掌便知您一生命运. To be discussed below.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

368

Homola

Figure 12.1 Posters spread out on the street floor by M. Yao in Fengtai District, Beijing, 2009

Endowed with a merry and talkative character, Yao likes to make friends with shopkeepers, employees, and security volunteers in the area, to work in a friendly atmosphere and build up allies in case of problems. Yao appreciates and maintains this kind of street sociability. Although he moves frequently for economic and safety reasons, he likes to be greeted by locals and to visit his friends. Indeed, his presence depends on the goodwill of local security officials who most of the time turn a blind eye to his activities. The Legal Frame of Street Fortune-Telling from 1979 to Present 1.2 Yao has never faced any serious problem with the police but I witnessed an incident one day in Fengtai. As Yao had brought me to the room he rented in a crowded and timeworn complex to show me divination booklets, two police officers turned up, checked Yao’s identity, and seized the booklets. A neighbor who witnessed the scene explained to me that although these books were not illegal (feifa 非法), they were not allowed (bu hefa 不合法). But I agreed with Yao that the books were rather a pretext to check what a foreign woman could possibly do in such a place. This incident shows the ambiguous and precarious legal status of street fortune-tellers, despite the authorities’ increasing tolerance in the 2000s. In the 1990s, repression seemed to be much more systematic. Fortune-Telling Fever in Contemporary China tells about the arrest of a street fortune-teller under the charge of illegal trade in 1992. He was released after

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

369

three days in jail and managed to avoid the fine and the seizure of his equipment by providing a free consultation to the police officer.2 Regulations which apply to divination practices have varied according to administrative levels and changes in China’s religious policy from 1979 to present. Most of the time, enforcement depends on local governments which adopt a more or less tolerant attitude. Significant differences between regions reflect the theoretical and ideological struggle of the leaders in charge of religious policy to define and distinguish acceptable religions from reprehensible superstitions. The rather open climate of the late 1970s was followed by a general crackdown in the 1980s, notably during the campaign against “spiritual pollution” (qingchu jingshen wuran 清除精神污染) in 1982. Repression gradually slackened, especially since the 2000s, and today divination practices are widely tolerated. Although broadly speaking, the control of divination practices is part of the religious policy, they are by definition excluded from official religions. Thus, these practices are not regulated by the Offices of Religious Affairs at national, provincial, and local levels, but are subject to common provisions of the Criminal Law and public security regulations.3 While general texts only address the broad category of “superstition,” regulations become more and more precise as one moves down the administrative hierarchy. It is only at the municipal level that mantic practices are explicitly designated as fortune-telling (suanming 算命), divination by means of the trigrams or hexagrams from the Classic of Changes (bugua 卜卦), divination (zhanbu 占卜), kanxiang, or fengshui. In the 1979 Criminal Law, “superstitions” appeared in article 99 (“Coun­ter­ revolutionary crimes” section) as “feudal superstitions” along with “superstitious sects” and “secret societies” (huidaomen 会道门), and in article 165 (“Threats to public order” section) along with “witchcraft” as tools to deceive and abuse the people. In the new 1997 Criminal Law, these two articles were replaced by Article 300 (“Threats to public order” section).4 The adjective “feudal” was no longer used whereas the term “evil religious teachings” (xiejiao 邪教) was added, which corresponds to the evolution of China’s religious policy from a condemnation of “superstitions” to that of “sects.”5 While Article 300 has been 2 Yi Ren, Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre, 62–64. 3 In addition to trade regulations which I will not analyze here. 4 “Whoever organizes and utilizes superstitious sects, secret societies, and evil religious organizations or sabotages the implementation of the state’s laws and executive regulations by utilizing superstition is to be sentenced to not less than three years and not more than seven years of fixed-term imprisonment; when circumstances are particularly serious, to not less than seven years of fixed-term imprisonment,” available at . 5 See Palmer, “Les mutations.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

370

Homola

raised against Falun Gong followers, as far as I know, it has never been used against fortune-tellers. Indeed, divination practices are not considered a serious crime or a threat to political power but depend more on educational policies. Beyond Criminal Law, superstitious practices are also governed by the “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Administrative Penalties for Public Security.” Article 24 provides that whoever is guilty of “disturbing public order […] or swindling money by way of […] feudal superstition, when the circumstances are not serious enough for criminal punishment” faces a maximum sentence of fifteen days imprisonment or a fine of up to 200 RMB.6 Provincial and municipal regulations are based on these general texts and directed at diviners’ activities in three areas.7 First, the “Circular on the Prohibition of witchcraft, suanming, divination by analyzing characters, divination by trigram or hexagram (gua 卦), physiognomony and other illegal superstitious activities”8 was issued for the first time by the government of Shanghai in 1982 and then taken over by many provincial governments and public security offices in the 1980s, in the context of what the PRC’s Education Law termed the “construction of the socialist material and spiritual civilization.” This regulation provided a set of progressive measures to curb these plagues: danwei 单位 (units) or individuals who witnessed illegal superstitious activities were told to ask perpetrators to stop. Against those who refused to mend their ways, danwei should take appropriate administrative measures or use available legal means such as fines or detention. Perpetrators of serious offences should face criminal prosecution. However, many regulations issued in the 1980s were not updated, which suggests a loose enforcement. In the 1990s, some revised regulations aimed at curbing the spreading of for­tunetelling and prohibited the sale of divination books and softwares, but they

6 Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo zhi’an guanli chufa tiaoli 中华人民共和国治安管理处罚条 例. 1986, 1994, and 2005 versions of these regulations are available at lawinfochina.com. “有 下列妨害社会管理秩序行为之一的，处十五日以下拘留、二百元以下罚款或者警 告：[...] （四）利用会道门、封建迷信活动，扰乱社会秩序、危害公共利益、损 害他人身体健康或者骗取财物，尚不够刑事处罚的。” 7 This section is based on a systematic search with the keyword “suanming 算命” in the database of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council of the Republic of China (www. chinalaw.gov.cn) in October 2011. 8 “Guanyu chajin shenhan, wupo he suanming, cezi, bugua, xiangmian deng mixin weifa huodong de tonggao 关于查禁神汉，巫婆和算命，测字，卜卦，相面等迷信违法活动的通 告,” Government of Shanghai City, August 17, 1982, available at fgk.chinalaw.gov.cn.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

371

focused more on the risks of deception and fraud than on ideological con­demnation.9 Secondly, divination practices are addressed within regulations relating to fraud, gambling, and pornography with which they have been associated since the campaigns against superstition of the 1920s and 1930s.10 Thus, diviners’ activities are condemned along with deviant behaviors against women or gambling and subject to “reward and punishment” policies.11 Some regulations also prohibit phone divination services as well as advertising of fortune-telling through audio and video products. Finally, diviners’ activities are also affected by regulations relating to public places. Increasing references to fortune-telling in the late 1990s and especially in the 2000s suggest that it is becoming more and more conspicuous in public space. Thus, a 2000 regulation prohibited begging, gambling, suanming, and other illegal superstitious activities in Wangfujing Pedestrian Street in Beijing. Fortune-telling may as well be banned in public parks and their surroundings, around stations, large squares, markets, tourist sites, and religious sites. Given such circumstances, how does Yao organize his trade? 1.3 Securing Resources All Around China Yao has traveled throughout China and has been to many cities, from Hong Kong to Harbin. He chooses the destination when opportunities arise such as a client who asks for him or a friend he wants to visit. Moreover, outdoor work and poor housing conditions make him dependent on seasonal variations. Since I first met him in 2008, however, Yao seems to have limited his geographical scope. Indeed, the less he travels, the more he can consolidate his networks of friends and patrons. Except for one or two trips to Shanghai, he now alternates between rest periods in Qingdao, his hometown, and work periods in Beijing. Thus, he generally spends autumn in Beijing and goes back to Qingdao 9

10 11

See for instance “Heilongjiang sheng chajin shenhan, wupo huodong zanxing guiding 黑 龙江省查禁神汉，巫婆活动暂行规定 [Heilongjiang Province’s temporary regulation on the prohibition of witchcraft activities]” (1998), available at law-lib.com. See Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes; and Hammerstrom, The Science of Chinese Buddhism. Article 300 of the 1997 Criminal Law states: “Whoever organizes and utilizes superstitious sects, secret societies, and evil religious organizations or has illicit sexual relations with women, defraud money and property by utilizing superstition is to be convicted and punished in accordance with the regulations of articles 236, 266 of the law.” See also “Fushun shimin ‘shibu’ xingwei jiangcheng banfa 抚顺市民 ‘十不’ 行为奖惩办法 [Measures to Reward and Punish the ‘Ten Do-Not’ Behaviors of Fushun City’s Citizens]” (1996), available at chinalawinfo.com.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

372

Homola

for the winter, where he used to also spend Chinese New Year. However, he found that business is very good at that time in Beijing, especially during the temple festival in Liulichang 琉璃厂 Tourist Street, and he has been working there every year since 2009. He stays in Beijing until May and then goes back to Qingdao to escape the heat of the capital. Yao also wears different clothes depending on the season: white hat and white jacket from May to September, black hat and black jacket from October to April. He stays in cheap hotels in popular neighborhoods or in seedy-looking rooms rented for 300 yuan per month to migrant workers. For a fifteen minutes consultation he usually charges ten yuan. Patrons follow one another regularly and Yao seems to earn around 150–200 yuan a day (he claims he can earn up to 2000 yuan a day but I suspect he exaggerates). He works every day, morning and afternoon, and has quite limited needs: a few dozen yuan for the daily bus tickets, cigarettes, beers, and meals. He is also regularly invited to the restaurant by wealthy clients. Then again, he has to save money for the time he spends in Qingdao where he does not work. Fortune-Telling Fever also describes the high mobility of street fortune-tellers. While one of them had been wandering in the streets of Beijing for eight years, another traveled across northern China and kept a diary on “the story of his vagrant life” (liulang shi 流浪史). In any Chinese city, both traveling fortune-tellers and patrons can easily find out where the fortune-tellers gather. Thus, the author of the reportage took the opportunity of a trip to Harbin to interview the fortune-tellers who settled every day in front of the City Museum there. All of them emphasized their wandering lifestyle: “I have been doing this job for twenty years and if I don’t go out every day, something’s wrong”; “Be it winter, spring, summer or fall, it’s always the traveling season for us. We wander in the four directions across rivers and lakes (yunyou sifang, zouma jianghu 云游四方, 走马江湖), just like ancients (guren 古人), except that we can take the bus or the train.”12 These fortune-tellers were also less prosperous than Yao, as they only had a few patrons a day. In addition to the short-term clients he meets daily on the street, Yao relies on a network of connections and regular patrons, including many senior officials, with whom he keeps in touch by phone. This ability to win the loyalty of wealthy clients distinguishes him from other itinerant diviners, and he often boasts about the high social status of his clientele. Thus, he likes to tell how a lady from the Embassy of the United States once consulted him in Liulichang, gave him 100 yuan, and kissed him on both cheeks. He claims that officials are the most frequent petitioners although they keep it “secret” (bu gongkai 不公 12

Yi Ren, Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre, 45 and 34.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

373

From Jianghu to Liumang

开, mimi 秘密). Most of the time, Yao meets such clients on the street. If they

are satisfied with the consultation, they invite him to the restaurant where they can have a more thorough discussion and possibly develop a lasting relationship. Yao acknowledges that, in their opinion, he represents the “culture of ancient China” (Zhonguo guwenhua 中国古文化), and he willingly plays his part as a jianghu: “High level people trust me, we become friends and they support me.”13 I took part in such a meeting in a posh restaurant in Beijing with a highranking official, his wife and son. He wanted to consult Yao about his son’s career and marriage and about his own financial investments. Although the overall tone of the mealtime discussion was quite amiable, Yao delivered a professional performance through a desultory conversation, which alternated between tense discussions and chats on insignificant matters. Although the family members valued Yao’s opinion, they were not willing to believe him blindly and interpreted what was “accurate” (zhun 准) according to their own sensitivity and interests. Similarly, when they were not satisfied with Yao’s answers, they did not hesitate to bring up the issues again and again. They had clear expectations based on Yao’s previous performances or on fortune-tellers’ alleged abilities. Yao was constantly trying to impress and was more or less success­ful: sometimes he knew how to rebound to stick to the petitioners’ expectations, sometimes his speech skills betrayed him and he missed the point. Paradoxically, the only way he could get some rest was to monopolize the conversation with a conventional speech about Qingdao’s culinary specialties or the depth of Chinese ancient culture. A more thorough investigation into Yao’s life story and training shows how he came to build such a professional identity. 2

An Unlikely Career: Life Story and Professional Identity

Itinerant fortune-tellers differ from non-itinerant fortune-tellers who also practice, for example, on the street or near temples and markets. Considering the precariousness and insecurity of wandering life, itinerant diviners are mostly (if not all) men. The half-dozen fortune-tellers interviewed in FortuneTelling Fever were between thirty and fifty years old and had been practicing 13

The same categories of persons supported mantic arts specialists during the Republican Era’s anti-superstition campaigns. They are characterized by their profession rather than by their social origin: businessmen, entrepreneurs, politicians, etc. See Lackner, “The Last Stand of ‘Chinese Science.’”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

374

Homola

since the early 1980s. One of them, a native of Shanxi Province, was the son of a scholar and expert in mantic arts who had been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Another, a native of Beijing, was an unemployed former educated youth sent to the countryside (zhiqing 知青) who had been trained by a master from Shandong Province in the 1980s. Yet another fortune-teller, a native of Sichuan Province, migrated to Beijing in 1980 because his parents did not have enough land to feed all their children. All had a wife and children they concealed their activity from and to whom they gave the little money they earned. These poorly educated men were reduced to practice divination because they could not find another job. Nowadays, the growing wealth of Chinese cities makes the situation of itinerant fortune-tellers much less precarious, and better educated people, like Yao, are attracted by this trade. From a sociological point of view, Yao can be classified as a migrant worker attracted by the job opportunities large cities offer—although he differs from peasant workers (mingong 民工) because he has a city hukou 户口 (record in the system of household registration) and does not work as a manual laborer. He is representative of a new type of internal migration, revealed by the 2000 census: recent, distant, and temporary migrations between cities by better educated migrants.14 Like many migrant workers, Yao’s knowledge of the city is determined by his work and daily commuting, which created recurrent problems when we tried to settle an appointment over the phone. While he was always available to meet me, he could not set a specific location until the very day of the meeting and, as I was trying to identify the place on a map, he could not give me any precise indication such as cardinal orientation or the nearest subway station. This also shows how important the mobile phone is to his activity as it is his only link with friends and regular clients. In May 2010, I had the opportunity to go to Qingdao, Yao’s hometown, and learn more about his origins, the motives which led him to work as a wandering fortune-teller, his training, references, and techniques. 2.1 From High Society to Vagrant Life Yao was born into a military family in 1959. Neither his mother nor his father, a philosophy graduate of Beijing University and member of the Communist Party (CCP), were interested in mantic arts. Yao studied history at the University of Shandong and did his military service in Qingdao in the early 1980s. An army friend introduced him to a teacher with whom he began studying mantic ­techniques. His official career led him to the rank of colonel and head of a Qingdao district. Concurrently, he went on studying mantic techniques, 14

See Liang Zai and Ma Zhongdong, “China’s Floating Population,” 473, 475, and 484.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

375

collected divination books, and started practicing on friends’ requests. He also became the disciple of a Daoist monk from the Laoshan 崂山 temple, located east of Qingdao. In 1998, his life changed dramatically when, after having offended a superior, he was forced to resign and quit the CCP. Soon after, he got divorced and his wife was awarded the house the CCP had given him. To make a living and keep himself busy, he decided to specialize (zhuanmen 专门) as a professional fortune-teller. For over five years, Yao improved his technique and enriched his book collection, while living on a small pension. In 2004, his son had to rely on a government grant to attend university. In 2005, Yao went to Beijing where he began his itinerant professional life. Going on a kind of initiatory journey to be taught by renowned masters around the country and gain experience is traditionally part of a fortune-teller’s training. Many eventually go back home to work but this was not compatible with Yao’s former position in Qingdao where he would have been recognized while practicing on the street. Until today, he refuses to work in his hometown, even when he is asked. During my visit to Qingdao, Yao took me to his sister-in-law’s beautiful house in the formerly posh neighborhood at the foot of the Guanhaishan 观海山 Park. Although Yao behaved as if he was at home, we did not meet anybody, and one can easily imagine his outcast position among brothers who made successful military careers. 2.2 Integration into the World of Divination Over the years, Yao has collected around two hundred divination books— some published during the early 1980s, some recent editions. He owns all sorts of manuals, classics, cheap booklets, encyclopedic collections, and dictionaries on every kind of mantic arts. Yao himself wrote a book about fortune-telling and love but has not found a publisher yet. While in Qingdao, I also had the opportunity to study more precisely the device Yao uses to predict clients’ names. Yao first asks the petitioner to show on the poster in which square he can find his name. Then, he takes out of his pocket a set of plastic cards, each of them featuring about thirty surnames, and asks the client to identify the card which contains his name. He puts the cards back in his pocket, observes and measures the client’s hand with the flexible rule, and finally announces his name. Yao claims he is “ninety percent accurate.” The poster grid consists of twenty-four squares, each of which contains twenty-five names, while the card game consists of twenty-five cards, each of which contains thirty names. Although Yao pretends he predicts clients’ names from their palm, it is easy to understand that each grid cell and game card have only one name in common, which allows Yao to guess the name of the person.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

376

Homola

Although the names are organized in a logical way, he needs a little time for reflection during which he observes the hand of the petitioner without speaking (it is indeed only after he has guessed the name that he starts on a thorough review of the hand). Yao told me he designed this device by himself using the traditional educational text Hundred Family Surnames (Baijiaxing 百家姓). Yet, as I was walking through the streets of Qingdao, I came across two fortunetellers who were using the same device, although with slightly different grids. It seems this method is widespread in Qingdao which may be an additional reason why Yao refuses to practice at home. A quick Internet search shows that this method is common throughout China and widely denounced. Thus, an article from the Nanfang ribao reveals the knack (jueqiao 诀窍) of this device which is not a magical and miraculous prediction (shensuan 神算; meiyou renhe shenmi de secai 没有任何神秘的色 彩) but a mere game (youxi 游戏).15 A businessman who sells these tools praises them as a high profit investment: “You can earn money from the very first day (Dangtian bai tan, dangtian zhuanqian! 当天摆摊, 当天赚钱!). This is not superstition but a mathematical method.” He thus suggests that this device does not aim at deceiving people because the illusion is based on a mathematical game and not on reprehensible beliefs in supernatural phenomena. Whether they praise or denounce it, all these comments emphasize that anyone can handle this technique. By claiming that what everyone can do is not magic, they implicitly acknowledge that ‘real’ magic does exist and requires special skills. Thus, the object of public condemnation remains unclear: should one denounce false diviners or real diviners? This confusion reveals the sterility of the purely formal and ideological struggle against superstitions in China. Their detractors denounce them only to comply with the official line and ­display a scientific veneer: they do not call into question the existence of supernatural capacities or phenomena, but merely criticize those who improperly claim to have magical powers. Such a schizophrenic attitude is a common symptom of the paradox of traditional knowledge in China: whereas knowledge is organized in academic institutions according to the Western model and thus excludes ‘superstitious’ practices such as divination, these practices are still used in everyday life, even by the members of the academic world.16 A way to get out of the endless debate about superstitions would be to focus on Yao’s performance and not on his alleged supernatural powers. Petitioners do not pay to know their name (one hopes they already know it) but to watch a magic trick, and they wavered between wonder and skepticism. 15 16

“Beimenjie xian fanban.” Lackner, “The Last Stand of ‘Chinese Science.’”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

377

What position does Yao hold in the world of divination and why is he considered a charlatan by some clients and practitioners? His regular clients call him great master (dashi 大师), an indefinite designation which makes him a member of the diviners’ heterogeneous community. Although he frequently uses the words suanming or mostly suangua 算卦 (tell fortune by the trigrams or hexagrams), he prefers the description “psychologist” (xinli yisheng 心理医 生) over the more derogatory expression “fortune-teller” (suanming xiansheng 算命先生), and he describes his work as “metaphysics” (xuanxue 玄学). Yao shares with his colleagues the economic need to keep the tricks of the trade secret and to control the transmission of knowledge. He also willingly refers to the books of famous figures from the world of divination. Thus, he thinks that “Shao Weihua 邵伟华 is very good (hen lihai 很厉害) on the four-pillars (sizhu 四柱) method. But Liu Dajun 刘大均 is even better.” His assessments are not limited to Chinese techniques: “Freud is accurate (zhun 准) on some points, but not on others.” However, Yao does not belong to any professional organization. Diviners from Qingdao or Beijing regularly ask him to join one of their numerous associations, but he has neither the time nor the inclination to take part in such meetings. Unlike many settled practitioners, Yao seldom disparages other fortunetellers, probably because he himself represents the perfect ‘quack’ vilified by his colleagues: he is itinerant, works outdoor, and performs physiognomy and palmistry, which lie at the bottom in the hierarchy of mantic techniques. Far from the still atmosphere of a cabinet where the literate-looking diviner can weigh his words in front of a willing patron who has planned to spend time with him, the street fortune-teller must draw the attention of passers-by with his mere look and speech. The money issue is also crucial: unlike most settled practitioners who try to minimize the financial aspect of their business, Yao loudly claims that he does this job to make money. Does Yao consciously deceive people? Although he denies it, his device to guess petitioners’ names can be considered as a fraud. However, from his point of view, this trick seems necessary to attract clients. Such a deception is required by the trade but limited to a specific purpose. Once it baited the client and put him ​​in a good psychological condition, Yao can start the proper consultation based on knowledge and experience of mantic arts. Similarly, the fortune-tellers described in Fortune-Telling Fever resorted to touts: the fortuneteller can thus impress passers-by by giving particularly accurate answers to an ostensible petitioner.17 Such tricks are not considered cheating but merely 17

Yi Ren, Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre, 38.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

378

Homola

know-how: “With experience, I can guess eighty to ninety percent of people’s fate just from their look.”18 What criteria distinguish an expert in divinatory arts from a charlatan (also designated by the term jianghu)?19 The dividing line between a so-called specialist and an impostor is closely related to the organization of knowledge in a given society. In the very short time of thirty years, from 1898 to 1919, the traditional Chinese system of knowledge, based on a classification into the four branches of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries (Siku Quanshu 四庫 全書), was redesigned to comply with the Western seven academic disciplines.20 But despite nationali s t and communist efforts, both systems still pervade Chinese society and shape the status of divinatory knowledge. According to the Western classification, divinatory arts belong to pseudoscience. A charlatan is a person whose knowledge is not approved by modern science and who does not hold any academic or official position which works as a quality label. In China, where science has been used for political purposes from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, fighting superstitious beliefs and denouncing swindling is part of a national program to educate the people. People like Yao are all the more suspected of fraud as they ask their clients for money (whereas institutionally recognized scientists receive a salary from the State) and lead an uncontrolled wandering life. A division within Chinese culture itself adds to this dichotomy between science and pseudoscience. In the traditional classification of knowledge which fully integrates divinatory arts (in different sections of the Siku Quanshu), divination practitioners are not necessarily considered as charlatans. Despite the habit of professional practitioners to disparage their competitors, different criteria are used to distinguish a respected expert of traditional knowledge from a vilified quack. First, the specialist is not a professional. He does not practice divinatory arts as his main activity but as a hobby. Second, the ethical dimension of his art excludes any remuneration. For him, divination is a selfless and often even playful activity. Third, the most important criterion that defines the expert is his education as a scholar. Although he may have deep knowledge, a diviner will be considered a charlatan if he has not been educated as a scholar. Indeed, education matters more than holding an official position. In the context of the imperial civil service examination system, unsuccessful applicants, whose number greatly exceeded that of successful candidates, constituted the sociological basis of these educated but non-specialized individuals who, 18 19 20

Ibid., 16. The definition of jianghu is discussed below. Lackner, “The Last Stand of ‘Chinese Science.’”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

379

deprived of the official title of shidafu 士大夫 (literati, functionary), contented themselves with the status of shiren 士人 (educated man, scholar). At the time of the diffusion of divination practices during the Song period (960–1279), these former students turned to divinatory arts as an alternative to official professional careers.21 In the traditional system of knowledge, then, Yao is both an expert and a charlatan. Like unsuccessful applicants to civil service examination, he holds a university degree (today’s equivalent of a scholarly education) but he does not hold any official position anymore. Thus, his biographical background gives him access to a wealthy and educated clientele whereas his way of life, unworthy of a scholar, makes him belong to the jianghu world, an identity which he willingly admits as a part of his complex character. 3

Cultural Identity and Representations of Itinerant Fortune-Tellers

Yao’s speech, attitudes, and lifestyle characterize him as someone who combines within himself multiple identities such as the vagabond, the beggar, and the hooligan. Itinerant diviners are a striking example of a social phenomenon inseparable from its cultural refraction in collective imagination. The Traditional Image of Jianghu 3.1 To justify his way of life, Yao likes to present himself as a jianghu (literally, “­rivers and lakes”), an emblematic figure of ancient Chinese culture. The ideal and the set of representations associated with jianghu are mainly based on literary sources and refer broadly to people who adopt an itinerant lifestyle: knights-errant, wandering monks, beggars, vagabonds, outlaws, fugitives, fortune-tellers, wandering entertainers.22 Knights-errant (youxia 游侠) are in­spired by chivalric values such as altruism, justice, individual freedom, personal loyalty, courage, sincerity and mutual trust, honor and glory, generosity and contempt for wealth.23 In classical literature, such as in Du Fu’s poems, the 21 See Liu Xiangguang, “Liang Song shiren.” 22 The Dictionary of Chinese jianghu slang lists the different groups designated as jianghu: hermits (yinju changsuo 隐居场所), forest outlaws (lülin haohan 绿林好汉), specialists of divinatory arts (fangshu zhishi 方术之士), knights-errant (xiake xiadao 侠客侠盗), sworn brotherhoods (jinlan jieyi 金兰结义), religious secret societies (zongjiao banghui 宗教帮会), itinerant entertainers (jianghu yiren 江湖艺人), beggars and thieves (qigai qiezei 乞丐窃贼), idlers (menke hunhun 门客混混), and charlatans (jianghu pianzi 江湖 骗子); see Liu Yanwu, Zhongguo jianghu yinyu cidian, 1–4). 23 Liu, The Chinese Knight-Errant, 4–7.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

380

Homola

image of jianghu evokes a carefree existence, relieved from the constraints of official life, traveling, celebration of nature, and nostalgia. From classic texts, the notion spread to popular literature: in the famous novel Water Margin, jianghu refers to outlaws who rebel against a corrupted authority and advocate ideals of justice.24 But jianghu have an ambivalent status: on the one hand, there is the utopian image of them as free and superhuman individuals whose repu­tation is spread by rumors and legends; on the other hand they operate on the fringe of society, as expressed in the derogatory meaning of jianghu as “charlatan.” Since the 1980s, an aestheticized form of jianghu has been revived through popular literature, films, and television series featuring martial arts heroes who defy the laws of nature and keep close ties with the criminal underworld and the afterlife. In recent years, books have also been published on the history and culture of jianghu, especially in modern times.25 But unlike other kinds of jianghu, diviners are not organized in communities, such as secret societies, brotherhoods, or guilds. This may be explained by their highly competitive business but it may also be because it is difficult to isolate them into a single ‘category,’ as people can practice divination while belonging to various social groups (entertainers, beggars, mendicant friars, etc.). Yao’s biography and lifestyle match the image of jianghu. First, he cultivates the aesthetics of jianghu through his clothes. Moreover, as with the knightserrant in Water Margin, it was a conflict with the authorities that made him adopt the wandering lifestyle which freed him both from professional and political submission and from the constraints of the traditional Chinese household. Yao has created a utopian vision of his life story. The loss of his job, social standing, wife and property is compensated by his yearning for freedom, which means freedom of action but also independence of mind and speech, as we shall see. This way of life gives him the opportunity and the leisure to make friends all around China, following a mode of sociability often reported in literature on jianghu, who consider meetings and friendships a sign of destiny (yuanfen 缘分). Yao does not intend to change his lifestyle or to retire because he still has “a lot of ideals to achieve.” Many of his wealthy clients have offered him money to help him settle and enjoy better working conditions. But Yao has always refused: “Sedentary life is not free (bu ziyou 不自由). Now, I can go anywhere in China, like foreigners.” 24 Wu, “A Chinese Diaspora.” 25 See Wenshi jinghua bianjibu bian; Li Shuxi, Jianghu; Lian Kuoru, Jianghu congtan. The professional story-teller Lian Kuoru (1903–1971) started his career as a street fortune-teller in the Tianqiao 天桥 area of Beijing in the 1920s.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

381

Emphasis on Chinese cultural specificity is another feature of a jianghu’s image. Thus, Yao claims that the Classic of Changes is the “best mantic technique in the whole world” (quanshijie diyi hang yuce shu 全世界第一行预测术) and that “the Chinese are the only ones who can guess names.” Yao represents quintessential Chineseness, which accounts for most of his power of attraction.26 However, Yao is clearly a modern jianghu, who has also been shaped by the communist experience. He combines tradition and modernity, as symbolized by his clothes: “I am both traditional and modern, I’m not backward.”27 Yao does not believe in any religion. He used to believe in the CCP until he joined the army. Now, he only believes in fate which determines lives. 3.2 The Ambivalent Image of Beggars Although, strictly speaking, street fortune-tellers are not beggars (they are paid for a service), the look, practices, and lifestyle of some of them are very similar to those of beggars with whom they are associated in public policies against begging. Such is the case with the wretched and old-looking fortune-tellers settled in the parking lot in front of the White Cloud Temple (Baiyunguan 白云 观) in Beijing. Sitting on the sidewalk or on a small stool between the cars, they ask for a few Yuan to cast a divination stick (qian 签). A 1998 article sheds light on the representations of street fortune-tellers in the media.28 To denounce the fraud, the journalists undertook to record and film secretly the street fortune-tellers who worked near the Baiyunguan. As they were considered dangerous as offenders but also, implicitly, because of their potential supernatural powers, the journalists led a military-style operation which seemed highly inappropriate considering that they were only facing harmless beggars. The fortune-tellers were depicted as “evil and treacherous” (guizha jiaohua 诡诈狡黯) and as “always performing the same act” (biaoyan yifan 表演一番) in a “flood of words” (kouruoxuanhe 口若悬河). A journalist also noted their habit to denigrate each other constantly: “According to this fortune-teller, every practitioner but him was ignorant and only knew how to 26

27

28

The same is true of the heroes of martial arts novels: “Louis Cha [Jin Yong]’s novels provide Chinese readers with a celebration of Chinese culture, of Chineseness, a fictional experience which is in some aspects more ‘Chinese’ than any of the available Chinese realities. They create a powerful sense of euphoria. A Chinese banquet”; Minford, “Kungfu in Translation,” 30). Wo shi chuantong de, ye shi xinchao de, bu luohou 我是传统的, 也是新潮的, 不落后. It is well known to which extremes prompted the fear to lag behind in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. See Wang Qiang, “Jietou suanming xiansheng chujing.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

382

Homola

swindle people out of money. He added with a thick Henan accent: ‘They should all be killed, all of them.’”29 Indeed, the journalists were also looking for folklore. They admired a fortune-teller’s amazing performance, his self-confidence, his crook look, and his vivid speech and mimic.30 Conversely, they denigrated another one who did not meet their expectations: he tried to talk in mysterious ways (gunongxuanxu 故弄玄虚) but his speech was tasteless, “the kind of prediction that a young blind fortune-teller from the countryside would give.”31 Moreover, when the journalist asked him to prove that his science was not a fraud, he could not find any argument to defend the scientific value of his art. Here again we can find the ambiguous condemnation of mantic practices as non-scientific: it does not aim at denying the existence of supernatural powers but only at exposing cheaters. The article also describes how street fortune-tellers were subject to the beggars’ repatriation policy (qiansong mangliu 遣送氓流) implemented by the Office for Repatriation of the Beijing Department of Civil Affairs.32 It is said that the Office spent more than one million yuan per year to send home two to three thousand beggars, but despite these measures, beggars still flocked to Beijing. The journalists followed the journey of one of these fortune-tellers, first at the repatriation center in Hebei Province and then in a wagon full of beggars watched by the police on the train that sent him back to Anyang, Henan Province. Although he told them he would not return to Beijing, the journalists later met him on the train back to the capital. They noticed that many willingly accepted their fate as “wandering magicians” (jianghu shushi 江 29

30 31 32

Wang Qiang, “Jietou suanming xiansheng chujing,” 13. Most of the fortune-tellers interviewed in the article were natives of Henan Province. Henan is one of the poorest and most populous provinces in China and, being relatively close to Beijing, it is a breedingground for migrant workers. Many of the fortune-tellers I interviewed ten years later in front of the Baiyunguan also came from Henan. In Beijing, Henan mingong work in refuse collection: “While Zhejiang people who specialized in clothing represent ‘entrepreneur immigrants’ among provincial immigrants in Beijing, Henan migrants represent the part of immigrants who ‘can only rely on their work force’”; Beja and al., “Comment apparaissent,” 32 (my translation). Henan ragmen who settled in the “Henan Village” were also the first to be sent home when city authorities decided to “restore order”; see ibid., 34. Eric Henry also analyzes beggars’ work in terms of performance; see his “The Beggar’s Play.” Wang Qiang, “Jietou suanming xiansheng chujing,” 13 (my translation). In China’s dual administrative system that distinguishes urban and rural hukou, measures to repatriate migrants have frequently been implemented since the beginning of the communist era; see Cheng and Selden, “The Origins.” Regulations about the repatriation of beggars in the 1990s are reproduced in Dutton, Streetlife China, 120–124.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

383

湖术士)—some even had business cards!—and ended by lamenting over the

gullible clients who induced poor peasants to taking up such a trade. The ambivalent image of beggars in Chinese culture underlined by David Schak can help qualify the status of street diviners.33 On the one hand, beggars have a low social status because of their poverty and wretched appearance which they are said to exaggerate to arouse compassion. They are also asso­ ciated with ghosts: as with ghosts, one has to pay to get rid of beggars and their request is a threat which can hurt those who reject it. On the other hand, ­beggars have a positive image, especially in folk literature, where they are sometimes described as the manifestations of deities who came to test men’s charity, rewarding goodness and punishing evil. They are also said to be clairvoyant, to perform miracles, or to predict the future and the date of people’s death. Finally, like fortune-tellers, beggars are associated with the sense of justice and high moral values of knights-errant: “It is as if they have a higher mission in life and they work just enough to keep from going hungry.”34 According to Schak, deprived and thus potentially envious, beggars represent a threat to the social order and their positive image in popular literature is a way to defuse the danger by giving them prestige, in line with Buddhist and Taoist virtues of charity. A last element links beggars and fortune-tellers on the common basis of their low social status: when a discrepancy appears between the supposed merits of a person and his/her social standing, (bad) luck and destiny serve as a mean of explanation. The fate of beggars (qishiming 乞食命), like that of fortune-tellers, is written in the horoscope. And just like there is no use in trying to enrich a man doomed to be a beggar, nothing can restrain a jianghu from a wandering life. The Rebel Spirit of Liumang 3.3 Another cultural representation, which is also rooted in literary sources, particularly applies to Yao’s case, since it was coined in the 1980s specifically to describe his generation. “Liumang 流氓” is a vague term with negative connotations which refers to hooligans, unemployed youth, and generally to the bad manners and antisocial behaviors of people who live on petty theft and are addicted to sex and drink.35 Yao Yusheng explains that the liumang youth culture emerged during the Cultural Revolution among teenage children from

33 34 35

See Schak, “Images of Beggars.” Ibid., 122. Liumang can be defined as ‘outsiders’ who do not belong to any clan, group, or work unit and, more generally, who are excluded from any acceptable social position and from the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

384

Homola

communist aristocratic families who, moved by a sense of superiority and protected by their class background, gathered in gangs, rebelled against traditional authority, and became marginalized in Deng’s era of economic reform, when China gradually changed from a political to a commercial society.36 Since the 1980s, an urban “liumang culture” has emerged whose members engage less in open dissent but in sardonic and shameless behavior, as inspired by the writings of Wang Shuo 王朔.37 The parallels between Wang Shuo and Yao are striking, both with respect to Wang’s personal history, lifestyle, and speech and to the liumang culture that impregnates his novels. Wang, born in 1958, and Yao, born in 1959, both belong to the “other Cultural Revolution generation, not the idealistic and disillusioned Red Guards, but their younger brothers and sisters who witnessed it all but grew up not disillusioned but dismissive, for many of them never believed the strident rhetoric at all.”38 From his youth, Wang rebelled against his family (his father boasted of having fought against the Japanese whereas he had really worked for them as a policeman). Yao rebelled later, but long before being expelled from the CCP, he had no illusion about the hypocrisy of his family and communist ideology in general. In 1976, Wang joined the Navy in Qingdao, a few years before Yao joined the Air Force.39 It was during his military service that Yao stopped to “believe in the Communist Party”—just like Wang who “soon found the hierarchy and corruption in the navy unbearable. He rebelled, spending most of the time womanizing and lazing about the beach.”40 It may be that Yao, again like Wang, lost his position because he took no notice of rules and regulations.

36 37

38 39

40

four categories of respectable citizens (simin 四民): farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and scholars; see Dutton, Streetlife China, 62–65. Yao, “The Elite Class Background.” “The main adult riffraff or hooligan characters in Wang Shuo’s stories are former aristocratic youth […] who find themselves marginalized in the commercializing society but cannot accept their loss of status, power, and freedom”; ibid., 451. See also Barmé, “Wang Shuo.” Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 24. As Yao Yusheng underlines, “[d]uring the Cultural Revolution, joining the military offered the best future a middle school graduate could wish for. While most of his peers had to toil in the fields, an aristocratic youth such as Wang Shuo and his characters in ‘Animal Ferocity’ enjoyed a better life and more prestige in the army”; “The Elite Class Background,” 439. Yao also quotes Wang as saying: “At that time I went to school only to avoid losing too much face. I had not the slightest worry about my future. This future had been arranged: I would join the military after graduation from middle school and become a low-ranking officer”; ibid. Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 25.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

385

If his rebel spirit and the absurd political dimension of his writing are part of the Cultural Revolution’s iconoclastic legacy, Wang owes his personal freedom to the reforms of the 1980s. His financial independence makes ​​him a member of the least controlled social group in China, namely what Barmé calls the “financially independent unemployed.”41 But mostly, he can lead such an unfettered life thanks to his communist elite class background. Yao Yusheng has qualified the view of Wang Shuo as a writer of “common man” fiction that portrays marginal or working-class figures by highlighting the aristocratic origin of his Cultural Revolution-era hooligan characters.42 It is interesting to note that Yao also has a communist official background (though only at a local level), which did not protect him from social decline. In fact, had Wang not had such a social origin or had he failed to make such a good living through literature, he, too, may have become a fortune-teller. This is how he explains the reasons that have led him to write: If you think I should be doing something for others, serving the People or whatnot, well, quite frankly, I reckon about the only thing I could manage in that department is to polish their shoes. I’ve got no other talents. I’ve reached this age and apart from my mouth, which has been over-exercised, everything else is underdeveloped. I can’t just go out and lie to people, can I? (Anyway, I’ve tried and it doesn’t work.) It’s no fun, either— you need to know just as much as you do to write fiction, and it doesn’t have the same status.43 Liumang and wandering fortune-tellers have many common characteristics— and Yao’s intelligence, sense of humor, irreverence, bad manners, and pro­vo­cative speech are typical of liumang. To Play and Have Fun 3.3.1 While he makes a clear distinction between his work periods and the rest periods spent in Qingdao, Yao seems to consider his work as an amusement. I never heard him complain about his living conditions or the misfortunes which befell him. He seems to take nothing seriously and shows a cheerful zest for life: new experiences and chats with friends over a good beer are enough to make him happy. Through his long experience as a street fortune-teller, Yao has developed a real acting talent. Intelligent and playful, he knows perfectly how 41 42 43

Ibid., 28. See Yao, “The Elite Class Background.” Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 27.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

386

Homola

to adapt to any situation and make the most of the different facets of his personality. Thus, I never knew if he really limped or if he sometimes pretended to give himself airs of respectability—in any case, he was able to trot at quite a high speed when required. And while I had frequently seen him order beer after beer, Yao suddenly advocated moderation when a friend of his, with whom we were having lunch in Qingdao, said it was the first time he saw Yao drink. 3.3.2 Bad Manners and Provocative Speech Yao likes to act as a marginal and colorful character and to be deliberately rude and indecent. He cannot help shocking by his casualness, as when he is peeing in the street, talking loudly, and taking off his shirt in restaurants. One evening we went to Wangfujing Street’s night market and several restaurant owners refused to serve us. The one who finally accepted asked us to pay in advance in an angry and contemptuous tone. Like a character from one of Wang Shuo’s novels, which depict the slums of big cities as a threat to decent society, Yao cynically criticizes established political and moral precepts. He likes to talk loudly about government corruption and the lack of human rights in China; for instance, he does not care if all heads turn when he says something like: “In China, there are two main ways: the ‘Way of the Party’ (dangdao 党道) and the ‘Way of Money’ (qiandao 钱道).” He also denounces political and social hypocrisy towards divination: “No one dares to say it publicly, but nine people out of ten believe in it, especially senior officials and party members. Mao was the one who believed the most, but he would not let others believe.” Frequent references to sex and prostitution are also a feature of liumang culture.44 Every time I met him, usually towards the end of the meal, Yao could not help using provocative speech—to “bully me a little” (Wo qifu ni 我欺负你), as he said. Thus, he inquired about red light districts in Paris and informed me about prices in China. He told me, for instance, that he had recently watched a beautiful white-skinned Russian stripper, and when he found out that I had never attended such a show, he said in an irritated tone: “You really don’t know anything” (Shenme dou mei kan 什么都没看). He also lamented over my lack of culture in the field of pornographic films and instructed me on Japanese geishas: “In China, the food is good, in Japan, it is women.”

44

“To ‘play the liumang’ (shua liumang [ 耍流氓]) is used in everyday speech to describe overt sexual suggestions or a man’s harassment of a woman”; Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 29.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

387

3.3.3 Money and Fame Yao attaches great importance to money and the social standing it provides.45 Thus, to convince me to help him find a French woman, he insisted that he owned the apartment he lived in and earned good money. Beyond money, what fascinates him most is fame. This fascination for “great men” (meaning historical figures) fuels most of his conversations. His three main models are Napoleon, Hitler, and Mao. The ideologies these men advocated do not matter much; they succeeded in what they undertook, as proven by their fame. Although he rejects communist ideology, Yao is a great admirer of Mao, who he believes was a great scholar and poet and even liked to read the Classic of Changes. When Yao inquired about my opinion on Hitler and heard, as he was expecting, that it was not favorable, he criticized my “misconception” (bu zhengque de guannian 不正确的观念): although Hitler killed millions of people, he is famous, he is a great figure (hen lihai de renwu 很厉害的人物). History will always remember him—like Napoleon, Mao, or Genghis Khan. Here again we find the provocative and excessive speech characteristic of liumang culture. Fame is the utmost criterion in Yao’s ideal: he was thus surprised that I planned to tell his uninteresting story in my research work whereas I should be talking about well-known diviners such as Gao Heng 高亨 or Liu Dajun. The Attraction of the Liumang Condition 3.3.4 Liumang culture represents the alienated and semi-criminal post-Maoist urban youth but also contains many elements of what Barmé calls “premodern popular culture.”46 The debate over it was launched in the mid-1980s, that is, at a time when Chinese intellectuals questioned the value of traditional Chinese culture and its role in the modernization of the country. Contemporary liumang were thus compared to traditional eccentric characters. And, indeed, irreverent and nonconformist liumang who like to follow their natural inclina45

46

According to Yao Yusheng, the sense of status and power is another characteristic of the liumang culture, as a consequence of the specific origin of the movement during the Cultural Revolution: “Unlike traditional hooligans, who were of the urban lower class and hence looked down on, most newly emerged hooligans during the Cultural Revolution came from families of the political elite and were admired by their peers for their aristocratic status and lifestyle” (Yao, “The Elite Class Background,” 437). This view challenges the one expressed by Barmé who notes that a liumang’s freedom is mainly based on his contempt for wealth and honors; see “Wang Shuo,” 27–28. On the contrary, as far as Wang Shuo is concerned, Yao underlines that “Wang is adept at manipulating the growing market of popular culture: he openly admits that he writes for television and film to gain fame and fortune”; “The Elite Class Background,” 432). Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 41.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

388

Homola

tions echo the individualistic traditions of Zhuangzi or the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (associated with the xuanxue philosophical trend) who, as Yao still likes to do today, shocked their contemporaries by getting drunk, walking around naked, and urinating in public.47 Liumang are also associated with knights-errant, who “represent for many, the free and unfettered spirit of the individual.”48 But unlike knights-errant who relied on remarkable physical feats to survive, liumang and fortune-tellers depend on eloquence and impertinence for their livelihood. Thus, some of Wang Shuo’s stories have been associated with a “pizi 痞子 culture,” a kind of clever, voluble, and mocking liumang.49 The nonconformist lifestyle of liumang and wanderers particularly appeals to writers and artists. In the early 1920s, writer Zhou Zuoren 周作人, Lu Xun’s brother, wrote that he was torn between “two evils,” the gentleman and the liumang: “I ​​love the attitude of the gentleman and the spirit of the liumang.”50 More recently, a Taiwanese friend of mine, an inveterate student who rebelled against formal education and writes fiction in his spare time, told me in an admiring tone about the experience of a Japanese friend who “went to Europe to live like a vagrant” (dao Ouzhou dang liulanghan 到欧洲当流浪漢). Itinerant div i ners, then, convey complex and ambiguous representations which arouse both attraction and repulsion. Thus, while Yao’s thirst for freedom and glory echo a knights-errant’s lifestyle, his contempt for moral virtues associates him with liumang culture. 4 Conclusion Economic discrepancies and freedom of movement are well-known factors which lead migrant workers to seek for job opportunities in China’s wealthy cities. In particular, as a low-status occupational activity, which is yet more status-enhancing than begging, street fortune-telling appeals to socially rele­gated and marginalized individuals. Relying on Yao’s case, I assume that it is precisely because they face social exclusion that they seek to regain social standing by becoming “cultural specialists.” The very aim of fortune47 48 49 50

See Cheng, Histoire, 327. Barmé, “Wang Shuo,” 43. Ibid., 34. Zhou Zuoren, “Liangge gui,” 98–99. At the beginning of his career, Zhou became friends with a group of liumang; see Zhitang huixianglu, 61–64. Both references are cited by Barmé in “Wang Shuo,” 29.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

389

telling—providing a comprehensive and typically Chinese interpretation of people’s concerns—gives them the feeling to be at the vibrant heart of social life. Although mantic practices are condemned by the authorities, successful fortune-tellers can arouse virtually religious veneration. They take advantage of the magic aura of itinerant diviners in Chinese folklore and of China’s cultural unity (which allows them to practice divination anywhere in China), turning helpless roaming into a lifestyle. Mantic practices can be considered as a counter culture in the sense that they have been officially condemned since the beginning of the twentieth century. Yao’s lifestyle conveys a subversive dimension which is revealing of the double aspect of “popular” (minjian 民间) activities, which means both “not practiced by the elite” and “unofficial.”51 While divination practices are now widely tolerated, most diviners regret their lack of institutionalization. Unlike Yao, these settled practitioners are not opposed to a power which does not recognize them; they beg for recognition by means of the usual political and social codes (including guanxi, corruption, etc.). Subversion seems restricted to a fringe of wandering fortune-tellers who, like Yao, are indifferent to public opinion and lead an openly dissident, individualistic, and libertine life.

Works Cited

Barmé, Geremie. “Wang Shuo and Liumang (‘Hooligan’) Culture.” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 28 (1992): 23–64. “Beimenjie xian fanban ‘Bu yong kaikou ce guixing’ pianju 北门街现翻版‘ 不用开口测 贵姓’ 骗局) [The “Don’t Need to Tell Anything, I Can Guess Your Name” Fraud Appears Again in Northern Gate Street].” Nanfang ribao 南方日报 [Southern Daily] 24 August 2010. (accessed September 29, 2013.). Béja, Jean-Philippe, et al. “Comment apparaissent les couches sociales: la différenciation sociale chez les paysans immigrés du ‘Village du Henan’ à Pékin (première partie).” Perspectives chinoises 52 (1999): 30–43. Cheng, Anne. Histoire de la pensée chinoise. Paris: Seuil, 1997. 51

In the same way, NGOs in China are designated minjian organizations. I owe this point to Michael Lackner who also notes: “Rebecca Nedostup’s Superstitious Regimes. Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity […] encourages us to inquire into the question of how the term minjian 民间 (‘popular’ but also ‘unofficial’) came to denote both the despicable and the potentially positive subversive aspects of ‘unofficial’ phenomena in Chinese Lebenswelt (life world) and Weltanschauung”; Lackner, “The Last Stand of ‘Chinese Science.’”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

390

Homola

Cheng, Tiejun, and Mark Selden. “The Origins and Social Consequences of China’s Hukou System.” China Quarterly 139 (1994): 644–668. Dutton, Michael, ed. Streetlife China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Hammerstrom, Erik. The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Henry, Eric. “The Beggar’s Play: Poverty, Coercion, and Performance in Shenyang, China.” Anthropological Quarterly 82, no. 1 (2009): 7–36. Lackner, Michael. “The Last Stand of ‘Chinese Science’: Yuan Shushan, Traditional Divination and Western Knowledge in Republican China.” Paper presented at the conference “Divinatory Traditions in East Asia: Historical, Comparative and Transnational Perspectives,” Rice University, Houston, TX, February 2012. Li Shuxi 李树喜, ed. Jianghu: Zhongguo jindai banghui 江湖: 中国近代帮会 [Jianghu: Secret Societies in Modern China]. Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 2007. Lian Kuoru 连阔如. Jianghu congtan 江湖丛谈 [Various jianghu Talks]. Edited by Jia Jianguo 贾建国 and Lian Liru 连丽如. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010. Liang, Zai, and Ma Zhongdong. “China’s Floating Population: New Evidence from the 2000 Census.” Population and Development Review 30, no. 3 (2004): 467–488. Liu, James. The Chinese Knight-Errant. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967. Liu Xiangguang 刘祥光. “Liang Song shiren yu busuan wenhua de chengzhang 兩宋士 人與卜算文化的成長 [Song Dynasty Scholars and the Development of the Culture of Divination].” In Guimei shenmo: Zhongguo tongsu wenhua cexie 鬼魅神魔: 中國通 俗文化側寫 [Ghosts and Demons: Side Writings of Chinese Popular Culture], edited by Pu Muzhou 蒲慕州, pp. 221–277. Taipei: Maitian, 2005. Liu Yanwu 刘延武, ed. Zhongguo jianghu yinyu cidian 中国江湖隐语辞典 [Dictionary of Chinese jianghu Slang]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003. Minford, John. “Kungfu in Translation, Translation as Kungfu.” In The Question of Reception: Martial Arts Fiction in English Translation, edited by Ching-chi Liu, pp. 1–40. Hong Kong: Centre for Literature and Translation, Lingnan College, 1997. Nedostup, Rebecca. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. Palmer, David. “Les mutations du discours sur les sectes en Chine moderne.” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 144 (2008): 31–50. Schak, David. “Images of Beggars in Chinese Culture.” In Legend, Lore, and Religion in China, edited by Sarah Allan, and Alvin Cohen, pp. 109–133. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1979. Wang Qiang 王强. “Jietou suanming xiansheng chujing 街头算命先生出镜 [Street Fortune-Tellers in Front of the Camera].” Dangdai dianshi 当代电视 [Contemporary Television], 1998.6: 12–13.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

From Jianghu to Liumang

391

Wenshi jianghua bianjibu bian 文史精华编辑部编, ed. Jindai Zhongguo jianghu miwen 近代中国江湖秘闻 [Secret Stories of jianghu in Modern China]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1997. Wu, Helena. “A Chinese Diaspora Beyond Rivers and Lakes: Journeying through Jianghu in Chinese Literature and Films.” Paper presented at the 3rd Global Conference “Diasporas—Exploring Critical Issues,” Mansfield College, Oxford, July 2010. Yao, Yusheng. “The Elite Class Background of Wang Shuo and His Hooligan Characters.” Modern China 30 (2004): 431–469. Yi Ren 伊人. Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre 当代中国的算命热 [Fortune-Telling Fever in Contemporary China]. Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 1993. Zhou Zuoren 周作人. Zhitang huixianglu 知堂回想錄 [Zhitang’s Memoirs]. Hong Kong: Sanyu tushu youxian gongsi, 1980. Zhou Zuoren. “Liangge gui 两个鬼 [Two Daemons].” In Zhou Zuoren zaoqi sanwen xuan 周作人早期散文选 [Selected Early Prose of Zhou Zuoren], edited by Xu Zhiying, pp. 98–99. Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1984.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

392

Jung-kim

Chapter 13

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea Jennifer Jung-Kim 1 Introduction Divination has a key role in South Korean society, even today. Many people annually go to a diviner to find out what the new year holds in store for them. Koreans, usually women, go when there are difficult life choices to be made (pertaining to marriage, career change, moving, or children’s impending college admissions), or if they find themselves in challenging situations (such as depression, other illness, economic problems or family problems). Diviners can be instrumental in determining if a couple would be a good marriage match (kunghap), selecting an auspicious date for a birth (in the case of planned C-sections), wedding, or other important event, or choosing a name for a newborn baby or a business that is about to be launched. This situation may seem incongruous with the twenty-first century image of South Korea as a high-tech, economically developed country, but upon closer examination, we see how the persistence of divination and new adaptations of it reflect a unique need for women’s space and agency. This chapter looks at some Korean1 women under the age of fifty and their experiences with divination. In contrast with older generations, women of the “386 generation”2 and their younger counterparts came of age at a time when South Korea was already industrialized, and they are less traditional in their outlook on life. I examine why these younger women continue to consult diviners and what benefits they gain from divination. The mere mention of my research topic seemed to interest women who wanted to share their experiences and insights with me. It is from this angle that I approach my chapter. I do not profess any expertise on divination. Rather, my interest in divination comes from an examination of the reasons why so many educated women, especially those under the age of fifty, go to diviners.

1 Hereon, I will refer to South Korean and South Koreans interchangeably as Korean and Koreans. 2 The “386 generation” refers to people who were in their 30s in the early post-democratization era, that is, who were born in the 1960s and went to university in the 1980s.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_015

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

393

Barbara Young, who conducted exhaustive research on divination in Seoul in the late 1970s, has noted that women with college degrees tend to go to diviners as much as those with less formal education.3 According to Young, diviners “analyze the past, predict the future, diagnose causes of problems, and give advice.”4 She also said divination “provides a social network, with its own sources of information and support; and for an even greater number it serves as a counseling service and family support system.”5 We see that diviners do more than just make predictions. They provide guidance and solace to their clients, far exceeding the simple act of telling the future. 2

Types of Divination in South Korea

While the term chŏmjangi (or the more colloquial chŏmjaengi) can denote all types of “fortune-tellers,” some people use more specific terms depending on the diviner’s technique. The first kind is commonly called sajujaengi, but the term that saju diviners often use for themselves is ch’ŏrhakka or ch’ŏrhakja, meaning “philosopher.” Saju diviners (in a practice also called “horoscopic divination”) interpret horoscopes based on a person’s saju (“four pillars,” that is, the year, month, day, and time of one’s birth) by consulting Chinese classics such as the Classic of Changes (K: Chuyŏk, Ch: Yijing). David Kim was told by one diviner that one’s saju is like a “cosmic bar code” that forever marks who they are.6 But within this sense of fatalism is the possibility of altering one’s course. Another diviner told Kim that divination is “about learning how to control time—not only one’s personal time, but also being in time.” For example, “[i]t is about matching time and telling the patron when and where are the best times to do what.”7 This way, one can have some sense of agency and empowerment by mitigating negative factors and ensuring the best possible outcome. Although saju divination may entail an interpretation of the “cosmic code,” diviners today may refer instead to adaptations in modern Korean or perhaps even a computer program that does the work for them. A saju diviner may be 3 See Young, “City Women and Divination,” 147–148. Additionally, she reported in her dissertation that women aged 30–49 tended to go more often than women in other age groups; see “Spirits and Other Signs,” 396. Even three decades later, this age group seems to seek divination more often. 4 Young, “Spirits and Other Signs,” 39. 5 Young, “City Women and Divination,” 148. 6 Kim, “Shamanism and Divination,” 136. 7 Ibid., 144.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

394

Jung-kim

male or female, and he/she may be young or old. Most reputable diviners work out of offices (often called office-tels in Korean); some prefer to call their establishments ch’ŏrhagwŏn or ch’ŏrhakkwan, philosophy academy or institute. While one can receive formal training in reading saju, it is an analytical skill that can be self-taught through books.8 Some people take up this kind of divination as an erudite hobby because it does usually require an understanding of classical Chinese. It has been argued that reading saju is really about “statistics” (t’onggye) compiled over centuries and hence is not superstitious; some people, for instance, believe that the practice of seeing if a couple’s saju is compatible is objective, even scientific.9 People with higher education in particular may prefer saju divination because it is presumed to be more objective or intellectual.10 There are numerous other forms of divination, ranging from the reading of a client’s face, palm, or bones, to readings based on names, hexagrams, geomancy, or even Western tarot cards. There are also Buddhist diviners (although some of them overlap with saju diviners). On some streets, one may still see bird diviners; in this process, diviners use birds to select a pre-written fortune appropriate to the client. The women I interviewed tended to dismiss these forms of divination, and many were not comfortable going to a shaman diviner, especially if they felt it went against their Christian beliefs, as Korea has more Christians than do neighboring countries.11 8

9

10

11

Young uses the categories of “analytical” and “mediumistic” to distinguish between diviners who consult books and those who are guided by spirits. Saju diviners, according to her, generally fall into the category of “analytical diviners”; see “Spirits and Other Signs,” 51. Denise Potrzeba Lett interviewed a man who said, “My wife’s mother was very scientific about it. She went to ten or so different fortune tellers to see if our four pillars [or saju] were compatible. Since the majority of fortune tellers determined they were, she figured it was probably safe for us to get married.” See Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 198. Earlier studies have also noted that in the 1970s, saju diviners tended to be predominantly male, although there are many women who practice saju divination today. Some people take up this kind of divination as an erudite hobby because it does usually require an understanding of classical Chinese. In the course of my research, I found that some highly educated males ‘dabble’ in saju-reading and auspicious naming. Also, Young notes that college-educated women tend to go to saju diviners more commonly than shaman diviners; see “Spirits and Other Signs,” 147–148. Christians (both Protestants and Catholics) make up 31.6% of the South Korean population, outnumbering Buddhists (24.2%). In Japan, 79.2% profess to be Shinto, 66.8% Buddhist (accounting for the overlap between the two), and only 1.5% are Christian. By contrast, 93% of Taiwanese people identify themselves as a mixture of Buddhist and ­Taoist, with 4.5% being Christian. See the CIA World Factbook, accessed September 26, 2016 (). Christianity

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

395

Looking more specifically at the main forms of divination, people distinguish saju diviners from shamans (commonly called mudang in Korean). Shamans are usually women who have accepted spirit possession and have formally trained under another shaman. Possessed by a spirit (or spirits), they function as intermediaries between the spiritual realm and the mortal realm. Shamanism is Korea’s indigenous belief and has adapted to new beliefs such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and even Christianity. Shaman diviners can do more than just tell the future. They are what Young calls “interventionist”12 in that they can offer amulets of protection, or perform rituals to thank benevolent spirits or appease discontented spirits. Today, even shamans seem to use some degree of saju in their predictions, perhaps because of clients’ tendency to believe more in the accuracy of saju divination. “True” shamans may look down upon “phony shamans” in the profession who are not properly trained in rituals and mostly work as diviners. Yet as Laurel Kendall has noted, “these shaman diviners are part of the changing popular religious landscape too, in some ways particularly well adapted to it, and […] provide their clients with a therapeutic life such as one might find in many talking cures, from Freudians to tea-leaf readers.”13 Indeed, the adaptability of divination practices may explain why fortune-telling persists in the twentyfirst century. Divination is accessible in many forms today. There are websites offering both free and for-fee readings, not only based on saju, but on numerous other methods as well. Others who want a more personal experience, though without actually sitting face-to-face with a diviner, can have a phone consultation with a credit card payment. There are also numerous saju cafés where clients can go to meet with a diviner—as well as pay for an overpriced cup of coffee and “a really dry piece of cake.”14 One notable change in the last few years has been the rise in smartphone apps devoted to divination. A cursory examination of Korean divination apps shows more serious-looking apps that may appeal to older users, as well as ones with “cute” characters that will tell a young couple if they are compatible for dating. It is interesting that these apps tend to be more costly than the typical app (with some in the US $20 range). Perhaps may have become more popular in South Korea because missionaries in the nineteenth century emphasized educational and medical missions to spread Christianity. Under the period of Japanese colonial rule, Christianity was associated with the independence movement, helping gain greater popularity among Koreans. 12 Ibid., 54. 13 Kendall, Shamans, 206. 14 Interview with Informant D, January 12, 2012.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

396

Jung-kim

people are accustomed to paying for divination, unlike simply looking up one’s zodiac horoscope online. Despite all the choices, people seem most comfortable seeing a saju diviner because of the previously mentioned “academic” and “statistical” aspects of this form of divination. Divination (or shamanism in general) is not necessarily stigmatized as superstitious or “backward.” Kendall notes that shamanism has moved “from the jaws of ‘superstition’ to the embrace of ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ within Korean intellectual discourse.”15 Although divination has been perceived as antithetical to modernity, then, its endurance and adaptability evince that it is entrenched in contemporary society. Divination is not only a common practice and accepted as a part of Korean culture, but it also fulfills a deeper need in women seeking answers. Whereas shamans function as religious leaders, diviners are more like psychologists.16 Even today, women go to diviners because divination is comforting and is a more socially acceptable form of therapy than psychiatry or psychotherapy. 3

Actual Stories

In researching this chapter, I interviewed several women who have been to diviners. They range in age from twenties to fifty, and all have a university education. But more than their socioeconomic background, what they surprisingly share is their views on why they (and other women) go to fortune-tellers. Informant A is a 39-year-old pharmacist who is married to a university professor. She is the mother of two daughters, one in junior high and one in elementary school. She has been to diviners three times, usually when she has an important decision to make. The first time was to ask if she should open her own pharmacy. Another time, she went to ask about her kids and what would be well suited to them. She says: When it’s hard to make a decision for yourself, you go to ask if it would be the right choice, the right direction. […] When we’re uncertain about a choice, they can give us confidence about how to decide our path. We can proceed with certainty, or just decide for sure not to do something.

15 16

Kendall, “The Cultural Politics,” 33. See Sang Jin Choi and Son Mun Sok, “Social-Psychological Study of Korean Shamans and Diviners,” unpublished manuscript (1977); qtd. in Young, “Spirits and Other Signs,” 56.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

397

Informant A says she goes to see diviners for affirmation or validation of her decisions, and their advice gives her the confidence to carry out her decision. Diviners, she holds, are 55% believable—they are about 60% accurate about the past and about 50% accurate about the future: They were accurate in predicting that I would be very successful with my pharmacy and it was really successful. […] But three years later, when I went back, they told me I wouldn’t have good business luck, and they were right. I lost my lease. […] One person told me that when I was 39 [Korean age, which would be 37–38 in actual age], I would have an affair. I didn’t have anything to do with any affair. Informant A laughs about the affair that did not materialize and acknowledges that the diviners are often inaccurate. Similar to the way we consult weather forecasts but recognize that weather is not 100% predictable, people seem flexible to the idea that the future is not completely knowable. Two of the times she went to a diviner, Informant A went to a saju diviner, and the third time to a Buddhist monk-diviner. She added that as a Catholic whose faith was becoming stronger, she was having second thoughts about entrusting her future to saju. She thinks she should find her own path and trust more in her faith. She says that although she did not go herself, her parents selected her wedding date based on saju. And as for her children’s names, her husband selected auspicious names based on a how-to book. She illustrates how even when one does not go personally, others may consult a diviner on another’s behalf, and that there are commercially printed self-help books on divination. Informant B is a 37-year-old homemaker who is married to a dentist. She has one son who is just about to begin first grade. She goes to diviners whom people recommend, both saju diviners and shamans. She usually goes to a diviner about once a year, although she sometimes goes twice or three times. She goes for fun at the beginning of the year out of curiosity, but she really feels the need to go when life is difficult—for example, when they were having a dilemma about whether her husband should establish his own practice. She says: Maybe because I am feeling peaceful, I don’t have anything I particularly am curious about, but with the new year approaching, since this time I don’t have anything particular to ask, I will ask about my child, if my child will adapt well to school or not. But I’m not really all that curious about that.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

398

Jung-kim

She goes annually out of habit, but does not expect to hear accurate predictions about the future: They are really good about telling you about your past, no matter how bad a fortune-teller you go to, they are really good about the past, personality, and career. But you don’t know about the future until it’s passed. But if they tell you ten things, some of those will come true and some won’t. But you tend to only remember what’s accurate, so you think wow, that’s great. But someone who’s good might get more than 50% correct. Despite the lack of full accuracy, she adds: I think it’s comforting. If you hear something positive, like that things will improve in the second half of the year even though things are difficult now, you believe it will get better. Or if they tell you something negative, then you become more careful. It’s not that you necessarily believe you will be in a car accident if they tell you that you might get into a car accident. But it makes you more careful of cars in general. So it’s effective in preventing something, and it’s emotionally comforting. For Informant B and others, warnings of potential misfortune need not be selffulfilling. Rather, if one proceeds more cautiously, she believes that misfortune can be averted. She reiterates the special role that fortune-telling has in Korea: I think fortune-telling is a good thing. It’s because of fortune-tellers that psychiatry is not more prevalent in Korea. Fortune-tellers function as important life counselors. […] The problem is they can get expensive. There are places that charge as much as 100,000 won per family member. While fortune-telling may not always be cheaper than Western psychiatry or psychology, Informant B acknowledges how important of a role fortune-tellers have in Korean society. Informant B also says that while her mother often accompanies her to the diviner, she would prefer to go alone so she can ask questions that she could not ask in front of her mother. Many women prefer to go alone because one does not know what private information might be revealed by the diviner, whether about the past, present, or future. Informant C is a 50-year-old homemaker who is married to a university professor. She has two daughters in university, one in Korea and one in Canada. She has gone to see a diviner about ten times. She goes when she needs

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

399

someone to consult, when she cannot turn to people around her. She has not differentiated between shamans and saju diviners. She usually wants to know about her kids’ futures. She says they have been accurate about her children’s futures, because they have done well, as predicted. A diviner told her that it would be good if her younger daughter went abroad, and that was true. She adds that diviners are vague enough about their wording so it is hard to be completely wrong. What I’ve come to realize is they don’t look at the future. If someone is worrying about something right now, they are able to see that better than other people can. So if a husband is causing grief, even if the client doesn’t tell them, they have the ability to see that she has come because of her husband. […] The diviner has the ability to read people’s emotions. They don’t look at the future. So at that moment, you feel relieved. Informant C majored in psychology at a U.S. university, so her insight is informed not only by her own experiences in going to diviners, but by how she sees the psyche of women clients. She continues: In Korea, you can’t talk about yourself too much to others around you. […] But you end up telling things to a fortune-teller, so it’s stress-relieving. And she can go to her husband [who’s cheating on her] and say, “if you keep this up, your life span will be shorter.” Or “I’m the reason for our family’s success.” A woman who hears this from a diviner would feel empowered when she returns home, and be more confident in confronting her husband and demanding that he change. Informant C adds: Most of the time, fortune-tellers do not tell really bad things to a client, unless it’s a bad fortune-teller. A bad fortune-teller might say, “You will have a short life.” But fortune-tellers instead talk like this. Usually, fortune-tellers will say, “There’s something going on in your home, but you are the backbone of your family.” That’s their pattern. They’ll talk like that. So they’re better than American psychiatrists. They’ll say things like, “It’s the wife who brings good luck to this family. […] This family has survived because of the wife.” So she feels empowered, and she can tell her husband, “You can’t live without me.” That’s why women go to fortunetellers. […] They are as good as psychiatrists.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

400

Jung-kim

She adds that the validation and emotional release are not limited to the actual divination. As women await their turn in the reception area, Informant C says, they end up opening up to each other, and not just because they are all there for the same reason. She points out that the clients are comforted in a shared anonymity, knowing that in a city as large as Seoul, they will likely never run into each other again. Informant D is a 26-year-old graduate student who spent about six months living in Seoul in 2011. She went to three different diviners in a two-week span to gain insight into her future and because she experienced “inner conflict” in Korea and did not have anyone to turn to. She went for “career, life advice […] relationship problems.” Their ability to tell the past was very credible because they were able to, I guess, state certain facts or certain things about people that weren’t present accurately, which was very surprising. […] Although the reason I ended up going three times was because I was questioning their credibility, and then I ended up wasting more money and more time visiting others to make sure one was less credible than the other. […] I just thought it was a very entertaining and cheaper alternative to a therapy session that I would get in America. And I think people … go just to get validated or justification for what’s going on, or what’s troubling them. We again see the therapy analogy arising as a reason for going to a diviner. Informant C also explains that because she had gone with friends on the first two visits, she was not satisfied until her third divination. Only then was she able to ask all the questions she had wanted to ask, without being self-conscious about what her companions might think of the questions or answers. Informant E is a university professor from Korea who is currently teaching abroad. She believes that, “diviners are neither 100% accurate nor 100% inaccurate.” Reflecting about why women in Korea go to diviners, she says: Don’t people go for fun? Fun. Uncertainty about the future and everyone is curious about it. What I’ve thought about it personally is that jobs in Korea used to be very secure. If you were a professor, that was it. […] People didn’t use to change jobs. There were no headhunters. Nowadays, all that is changing so people feel there is no job security. And there are many more part-time jobs. These are very common in other countries but people are anxious because those weren’t in Korea before but they are now. […] Korea has a tradition of divination. […] Because people are anxious and curious, they do things like changing their names [to more

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

401

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

auspicious names] or getting DNA tests. It’s because they want some certainty in their lives.  In Korea, a wife going to a psychiatrist can become grounds for divorce. But abroad, it’s not like that. They can go to a psychologist and get therapy. But since that is stigmatized as mental illness in Korea, a woman goes to a diviner instead. A diviner can’t really know everything. That’s not possible. So the diviner relies on intuition and empathy to tell them what they want to hear. So when you hear something positive, you feel good. That’s why it has a therapeutic role. Informant E makes reference to a couple of recent trends. First, she is referencing a newspaper article that looks at the increase in the number of name changes in South Korea. Between 2005 and 2010, the frequency of legal name changes doubled to 165,924. During that time, laws were changed so it is now easier for a person to change his/her name. As married women retain their maiden name in Korea, the main reason why someone would change their name is to try to alter their fate by changing the Chinese characters or actual name. Some of the people interviewed in the newspaper article said their lives had indeed taken a turn for the better after their name change.17 The importance of auspicious names is why people who do not normally consult diviners often do get a ‘professional’ to select a short list of names that would maximize the child’s good fortune. Similarly, diviners also can be asked to name a new business so as to ensure its success. Informant E’s second reference is to another new trend of using DNA or fingerprints to explain one’s predisposition for certain occupations. For example, parents can get DNA or fingerprint testing that will determine their child’s traits and future, such as his/her full height and even his/her occupation.18 Although this is very much like saju divination, clients find reassurances in believing that the science of DNA is more accurate than going to a diviner. While hearing about a successful future might encourage some children and their parents to work harder to attain it, I wonder if some children might do just the opposite, relying on the hand of fate more than the efficacy of nurture. What is readily apparent from this sampling is that fortune-telling, especially saju divination, persists and thrives even in the twenty-first century. As will be discussed in the next section, divination has changed from its earlier forms, most notably becoming more technological. And interestingly, women continue to consult diviners, especially as divination changes to keep up with 17 Sŭngyŏn Ko and Yun Chaeŏn,“Kim Taeri irŭm pakkwŏ palcha koch’ŏt tanŭnde.” 18 Han Sŏkhŭi, “2011 K’osŭdak ch’aeyong pangnamhoe.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

402

Jung-kim

younger clients. While younger, educated women acknowledge that fortunetelling is vague at best and often inaccurate, yet they go for validation of key decisions impacting their lives—for admonitions that may help them be more cautious against potential misfortune, but most importantly, to feel empowered by some greater forces affirming their importance in the family. 4

Divination Re-Examined

Divination has not remained static in South Korea. In particular, saju divination is no longer a male diviner’s domain. Laywomen as well as shaman women use the analytical, horoscopic form of divination. There are also many new forms, from Internet divination to saju cafes and DNA predictions. So why do people, especially younger women, continue to seek divination? Richard J. Smith cites an article by Evan Zuesse to explain the draw of divination: [I]n an increasingly fluid, anonymous, and heterogeneous society, practices such as divination restore a sense of control to personal life “through the aesthetic and probabilistic terms in which predictions are couched.” Thus, he [Zuesse] says, astrology appeals particularly to women because it “desubstantializes oppressive personal relationships, offering instead an exotic alternative identity in which faults are erased or elevated into association with a ‘star family’ embracing strangers.”19 Applied to younger women in South Korea, divination offers the opportunity for empowerment, whether it is assurance of good things to come, caution about potential harm, an authoritative claim about a wife’s vital role in the family, or a psychological counseling. In terms of saju divination, there is the additional assurance that the methodology is not based on shamanism, but that it has been around since antiquity and that the predictions are based on statistics, not spirit possession. Another explanation has been offered by Dawnhee Yim Janelli, who argues that blaming one’s “failures” on one’s p’alcha (eight pillars) deflects personal culpability because one’s fortune is inescapable and “explains these misfor­tunes in an appealing way”—this applies to social anomalies like divorce as

19

Smith, “Women and Divination.” The quotes are from Zuesse’s article on divination in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1988), vol. 4, 378–379.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

403

well as to inharmonious family relationships.20 This may sound like perpetuating victimization due to one’s fate, but it could also enable a person to deny direct responsibility for one’s misfortunes. It is also evident that one’s destiny is not immutable. Lee E-Wha writes that the T’ojŏng pigyŏl [The Secrets of Toj’ŏng], which has a total of 144 possible fortunes, can be “a source of solace, comfort and encouragement for people in need, despair or distress.”21 A negative fortune can be interpreted as a caution, while even a positive fortune can reverse itself if one tempts the devil by bragging about it. Lee also adds that the purported author of the T’ojŏng pigyŏl, Yi Chiham, “was a moralist who stressed the importance of hard work and pro­ ductivity.”22 Hence, one need not put too much credence in divination, negative or positive. Here lies the paradox of divination. The client does not expect 100% accuracy, but consults a diviner with the optimistic hope of hearing good things. And failing that, the client is willing to accept bad news with the expectation that with caution, a bad fortune can be mitigated. Additionally, as David Kim has pointed out, while the client is willing to believe in the diviner’s authority, the latter’s presumed authenticity is very much staged. A diviner may pass himself off as authentic—sporting a long beard, wearing the traditional ­hanbok (Korean attire), and sitting amidst well-worn books in classical Chi­ nese—but all this is “an alluring fiction—the ‘invention of narrative,’ which gives the appearance of materiality and presence under the guise of fetishism.”23 It is this image of tradition and “presumed authority” that is being sold—and bought. Divination, then, is a complicit transaction between the diviner and the client. This complicity requires a certain façade on the part of the diviner and a willingness to believe on the part of the client. Janelli has analyzed Korean divination and summarized some common strategies of fortune-tellers. Thus, clients are routinely told that life will get better in the next year or two; divinations are “often generalized to the point where either confirmation or dis­confirmation is impossible,” allowing room for multiple interpretations; and the fortune-teller gives “contradictory alternatives, thereby covering the whole range of possibilities.”24 Janelli emphasizes a client’s initial willingness to believe as a key factor in her trust of the fortune-teller, which results in an 20 Janelli, “Faith,” 68. 21 Lee E-Wha, Korea’s Pastimes, 217. 22 Ibid. 23 Kim, “Shamanism and Divination,” 127–128. 24 Janelli, “The Strategies,” 9, 10, 11.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

404

Jung-kim

“emotionally rewarding experience.”25 This emotionally rewarding experience brings us back to the point that clients, especially women clients, go to a diviner in order to gain some emotional comfort and sense of empowerment. According to Kim, a diviner’s generalizations can “become open spaces for inscription.” “Patrons are given opportunities to fill in the gaps regarding their past,” he writes, but “the unfolding of the future still requires volition in regards to the road map that the diviner has laid out.” A person therefore becomes the master or mistress of his/her own destiny, and inherent within fortune-telling is the “possibility of its transgression.”26 This possibility and ambiguity affirm that no prediction can be fully accurate. The flip side of this room for a margin of error is that there is also room for a margin of accuracy. Therefore even people who do not usually profess to going to diviners do often go in order to find auspicious dates or names. In South Korea, where weddings are not limited to weekends, it is a common practice to seek lucky days to marry—and for wedding venues to fill up on those days. Even more common is the practice of getting an auspicious name for a baby, reflecting the particular characteristics of his or her saju. Even given the restraints of generational characters (tollim cha) that many families still follow, many parents seek names that, besides being appealing, might also help their child grow to be successful. 5 Conclusion Women in Korea today have numerous options for divination, ranging from spirit-possessed shamans, to saju diviners who may or may not make use of the latest technology such as online divination, apps, or commodified saju cafés. Clients have more choices than ever before, whether they just open up an app on their smartphone or have a DNA sample sent to a lab for “scientific” prediction. But whatever the method, why is it that divination still remains a viable and vital industry? According to the women I interviewed, they consult diviners out of curiosity and for fun. They go when they are unable to make their own decisions. They go because of the hope of better times to come. They go because bad news can translate into more cautious behavior, perhaps averting a worse tragedy. They go because they gain agency in taking control of their futures. They go because a diviner affirms the role that women have in their families. They go because of the emotional comfort and pseudo-therapy that comes from talking with an 25 26

Ibid., 13–14. Kim, “Shamanism and Divination,” 150.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

405

empathetic advisor. These may be reasons why women are willing to believe, or at least give the benefit of doubt, to diviners and hope for the best. Additionally, the mutability of divination, its adaptation to changing times, and endurance have elevated it from “backward superstition” to a contemporary social practice. While middle-aged women continue to frequent diviners today, it would be worthwhile to see how millenials (who were still teenagers when I conducted this research) are continuing the practice but in ways that show their comfort with their smartphones and social media. I look forward to reading future research on how old customs and new technology intersect in these interesting ways.

Works Cited



Printed/Online Materials

Han Sŏkhŭi. “2011 K’osŭdak ch’aeyong pangnamhoe: Tangsin ŭn pŏpkwan i chŏkhap [KOSDAQ Job Fair: You Are Suited to be a Judge].” Herŏldŭ kyŏngje [Korea Herald Business], December 1, 2011. (accessed September 29, 2013). Janelli, Dawnhee Yim. “The Strategies of a Korean Fortuneteller.” Korea Journal 20, no. 6 (June 1980): 8–14. Janelli, Dawnhee Yim. “Faith, Fortunetelling, and Social Failure.” In Religions in Korea: Beliefs and Cultural Values, edited by Earl H. Phillips and Eui-Young Yu, pp. 59–69. Los Angeles: Center for Korean-American and Korean Studies, California State University, Los Angeles, 1982. Kendall, Laurel. “The Cultural Politics of ‘Superstition’ in the Korean Shaman World: Modernity Constructs Its Other.” In Healing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies, edited by Linda H. Connor and Geoffrey Samuel, pp. 25–41. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2001. Kendall, Laurel. Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Kim, David J. “Shamanism and Divination in Contemporary Korea.” Ph.D. thesis. Columbia University, 2009. Ko Sŭngyŏn, and Yun Chaeŏn. “Kim Taeri irŭm pakkwŏ p’alcha koch’ŏt tanŭnde … [Section Chief Kim Says He Fixed His Fate by Changing His Name]” Maeil kyŏngje [Maeil Business Newspaper]. January 24, 2012. (accessed September 29, 2013).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

406

Jung-kim

Lee, E-Wha. Korea’s Pastimes and Customs: A Social History. Translated by Ju-Hee Park. Paramus, NJ: Homa and Sekey Books, 2001. Lett, Denise Potrzeba. In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998. Smith, Richard J. “Women and Divination in Traditional China: Some Reflections.” Paper presented at the conference “Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State”. Harvard University and Wellesley College, February 7–9, 1992. Available online: (accessed September 29, 2013). The World Factbook 2013–2014. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013. Available online: (accessed September 26, 2016). Young, Barbara Elizabeth. “Spirits and Other Signs: The Practice of Divination in Seoul, Republic of Korea.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Washington, 1980. Young, Barbara Elizabeth. “City Women and Divination: Signs in Seoul.” In Korean Women: View from the Inner Room, edited by Laurel Kendall and Mark Peterson, pp. 139–157. New Haven: East Rock Press, Inc., 1983.



Oral Interviews

Informant A. Kwangju, South Korea. December 27, 2011. Informant B. Seoul, South Korea. December 30, 2011. Informant C. Sŏngnam, South Korea. January 1, 2012. Informant D. Los Angeles, California. January 12, 2012. Informant E. Los Angeles, California. January 29, 2012.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

407

Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea

Part 5 Mantic Arts: When East Meets West

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

408

Jung-kim

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

409

Chapter 14

Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture Che-Chia Chang 1

The Jesuits’ Introduction of European Astrology

In 1652, the Chinese scholar Xue Fengzuo 薛鳳祚 (1628–1680) met the Polish Jesuit Nikolas Smogulecki (1611–1656) in Nanjing. Their encounter resulted in the Chinese translation of a Western astrological work, titled On Human Fate (Renming bu 人命部), and its inclusion in Xue’s larger work True Origin of the Pacing of Heavens (Tianbu zhenyuan 天步真原). Because it contains information that one usually does not find in works authored by missionaries Western scholars for a long time have argued it must have been created by Xue alone. In their reasoning Smogulecki’s name was appropriated by Xue in order to give more authority to the treatise. However, in 2001 Nicolas Standaert discovered that On Human Fate is a selective translation of the Italian physician Girolamo Cardano’s (1501–1576) Commentaries on Claudius Ptolemy’s (c. 90–c. 168) Tetrabiblos. All chapters of the two books that correspond to each other have been identified.1 This means, that Smogulecki must have worked together with Xue. Because Xue was ignorant of Latin, on his own, he would have had no way of knowing the horoscopes of Pope Paul III (1468–1549) or the scholar Erasmus (1466–1536).2 Would it have been so absurd for a Jesuit to introduce astrology to the Chinese? Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) hated divination, and his Chinese partner Xu Guangqi 徐光啓 (1562–1633) tried to remove all such content from the Imperial Calendar during the calendar reform in 1629; in reality, however, Chinese people always expected the Imperial Calendar to provide information for everyday use, such as prognostication. Therefore, when in 1651 Johann Adam Schall von Bell 湯若望 (1591–1666), head of the bureau of astronomy, compiled the Shixian Calendar (Shixian li 時憲曆), he was forced to employ additional non-Christian staff to write for this demand. The archives show that 1 See Standaert, “European Astrology in Early Qing China,” 50–51. 2 See Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, v. 4, 1563; 1577.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_016

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

410

Chang

his successor, Ferdinand Verbiest 南懷仁 (1623–1688), submitted lists of auspicious days for taking medicine to the Kangxi Emperor.3 If practicing divination was inevitable for the Jesuits to maintain their status in the Chinese court, wouldn’t it have been better to adopt something tolerable to the Church? Xue’s agenda was more manifest. Choosing a reliable astrological system was part of his larger project. As the author of a preface to Xue’s True Origin of the Pacing of Heavens points out, images and numbers xiangshu 象數 are the foundation of Chinese philosophy. In order to interpret celestial phenomena, the images of Heaven (tianxiang 天象), mathematic astronomy is a valuable tool.4 In his own preface Xue elaborated further: “The qi 氣 inhaled into the human body is from Heaven and Earth; this is also the qi of the five phases (wuxing 五行) that takes over the ruling power of the seasons in turn. From this we know where human fortune and misfortune arise.” Since Confucius’ teaching is that one should know one’s own destiny, Xue was pleased to circulate Western astrology, which in his eyes was in accord with principle (li 理).5 Personally, Xue was enthusiastic in testing the power of divination. He often predicted for his countrymen whether harvests were going to be good or bad and was always correct; accordingly his fellows respectably addressed him as “semi-immortal Xue” (Xue Banxian 薛半仙).6 In the preface of On Human Fate, he admitted he had reviewed all of the fate-calculating techniques of his time. Xue concluded that only two branches are in accord with the principle. One of them is the “four pillars” (sizhu 四柱) method, which is based on the theory of traditional Chinese heavenly stems and earthly branches tiangan dizhi 天干地 支.7 Xue estimated that if someone mastered its principles, he could make accurate predictions in up to seven or eight out of ten cases. We do not know how he figured out this number, but the statement suggests that Xue worked experimentally. The other method in accord with the principle is called the “five planets” (wuxing 五星) method. Even though it was orthodox, he criticized its range of techniques as insufficient. The techniques included some complementary parameters called “star spirits” (shensha 神煞) for interpretations, which according to Xue’s tests only had an accuracy of about fifty percent. Xue was disappointed by this result. He thought that “five planets” astrology 3 See Huang Yi-long, Shehui tianwenxue shi shijiang, 100–120; Song Zhiye, “Xue Fengzuo Zhong-xi zhanyan huitong yu lifa gaige xue,” 38–43. 4 See Shi Yunli, “Tianbu zhenyuan li de shenmi xuwen,” 23–26. 5 See Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu,1357; 1360. Note of the editor: Cf. Chu Pinyi’s essay in this volume. 6 See Xiao Dewu, “Xue Fengzuo huitong Zhong-xi de nuli ji shibai yuanyin fenxi,” 70; Nie Qingxiang, and Zhai Yingbo, “Zhong-xi huitong tian-ren xiangying,” 27–37. 7 See Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers, 178.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

411

came from countries west of China, so he consulted Kusyar Ibn Labban’s Introduction to Astrology (Mingyi tianwen shu 明譯天文書). In 1383, this was translated from Islamic texts by decree of the Hongwu 洪武 Emperor (reign 1368–1398).8 However, Xue found that the instructions of the Islamic texts were incomplete and difficult to follow. It was only after he met Smogulecki that he found a satisfactory answer. Therefore, he launched a project to translate the European astrological system. In another place, he claimed: “The five planets are irrelevant to Chinese methods; and the stems and branches are irrelevant to Western methods.”9 This statement can be conceived as Xue’s disagreement with the approach of the contemporary “five planets” method, because astrologers supposed the star spirits were derived from stems or branches.10 In Xue’s eyes European astrology was the right alternative to replace the Chinese fiveplanets method, because Western astrology was not concerned with stems and branches and therefore independent of the star spirits. It would have been reasonable for Smogulecki to help Xue promote Western astrology among Chinese readers, seeing as Xue was an enthusiastic diviner with a high reputation. If Xue achieved his goal, the result would also be compatible with the Jesuits’ agenda. Was Xue capable of illuminating Confucius’ principles through his translation? Xue seemed to be inexperienced concerning translations; in fact, On Human Fate was probably the only translation Xue worked on throughout his whole life. Fortunately, unlike other fields of Western learning such as theology or anatomy, the terminology of astrology was already well developed in Chinese. Xue’s translation style was mostly straightforward and plain, although there were a few exceptions. Xue introduced Erasmus by describing his status as a Chinese official ranking six or seven.11 It must have been difficult to explain the status of people from such a very different society as Europe. Xue’s approach 8 9 10

11

See Yano Michio, Kusyar Ibn Labban’s Introduction to Astrology, XVIII–XX. Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, 1357–1359. The star spirits have various origins. Some of them are derived from ancient mythology, and some from Taoism or Buddhism. They play an important role in divination as early as the Warring States Period (475–221 bce). For example, in a horoscope the location of the star for civil examinations wenchang 文昌 is decided by the birthday’s stem; and that for marriage and happiness hongluan 紅鸞 is decided by the birth years’ branch. See Chen Yongzheng, Zhongguo xingming cidian, 56; 128; 149. See Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, 1577. From the third century to the fall of Qing Empire in 1912 China adopted the “Nine Ranks System jiupin zhi 九品制” as the systematized gradation of government personel. An official ranking six or seven is relatively low in the system. For details see Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, 4–5.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

412

Chang

can be classified as innovation, rather than just plain narrative: he used his understanding in order to convert Erasmus’ status to the Chinese bureaucratic system. Xue’s capabilities in translating can be further evaluated by observing how he interpreted concepts foreign to Chinese, such as “nerve.” In this particular case he used “qi in the blood (xue zhong zhi qi 血中之氣)” to refer to it.12 The word qi he chose to describe nerve functions was coincidently the same as that picked by Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873), a medical missionary, translator, and the author of the most important work in Chinese language on anatomy in the nineteenth-century Quanti xinlun 全體新論 [Outline of Anatomy and Physiology]. Hobson named nerves “tendons of the brain’s qi naoqi jin 腦氣筋.”13 Xue’s translation shows that he recognized that the nerves’ impulses circulated through the body just like blood, even if it still failed to reflect the form of nerves. Although Xue won a reputation as one of the top astronomers of his time, his attempt to reform Chinese astrology did not succeed.14 In 1839, the famous bibliophile Qian Xizuo 錢熙祚 (fl. 1839) noted that Xue’s On Human Fate was no longer mentioned by Qian’s contemporaries. Qian remarked the cause for this could have been some fatal mistakes in Xue’s mathematical calculations.15 However, Xue’s ambiguity regarding his foundation of astrology could have been another reason.16 In his preface to On Human Fate, he openly claims that, with respect to astrology, the five phases of qi taking over the ruling power of the season in turn was the only thing that made sense, but the content of the book was all about the four elements. Xue seemed to have sensed that there was some potential tension; elsewhere he quoted the the famous Medical Master Zhu Zhenheng 朱震亨 (1281–1358): “When air becomes surplus, it will transform into fire (qi you yu bian shi huo 氣有餘便是火),” arguing that the Western element of air could be linked to the Chinese phase of fire.17 Xue was inconsistent: he refused to use stems and branches for Western astrology, but he suggested Eastern and Western concepts could work together. Modern scholars criticize his strategies as merely theoretical but useless in terms of practical application.18 Although the Chinese were tolerant of the Buddhist idea of Four Mahābhūta (Si da 四大) and used it from time to time, this con12 See Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, 1396. 13 Hobson, Quanti xinlun, 16a. 14 See Ma Bailian, and Sun Shiming, Rong gefang zhi caizhi, ru wuxue zhi xingfan, 2–8. 15 Qian’s epilogue can be found in Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, 1619. 16 See Xue Fengzuo, Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu, 1619. 17 For the original quotation see Zhu Zhenheng, Danxi xiansheng xinfa, in Zhu Zhenheng, Danxi yiji, 159. 18 See Song Zhiye, “Xue Fengzuo Zhong-xi zhanyan huitong yu lifa gaige xue,” 43.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

413

cept was rarely combined with the five phases when discussing a particular question.19 Could the five phases and four elements work together? Xue might have kept silent about the issue of how to coordinate Chinese and Western cosmologies into one single astrological doctrine. Instead, he raised the question in the preface but left it unanswered as far as the practical solution was concerned. 2

The Exotic Origins of the “Five Planets” Method

In fact, Xue was not the first person to have faced this kind of challenge. In order to survive on the Chinese fortune-telling market, Indian and Islamic astrologers before Xue had encountered a similar situation. However, after Indian and Islamic techniques were adjusted to Chinese customs, the “five planets” method, which Xue had tried to overcome, was successfully formed.20 In the seventeenth century the two main streams of Chinese natal astrology were the “four pillars” method and the “five planets” method.21 The former is based on the Chinese sexagenary cycle. In this system, a person’s fate is decided by the stems and branches of the year, month, day, and hour of his birth. As time advances, a person’s natal set of stems and branches interacts with the stems and branches of different points in time. This results in changes in one’s life. Because the foundation for the “four pillars” method lies in yin-yang and five phases, it is naturally compatible with Chinese philosophy and other fields of Chinese knowledge such as Chinese medicine. However, the “five planets” method, which Xue recognized as being of foreign origin, does not have such merits. Historian of astronomy Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 藪內清 remarks that in the Tang dynasty there were at least three titled similarly astrological books: Duli yusi 19

20

21

Four Mahābhūta is the four elements that all things are formed from, namely earth, water, fire, wind (or air). See Soothill, Han Ying foxue dacidian, 173. Although the ideas of the Four Mahābhūta are similar to the four elements and some scholars believe they are originally related, the Chinese of Xue’s time might not have recognized that. Jesuits bitterly attacked Buddhist ideas. In fact, they hated the Four Mahābhūta much more than the five phases, and emphasized their subtle differences from the four elements. See Dong Shaoxin, Xing shen zhi jian, 331. In a previous study I used the case of predicting diseases to explain the agenda of Chinese astrologers to sinicize astrology from foreign countries. Also, some relics that are possibly of Indian origin remained in the surviving astrological texts. See Chang Che-chia, “Medicine and Astrology,” 52–77. See Chen Yongzheng, Zhongguo xingming cidian, 66.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

414

Chang

Canon (Duli yusi jing 都利聿斯經), Yusi Four Gates Canon (Yusi simen jing 聿斯 四門經), and Odes of Yusi (Yusi ge 聿斯歌). The most famous one is the Duli yusi Canon, which is said to have been brought to China by the Central Asian Li Miqian 李彌乾. Yabuuchi suspects that Li was from Persia, which means that the book should reflect Islamic astrology. Yabuuchi identifies it as the origin of the later “five planets” method.22 However, historical records say that the book was transmitted from Western India.23 Another source shows that Jingjing 景 淨, a Christian of the Nestorian Church (Jingjiao 景教), presented a book titled Four Gates Canon (Simen jing 四門經) to the Tang court. Yano Michio 矢野道雄 points out that the title Duliyusi was phonetically close to Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, and the “four gates” correspond to Tetrabiblos’ four books.24 Regardless of whether Yano is right or not, scholars have been commonly convinced of the Greek root of Duli yusi Canon, Yusi Four Gate Canon, Odes of Yusi, and Four Gate Canon. The Chinese “five planets” method might have various sources, but all of them originated from Tetrabiblos.25 Mr. Zheng’s Astrological Cases (Zheng shi xing’an 鄭氏星案, dated 14th century), the authentic collection of horoscopes cast with the “five-planets” method, does not have an evident Hellenic nature (figure 14.1). In fact, it is a hybrid. The horoscope still uses the information of the stems and branches of the client’s birth time and also appropriates the numerous star spirits. Unlike the square shape used in India, Persia, and Europe, the “five planets” horoscope is unique in reminding one of a spider-web; this shape makes it distinct from the horoscope forms used in other civilizations.26 Even a horoscope cast with the later developed astrological method Ziwei doushu 紫微斗數 resembles Western horoscopes more closely regarding their shape, although the techniques of Ziwei doushu are even more Chinese. However, the Hellenic DNA of the “five planets” horoscope hides at the center of the web. The spider-web, the main body of the horoscope, is composed of several layers. The writing at the core states that “Fate is located at the 5th degree from the starting point of the lunar mansion ‘encampment shi 室.’” Accordingly the first place is decided, then the other eleven places indicating different aspects of human experience: wealth, siblings, lands, sons, servants, marriage, and so on are marked in the fourth layer. At first glance one could suppose that the 22 23 24 25 26

See Yabuuchi Kiyoshi, Zōho kaitei Chūgoku no tenmon rekihō, 186–191. Xin Tang shu j. 277, 1545. See Yano Michio, Mikkyō senseijutsu, 136–138. See Needham, Science and Civilisation in China vol. 2, 352–353. See Yano Michio shows some samples from these civilisations. See Yano Michio, Mikkyō senseijutsu, 42.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

415

Figure 14.1 A horoscope from Mr. Zheng’s Astrological Cases (dated March 25, 1352, 4 AM)

zodiac signs are missing in the horoscope; because the zodiac signs and the twelve earthly branches are in constant correspondence, the zodiac signs, too, are present in the second layer. In Chinese astrological texts very often earthly branches and the names of the zodiac signs are used interchangeably. The planets, including the sun, the moon, and others are placed in the third layer of the horoscope. While there is a long tradition of referring to these planets in China, the horoscope’s inclusion of Rahu and Ketu, the north and south lunar nodes, shows its exoticism. The tricky thing is: the essential coordinate in that horoscope is not branches or zodiac signs, but the “lunar mansions” that are shown in the fifth layer. In fact, the position of fate (minggong 命宮, the first place in Western astrology) and the planets are all noted by the mansion’s degrees. This component is missing in European or Islamic astrology.27

27

Although Islamic astronomy also has the idea of lunar mansions, so far I have not seen such a case in Islamic astrology.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

416 3

Chang

The Importance of Lunar Mansions in Chinese Astrology

A lunar mansion is a segment of the ecliptic through which the moon moves in its orbit in the sky. It takes 27,3 days for the moon to complete a cycle of phases. Indian astronomers understood the fixed stars in the respective segments as constellations that are the moon’s imagined mansions. This idea was shared among several ancient civilizations such as China, India, and Arabia, and it was usually used as an important part of the calendar system. Where did this idea originate? Due to the lack of information, it is still a mystery. China’s earliest archeological evidence is dated to the 5th century bce, and individual related constellations were mentioned as xiu 宿 in ancient texts such as the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經). The Indian term for lunar mansions is nakshatra. The date when nakshatra were first incorporated into the calendar could have been as early as the 24th century bce28 The concept of lunar mansions in China and India had similarities as well as differences. The distinctions lay not only in the meaning of the name, but also in how they were understood in each of the cultures. From the very beginning, Chinese mansions were grouped into classificational categories symbolized by the four symbols: Blue Dragon, Ver­ milion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Turtle & Snake, whereas the India nakshatra were never sorted in this way.29 Besides, other than the classification and names, the number of stars, their locations, and implications are different, with only few coincidental concordances. Furthermore, in India the two systems of twenty-eight and twenty-seven mansions coexisted, which is not the case for China. On the other hand, both Chinese and Indian astronomers used lunar mansions as their major astronomical coordinates. Similarly, because they are important marks in the route of the moon, the lunar mansions were deified, and accordingly granted astrological meaning, in China as well as in India.30 Lunar mansions also have an essential status in Indian astrology. This fact underlines the importance of the influence of Indian sources in China as opposed to sources having an Islamic or Church-of-the-East origin. The general discourse is that ancient Chinese authorities monopolized the interpretation of celestial phenomena for affairs of State, therefore natal astrology for individual fates did only develop during the Medieval period, when it was introduced by foreigners. In the second century bce there were already natal astrological consultations in the markets. According to the Grand Historian’s Records Shiji 史記, the famous diviner Sima Jizhu 司馬季主 “ob­28 Chattopadhyaya, History of Science and Technology in Ancient India, 251. 29 The Symbol of the North is the combination of two animals, namely turtle and snake. 30 See Needham, Science and Civilisation in China vol. 3, 252–259.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

417

served the movements of astronomical objects” and “embellished the customers’ fate with flowery wording.”31 It is true that natal astrology was not as prevalent as physiognomy in the ancient period, but it still occupied a certain position in the earliest authentic bibliography Hanshu Yiwenzhi 漢書藝文志 [Bibliographic Section of the History of the Han].32 In the third century the famous master of esoteric arts Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343) put its contents more clearly. He stated that people’s fate, no matter fortunate or unfortunate, macrobiotic or microbiotic, is decided by the day the fetus takes form, which is also the first time life receives qi from the essence of the ruling lunar mansion. If the day is ruled by a sagely mansion, the fetus will become a sage, if it is a martial mansion, it will become a soldier, and so on.33 At this stage, according to Ge Hong’s account, the lunar mansions played a decisive role in astrology. The pattern of this kind of astrology was quite simple. Furthermore, unlike most other natal astrology, this system emphasized the point in time when the fetus takes form. This idea still remains in modern four pillars theories, however, its significance has considerably decreased.34 4

The Earliest Translated Buddhist Astrology

Not long after the advent of the common era, Buddhists begin to appear in Chinese historical records. Along with the diffusion of Buddhist doctrines, it was inevitable that Indian cosmology would have been introduced to China. Astrology was not absent, either. The most common routes for Indian monks to come to China were either by land through Central Asia, or via the Southeast Coast by water transportation. Coincidently, the earliest translations of Indian works on astrology that have survived are two versions of the same book transmitted through both of these two routes. The earlier translation of the book was done by Zhu Lüyan 竺律炎 and Zhi Qian 支謙 in 230 ce, with the title Mātangī Sūtra (Chinese title: Modengga jing 摩登伽經). The same book was re-translated around 300 ce by Dharmaraksa 竺法護, with the title Shetoujian taizi ershibaxiu jing 舍頭諫太子二十八宿經 [Prince Shetoujian’s Sutra of 28 Mansions].35 Both versions have mansion lists. Although they are translations of the same source text, there are several significant differences in their con31 Xin jiaoben Shiji sanjiazhu, 3216. 32 See Xin jiaoben Hanshu, 1765. 33 See “Baopuzi neipian” jiaoshi, 124. 34 See Wan Minying, San ming tonghui, 108–109. 35 See Needham, Science and Civilisation in China,3:258.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

418

Chang

tents. This might either be due to different source editions, or each of the two versions might have become mixed with local factors from South India or Central Asia.36 Yet another significant reason for their discrepancies might be the translators’ different backgrounds or styles. The earlier translation was carried out by a collaboration of native speakers of both Chinese and Indian languages. Zhu Lüyan was from Southern India, and Zhi Qian’s family, despite being of Central Asian origin, had resided in China for six generations. Zhi’s philosophy of translation was to make it easier for the reader to understand the text, therefore he tried to find existent Chinese metaphors to interpret Indian concepts. In the case of the lunar mansions, he used the Chinese names of constellations to refer to the Indian equivalents. The later translation was done by Dharmaraksa, who was born in Dunhuang, at the border between China and Central Asia. As a native bilingual he was sensitive to the subtle distinctions between languages. Thus Dharma­raksa insisted on distinguishing between nuances in translation and tried to stay close to the original meaning.37 In the case of astrology, Dharmaraksa recognized the Indian nakshatra had its specific ideas. Because Dharmaraksa did not want readers to confuse them with the Chinese xiu, therefore he chose to not use the Chinese term, but to translate the meaning of the original into Chinese. For example, Zhi Qian just referred to the mansion adjacent to the Pleiades with the Chinese name Mao 昴. Instead, Dharmaraksa took the Indian equivalent and translated it literally into Chinese as Mingchengxiu 名稱宿 “Mansion of Reputation.”38 The pattern of the earliest translated works on Buddhist astrology is similar to that described by Ge Hong. Every day a lunar mansion rules in turn, and the fate of the people born on that day is decided accordingly. One of the major differences is as follows: by identifying each mansion with a particular caste, the Indian astrological agent is clearly a deity in charge of that lunar mansion; in contrast, Ge Hong’s version emphasizes the effects of the star’s essence onto personal qi. Ge Hong does not clarify how to determine which lunar mansion is ruling on a certain day, whereas the Indian texts mentions, for example, “when the Moon is leaving Mansion Mao (or the Mansion of Reputation), he who is born on that day will have great reputation in his life.”39 That suggests that the determination of the ruling schedule was based on practical obser­-

36 See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 118. 37 See Chu Sanzang jiji, in Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō (abbreviated as TSD in the following), 55:49a. 38 See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 117–119. 39 Mātangi Sūtra, in TSD, 21:405b; Shetoujian taizi ershibaxiu jing, in TSD, 21:416c.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

419

vations in early Indian astrology. Furthermore, the Indians used the day of one’s birthday for prediction, rather than the day the fetus takes shape.40 5

The Astrology of Mahāvaipuya-mahā-samnipāta Sūtra

The next major translation is contained in scrolls 41 and 42 of the Mahāvaipuyamahā-samnipāta Sūtra (Chinese title: Dafangdeng da ji jing 大方等大集經). This was translated in the Sui dynasty (581–619) by Narendrayasas 那連提黎耶 舍 (490–589). Narendrayasas was from North India and first arrived in China at the age of forty. That means he probably relied on a native speaker to polish the final translation. Just like Zhi Qian, he used domestic terms to identify the twenty-eight Indian lunar mansions. The astrology of the Mahāvaipuya-mahāsamnipāta Sūtra significantly differs from previous translations regarding the calendar: Rather than practical observation, this sutra relies on an artificial calendar to decide the ruling mansion for each day. Scroll 42 features a list, that specifies which mansion should be ruling every day in a year. That schedule was supposed to repeat every year. The calendar presumes one year has 360 days and each of the 12 months has 30 days; David Pingree has called this the “Ideal Year.” In general terms, every day is assigned to one of the twenty-eight mansion deities in turn. However, the number 360 is not a multiple of 28. If the same schedule is to repeat every year, special arrangements are needed: if four specific chosen days are each assigned to two mansions, there are 364 duties in a year, which is a multiple of 28.41 Why bother to make the calendar so complicated? A compulsory custom required that each month must be named after the ruling mansion on the day of the full moon. Furthermore, the names of the months had already been fixed and could no longer be changed. The texts of Mahāvaipuya-mahā-samnipāta Sūtra do not clarify these rules but a later astrological sutra, Sūtra of Mansions and Planets (Xiuyao jing 宿曜經) explains these reasons clearly.42 Unless some sort of artificial method is applied, it would be impossible for the day of the full moon to always corresponds to the same mansion every month. The complex calendar order assures that every month the day of the full moon corresponds to the name of the given month. The decision regarding the month’s name might have been based on a specific observation at a certain point in time; perhaps it was the schedule of the first 40

However, in ancient India there was a legend relating the auspicious mansion to Buddha entering his mother’s body as a fetus. See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 113. 41 See Mahāvaipuya-mahā-samnipāta Sūtra, in TSD, 13:276–280. 42 See Sutra of Mansions and Planets, in TSD, 21:388a.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

420

Chang

year an important calendar was determined. However, because of all these conditions, the calendar’s astrological mansions no longer reflect the real position of the moon. There are at least two more things worth mentioning about the Mahāvaipuyamahā-samnipāta Sūtra regarding its astrology. First, the zodiac signs translated from Sanskrit are attached to the descriptions of the months. This is the first introduction of zodiac signs into China.43 Second, the texts mention both the day of birth and the day the fetus forms. Although most of the astrological judgments are based on the day of birth, this variation suggests that Ge Hong’s astrology is not unique in predicting a person’s fate by relying on the day the fetus forms. So far there is no clue to suggest whether the Chinese and Indian ideas are related or not. In the calendar adopted in the Mahāvaipuya-mahā-samnipāta Sūtra, the month starts on the day after the full moon; in contrast, in the Chinese calendar, the day of the full moon is in the middle of the month. In order to adapt to the readers’ expectations, the translator reformed the original month. In this calendar, the Indian day of the full moon is assigned to the last day of the month. For example, the span of the Indian month of Aries used to be the first month, starting with the day after the full moon. In this month, people should worship the spirit of Aries for protection. However, for the sake of Chinese readers, the span of that month was redefined to start on the day after the new moon of the original Indian twelfth month and to end 30 days later in the middle of the Indian first month. In a religious sense, the deity of Aries has been forced to yield to the domestic customers’ habits by switching his “office days” to be half a month later.44 Although it sounds absurd for astrology to be so flexible, since the Indian calendars were different according to the area they were used in, the same method could have been adopted in another Indian region. 6

The Appearance of the Sutra of Mansions and Planets

The most important astrological sutra was translated by Amoghavajra (Bukong 不空, 705–774), who is well-known as one of the greatest Buddhist masters of the high Tang. Amoghavajra collected Tantrist sutras from Sri Lanka and translated them. Among them is the astrological sutra called Sūtra Preached by Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and Various Immortals on the Fortunes and Virtues of 43 44

See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 122–123. This radical change is identified by Morita Ryūsen: See Morita Ryūsen, Mikkyō senseihō, 1:114–118.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

421

Different Times and Days of the Mansions and Planets (Wenshushili Pusa ji Zhu xian suo shuo jixiong shiri shan’e xiuyao jing 文殊師利菩薩及諸仙所說吉凶時 日善惡宿曜經), usually abbreviated as Sūtra of Mansions and Planets. This sutra is particularly significant in the history of Buddhist astrology. Amoghavjra’s grand pupil Kūkai 空海 (774–835) took many Tantrist sutras and religious instruments back to Japan. He then established a base of Tantrism on Mount Kōya (Kōyasan 高野山). Tantrism is still flourishing there today.45 Modern astrologers publicized the techniques with simple vocabularies so that all kinds of readers could easily understand them. The practices basically maintain the medieval format, which is why they could be called “living relics.” The contents of the Sūtra of Mansions and Planets are much richer and more dynamic than in earlier sutras. For example, it is the first time the weekly system is formally introduced into China. Each of the days is allocated to the sun, moon, and five planets in a fixed order. Under the influence of Kūkai, Japan adopted the weekly system early. As a result, today the Japanese names for the days of the week, such as Nichiyōbi 日曜日, literally day of the Sun Planet, match the English “Sunday.”46 In the Sūtra of Mansions and Planets planets are introduced and play an astrological role. Rather than deciding interpretations such as auspicious or inauspicious days solely based on the lunar mansions, planets could be randomly combined with mansions, in order to determine more fruitful readings.47 Material from the Edo period preserved at the archives of Kōyasan University shows that the monks used the combination of weekdays and mansion days to determine the date to perform the important ritual of abhiseka (guanding 灌頂).48 The precondition for such a random combination to happen is that the number of a mansion cannot be a multiple of 7, otherwise every mansion will constantly match with a certain weekday. In the case of the previously introduced sutras, the number of mansions is 28, which is a multiple of 7 and therefore not applicable to this system. However, the astrological system Amoghavajra brought to China was based on twenty-seven rather than 45 46 47 48

See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 4–5. See Ishida Mikinosuke, “Nichiyōbi ni ‘mitsu’ ji ni hyōkishita Guchūreki,” 707–724. See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 94–96. Abhiseka literally means pouring water on the head. It was originally an Indian ritual practiced in cases such as the investiture of a king. In China and Japan, Buddhists used this ritual for ordination purposes. See Soothill, Han Ying foxue dacidian, 483–484. I would like to express my thanks to Professor Yano Michio for introducing me to Professor Namai Chishō 生井智紹, President of Kōyasan University, and Professor Muroji Yoshihito 室寺 義仁. Thanks to their kind help I could use the archives of the Edo period of Kōyasan University.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

422

Chang

twenty-eight lunar mansions; this system is also used as the official calendar system in modern India. Just like Narendrayasas’s translation, the Sūtra of Mansions and Planets adopts the artificial “ideal year” of 360 days. More than that, in this sutra, the length of each mansion was redefined by average degrees 13.33, namely 360 divided by 27.49 But applying this to the calendar poses a problem: if the number of days in the ideal year is divided by 27, there is a remainder of 9 days. This leads to complications with adhering to the Indian custom of the naming of months. Therefore the calendar arbitrarily determines 9 mansions to rule two days each. Through this device, the full-moon mansion will still always correspond to the name of the month, so it then perfectly abides with the The Indian tradition.50 But Chinese readers complained about the mansion system introduced in the sutra. It did not coincide with Chinese habits, so many Chinese readers were unwilling to follow it. Conceding to such protests Amoghavajra agreed to have the sutra translated again, assisted by his pupil Yang Jingfeng 楊景風. To my knowledge this is the only sutra that was translated twice under the same master. The current sutra is organized into two scrolls, the contents of each scroll basically repeat the translated text. The first translation of the twentyseven mansion astrology can be found in the lower scroll written in plainer Chinese, which is closer to the Indian original. Yang reorganized the order and added considerable commentary, which is placed in the upper scroll and displays a more flowery rhetoric. Quite a few remarks in the upper scroll are attributed to Yang himself rather than the Master. In this sense, Yang’s role is more like that of an author than a translator. The main target of Yang’s re-interpretation was to adjust the astrological system to Chinese habits, therefore he transformed the original system into a twenty-eight mansion system. Unlike Narendrayasas, who listed each day’s ruling mansion, Yang designed a chart of days based on the Tang calendar titled “Monthly Chart of the Great Tang Calendar Da Tang yue jian tu 大唐月建圖,” which made the new version easier to use for a Chinese audience.51 Other than that Yang also provided a conversion table between Chinese and Indian months. However, he simply listed the twenty-eight Chinese lunar mansions in order, without manipulating their schedule by sharing or repeating, therefore the days of the full moon no longer agreed with the Indian names of the months. In order to adapt the astrological system to Chinese readers, Yang had to sacrifice its Indian characteristics. 49 50 51

For the mathematics see Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 50–52. See Morita Ryūsen, Mikkyō senseihō 1:118–122. See Sūtra of Mansions and Planets, in TSD, 21:388.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

423

How was the respective reception of these two scrolls? The answer is, each of the options had some followers. Out of the surviving Dunhuang scrolls, two items (P2499 and P4085) adopt Yang’s table. Notwithstanding, ironically, a book in the Daoist Canon claims to provide a calendar of the twenty-eight lunar mansion system, but in fact it copies the twenty-seven mansion system of the lower juan of the sutra and ignores the fact that the contents conflict with the title.52 Why did Amoghavajra decide to keep both versions of his translation? It is indeed very unusual for a pupil to occupy such an important role in a sutra translation. A possible explanation is that Amoghavajra’s mathematical skill was not good enough to deal with the task of re-transformation; to obtain it, he had to rely on Yang Jingfeng. However, he was not capable of evaluating how well Yang did the work, therefore he prefered to leave the final answer to the reader. Yano points out that Yang’s understanding of the Indian calendar was problematic so that his interpretations were difficult to follow.53 In 862 Japan officially adopted the Senmyō Calendar (Senmyō-reki 宣明曆), which used the twenty-seven lunar mansion system. This meant that Yang’s confusing version was no longer a bothersome issue. For example, astrologers of the Onmyōdō tradition 陰陽道 all used the twenty-seven mansion system.54 Before the adoption of the Senmyō Calendar, the Great Tang Almanac, which was transcribed in Japan in 848, was used. If we observe the days of the planets and the auspicious days good for abhiseka, it is obvious that the twenty-seven mansion system used in that calendar is the same as that of the lower scroll of the sutra.55 But the Sūtra of Mansions and Planets is still different from the complete form of Ptolemaic astrology. The earlest surviving material on such a form in the Chinese language is again Buddhist, the Formulae for Avoiding Calamities according to the Seven Planets (Qiyao rangzai jue 七曜攘災訣). Only one copy has been preserved in Japan. It is dated soon after 806, almost the time of the Central Asian Li Miqian. In spite of its title, it is more astronomical than astrological, including advanced knowledge such as ecliptic data. Indeed, if one wants to achieve mastery of astrology, it is paramount to know about these. In the Formulae, the major Ptolemaic astrological factors, including the movements and interactions of planets, the twelve places, and zodiac signs are all included. It is only when this knowledge became available that it was possible

52 53 54 55

See Li Hui, “Hanyi fojing zhong de xiuyaoshu yanjiu,” 53–55. See Yano Michio, Hoshiuranai bunka kōryūshi, 120. See ibid., 147. See Li Hui, “Hanyi fojing zhong de xiuyaoshu yanjiu,” 94–100.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

424

Chang

to predict a person’s fate in certain details.56 The earliest known example of such a horoscope is for the year 1112, and it is a prediction for a Japanese aristocrat.57 It basically agrees with Xue Fengzuo’s ideal of mixing the stem-and-branch elements. However, it should be pointed out that although the attributed author Jin Juzha 金俱吒 of the Formulae was an Indian monk, he did not insist on keeping the contents true to the original, but included quite a few Chinese ideas, too. He not only distributed the twenty-eight lunar mansions among the four animals, but also endowed the planets with the attributes of the five phases. For example, he argued that Jupiter is the son of the Green Emperor in the East, so the planet is connected to the essence of wood.58 Such an adaptive attitude encouraged Chinese astrologers to integrate Ptolemaic factors with Chinese tradition to form the hybrid “five planets” system. 7

Increased Demand for Domestic Input in Later Astrology

What fourteenth-century process transformed the pure horoscope solely determined by stars into the hybrid version? The available information is insufficient to trace the development in full detail. However, the attempt to integrate the foreign system with the Chinese one definitely started quite early. As the surviving late Tang Scroll excavated in Turfan (figure 14.2) shows, astrologers already added the domestic star spirits to horoscopes in the late ninth century. This was the same century that saw the complete translation of Ptolemaic astrology. On the Turfan chart, the four star spirits noted down at the corners are domestic. Sangmen 喪門 might be an alternative name for dixiong 地雄, and dahao 大耗 and xiaohao 小耗 can be found in fourteenth-century horoscopes. Taisui 太歲 is not in the horoscope, even though it was a rather popular star spirit often used in everyday life.59 If we further trace astrological works before the day of Xue Fengzuo, other than the translation from an Islamic manual mentioned earlier, every book discusses astrology in terms of the five phases. The editors of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries seemed to consider Chinese astrology to be a tradition distinct from its Indian and Central Asian origins. According to their judgment, the book General Summary of Astrology (Xingming zongkuo 星命總 括, dated 984) is one of the earliest books on the “five planets.” This book is 56 See Yano Michio, Mikkyō senseijutsu, 136–154. 57 See Nakayama Shigeru, History of Japanese Astronomy, 60. 58 See Formulae for Avoiding Calamities according to the Seven Planets, in TSD, 21:426c. 59 See Chen Yongzheng, Zhongguo xingming cidian, 68.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

425

Figure 14.2 A horoscope excavated in Turfan (dated ninth century)

attributed to a member of the Khitai royal family, Yelü Chun 耶律純, who was very interested in astrology but found it abstruse. When he was dispatched to Korea as embassador, he encountered Korea’s national advisor, a Buddhist monk, who happened to be a master of the “five planets” technique. From the monk he received the secret formulae. The book General Summary of Astrology extensively applies the principles of stems and branches as well as star spirits in solving astrological puzzles.60 This means the contents of this book were already of a hybrid nature. As such, the Ptolemaic astrology introduced into China experienced a long process of reorganization, and gradually formed the knowledge body of the “five planets” method. This was a complicated process. Countless anonymous astrologers were devoted to this work. Everyone had their own opinions on what should be done, and disagreements naturally existed. Roughly speaking, astrologers could be divided into two major camps: those who considered zodiac signs, and those who considered the lunar mansions’ degree to be the foundation of prediction. The former were called gongzhu 宮主 (zodiac signs major), and the latter duzhu 度主 (degree major). However, both camps agreed that yin-yang and five phases are the correct way to grasp the disciplines. For example, Zheng Xicheng 鄭希誠, author of Mr. Zheng’s Astrological Cases, was a major figure of the camp of degree major. He left several essays arguing that astrological prediction should be consistent with the Classical Chinese canon, and that the five phases should be the standard for judging astrological 60 See Yelü Chun, Xingming zongkuo, in Siku quanshu vol. 809.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

426

Chang

theories.61 According to him it was definitely necessary to employ the information of stems and branches to complete the practices. No matter whether he was using the components of star spirits or not, Zheng’s opinions were mainstream in late imperial China. Those were the opinions, which Xue Fengzuo wanted to get rid of. Returning to Xue, was he as lonely as the bibliographer Qian Xizuo suggested, forgotten by Chinese readers? The answer is no. There was a small group of astrologers in the Lower Yangzi area within the social network of mathematicians Xue had been involved in. They had access to the texts, as well as the proficiency to handle advanced calculations. In 1802, three generations after Xue, a pupil named Ni Ronggui 倪榮桂 finally published some astrological books. Ni was proud of the accuracy of Western astronomy, and boasted that with the tools at hand, he could discern the fate of babies born at the same time in each province.62 However, Ni disagreed with Xue’s criticism of the star spirits. He claimed that solely relying on Western astrological rules could not solve all necessary questions. He argued that the star spirits had endured a long history of examination and thus should be prized. Although he noted that scholars should treat the star spirits critically, he still thought that they could not be ruled out for answering questions specific to Chinese society, such as how one would fare on the civil service examination. Furthermore, the imperial compilation Book for Accomodating and Distinguishing Times and Locations (Xieji bianfang shu 協紀辨方書, 1739) supports the idea of continue to use stems and branches.63 Apparently Xue Fengzuo’s ideas were not even adopted by his admirers. 8

Continuing Interactions between China and Foreign Civilizations

Up to the twentieth century, the “five planets” method gradually declined. For some decades only the “four pillars” technique prevailed. However, from the 1980s on, a new kind of astrology called Ziwei doushu first arose in Taiwan. Ziwei doushu resembles Ptolemaic astrology in that it also uses a square shape for horoscopes, but as mentioned earlier, its content overlapped with the 61 62 63

See Chang Che-chia, “Medicine and Astrology,” 68–70. See Ni Ronggui, Xifa mingpan tushuo, 23–24. See Yunlu, Xieji bianfang shu. Many parts of this book discuss shensha, for example the whole juan 3 (originally without page numbers). More than half of the contents of another book of Ni’s called Luming yaolan 祿命要覽 [A glance of the main points in fortune-telling] discusses the right uses of star spirits.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

427

Tetrabiblos even less than the “five planets” method.64 The only factor Ziwei doushu shares with foreign astrology is the idea of the twelve places of human experiences, but their order disagrees with the Tetrabiblos and “five planets” technique. All of the parameters are star spirits. Although the sun, the moon, and Mars can still be found in the horoscope, they merely reflect the image but have nothing to do with the actual astronomical body. The explanatory model is completely based on yin-yang and five phases.65 At the same time, books on Western astrology continue to be translated into modern Chinese. But now astrologers are fully aware that the five phases are not the ultimate explanation for everything, thus they no longer try to intergrate the two systems. The astrology of astronomical bodies and that of star spirits coexist alongside each other. Xue’s ideal has finally come true. The conflicts of cosmology are no longer a serious issue for today’s astrologers. However, this result is not due to Xue’s work, but because the environment has radically changed. Since the Gregorian calendar has been officially adopted, astrologers today that use domestic methods have to convert the calendar. Through public education, Western languages and ideas have become common knowledge, so that the challenge of translation is not as formidable as it had been in the past. Furthermore, the Chinese State and economy have become more and more like the Western model. Now the whole society is adapting itself to foreign ways. However, practitioners of the “four pillars” and Ziwei doushu today must make an effort to re-code ancient symbols as well as to re-interpret old texts, which used to be effective in premodern times, to make them applicable to modern society. Translation and adaption are necessary as well. The difference is that this time the translation is happening between classical and modern forms within the same language, and that the adaption is occuring in two phases of one continuous civilization. Through this process modern astrologers are trying to carve out a niche for the tra­ ditional art to survive in the modern world; just as it is necessary for other branches of Chinese divination. The history of Chinese astrology provides an interesting case for observing China’s patterns of interaction with foreign civilizations. Historically the Chinese showed they were open enough to accepting exotic ideas, and if a foreign proposal achieved a reasonable level of resonance with the Chinese framework of understanding the world, then the Chinese were willing to 64 65

See Ho Peng-yoke, “‘Ziwei doushu’ yu xingzhanxue de yuanyuan,” 38–50. It has been claimed that its creator is the famous Taoist priest Chen Tuan 陳摶 (872?– 989), but no textual evidence verifies this statement. See Chen Xiyi, Shiba feixing ziwei doushu quanji, XIX.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

428

Chang

embrace it and include it into their own heritage. This pattern worked well before the supreme challenge from the West after the Opium Wars. Even in the modern age, Chinese astrologers have exhibited flexibility in integrating ancient wisdom with the modern world. Moreover, some of them have explored possibilities to enrich the tools of interpretations, such as attempting to use Western psychological approaches.66 Although pressures imposed by modernization have motivated reforms, Chinese astrologers have not merely reacted in a defensive or passive way. New directions such as the inclusion of Carl G. Jung’s (1875–1961) psychology, have the potential to create more points of interaction with other civilizations. In fact, Westerners have also abandoned preconceived ideas that dismiss Chinese numerology as nothing more than “superstition.” European authors have started to pay attention to the Oriental arts, and have adopted foreign astrology when considering questions about life. This development is parallel to what has happened in China in the past. This is a new trend, which could launch new developments in Chinese astrology. In the past, foreigners introduced their astrological systems to China. Now foreigners contribute their ideas to enrich Chinese astrology, and Chinese astrologers are more prepared to export their art of divination to the world.67 The story of the interplay betwen Chinese astrology and foreign cultures continues, but it is now following a different dynamic.

Works Cited

Abbreviation

TSD Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新修大蔵経 [Revised Tripiṭaka of the Taishō Period]. Reprint. Taipei: Xinwenfeng chubanshe, 1983.

Sources

Bukong 不空 (Amoghavajra), trans. Wenshushili Pusa ji Zhu xian suoshuo jixiong shiri shan’e xiuyaojing 文殊師利菩薩及諸仙所說吉凶時日善惡宿曜經 [Sūtra Preached by Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and Various Immortals on the Fortunes and Virtues of Different Times and Days of the Mansions and Planets]. In TSD, 21: 387–399. Chang, Che-chia. “Medicine and Astrology: Their Encounter at a Cross-Cultural Occasion.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM) 24 (2005): 62–77. 66 67

See Kang Zhengda, Jingyao tujie bazi xinli tuimingxue; He Jianzhong, Bazi xinli tuimingxue. See Lackner, “Zhanbushu zhi fengyun zaiqi,” 290–291.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

429

Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. History of Science and Technology in Ancient India. Calcutta: Firma KLM PVT. LTD, 1996. Chen Xiyi 陳希夷. (Hebing) Shiba feixing ce tian & Ziwei doushu quanji （合併）十八 飛星策天紫微斗數全集 [(The Combination of) [t]he Complete Book of “Ziwei doushu” and Eighteen Stars in the Sky]. Taipei: Jiwen shuju, 1982. Chen Yongzheng 陳永正. Zhongguo xingming cidian 中國星命辭典 [Dictionary of Astrology in China]. Taipei: Jieyou chubanshe, 1994. Dong Shaoxin 董少新. Xing shen zhi jian: Zaoqi xiyang yixue ru Hua shigao 形神之间： 早期西洋医学入华史稿 [Between Form and Soul: A Historical Draft of Western Medicine’s Introduction into China in the Early Stage]. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2008. Ge Hong 葛洪. “Baopuzi neipian” jiaoshi 抱朴子內篇校釋 [Collated and Annotated Edition of the “Inner Chapters of Baopuzi”]. Edited by Wang Ming 王明. Taipei: Liren shuju, 1981. He Jianzhong 何建忠. Bazi xinli tuimingxue 八字心理推命學 [The Astrology of Eight Characters with Psychological Approach]. Taipei: Longyin shiye chubanshe, 1994. Ho Peng Yoke 何丙郁. “‘Ziwei doushu’ yu xingzhanxue de yuanyuan 「紫微斗數」與星 占學的淵源 [Ziwei doushu’s Kinship with Astrology].” Lishi yuekan 歷史月刊 [History Monthly] 68 (1993): 38–50. Hobson, Benjamin. Quanti xinlun 全體新論 [Outline of Anatomy and Physiology]. Shanghai: Mohai shuguan, 1851. Huang Yi-long 黄一农. Shehui tianwenxue shi shijiang 社会天文学史十讲 [Ten Lectures on Social Astronomy]. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2004. Hucker, Charles. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Taipei: Nantian shuju, 1995. Ishida Mikinosuke 石田幹の助. “Nichiyōbi ni ‘mitsu’ ji ni hyōkishita Guchūreki 日曜日 に「蜜」字に標記した具注暦 [The Calendar that Notes Sunday as the Character ‘mitsu’].” In Tōa bunkashi sōkō 東亜文化史叢考 [Collected Investigations of the History of Eastern Asia], edited by Ishida Mikinosuke, pp. 707–724. Tokyo: Tōyō bunko, 1973. Jinjuzha 金俱吒. Qiyao Rangzai jue 七曜攘災訣 [Formulae for Avoiding Calamities according to the Seven Planets]. In TSD, 21:426–452. Kang Zhengda 康正達. Jingyao tujie bazi xinli tuimingxue 精要圖解 八字心理推命學 [The Astrology of Eight Characters with a Psychological Approach with Essential Illustrations]. Taipei: Hongyeshuju, 1993. Lackner, Michael (Lang Mixie 朗密榭). “Zhanbushu zhi fengyun zaiqi—Zhanbu zuowei Zhongguo wenhua rentong de yige xin mokuai? 占卜术之风云再起── 占卜作为 中国文化认同的一个新模块？ [The Revival of Divination—Divination as a New Model of Chinese Cultural Identity?]” In Lang Mixie hanxue wenji 朗密榭汉学文集 [Collected Sinological Works of Michael Lackner], edited by Xu Yan 徐艳, pp. 272–291. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2013.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

430

Chang

Li Hui 李辉. “Hanyi fojing zhong de xiuyaoshu yanjiu 汉译佛经中的宿曜术研究 [A Study on Astral Divination of Lunar Mansions and Planets in Chinese Buddhist Scriptures].” Ph.D. thesis. Shanghai jiaotong University, 2011. Ma Bailian 马佰莲, and Sun Shiming 孙世明. “Rong gefang zhi caizhi ru wuxue zhi xingfan—Xue Fengzuo kexueguan tanwei 镕各方之材质入吾学之型范－薛凤祚科 学观探微 [Standardizing Various Kinds of Doctrines in the Study of Chinese Paradigm—A Probe into Xue Fengzuo’s View of Science].” Shandong kejidaxue xuebao (shehuikexue ban) 山东科技大学学报（社会科学版） [Journal of Shandong Uni­ver­sity of Science and Technology (Social Sciences)] 12, no. 1 (2010): 2–8. Morita Ryūsen 森田竜僊. Mikkyō senseihō 密教占星法 [The Methods of Tantrist Astrology]. Tokyo: Rinsen shoten, 1974. Nakayama, Shigeru. History of Japanese Astronomy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. Naliantiliyeshe 那連提黎耶舍 (Narendrayasas) trans. Juan 42 of Dafangdeng da ji jing 大方等大集經 [Mahāvaipuya-mahā-samnipāta Sūtra]. In TSD, 13: 276–282. Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Reprinted in Taipei: Caves Books, 1985. Ni Ronggui 倪榮桂. Luming yaolan 祿命要覽 [A Glance of the Main Points in FortuneTelling]. In Ni Ronggui, Zhong-Xi xing yao 中西星要 [The Essence of Chinese and Western Astrology], edited by Li Chongyang 李崇仰, 235–574. Taipei: Xiangda tushu gongsi, 1995. Ni Ronggui. “Xifa mingpan tushuo 西法命盤圖說 [Illustrations of Western horoscopes].” In Ni Ronggui, Zhong-Xi xing yao 中西星要 [The Essence of Chinese and Western Astrology], edited by Li Chongyang 李崇仰, pp. 27–54. Taipei: Xiangda tushu gongsi, 1995. Nie Qingxiang 聂清香, and Zhai Yingbo 翟英伯. “Zhong-Xi huitong tian-ren xiangying: Xue Fengzuo yinjin xifang zhanxingshu mianmianguan 中西会通天人相应：薛凤 祚引进西方占星术面面观 [Chinese-Western Integration of Correspondence between Man and Nature: Xue Fengzuo and Astrology].” Shandong keji daxue xuebao (Shehui kexue ban) 山东科技大学学报（社会科学版） [Journal of Shandong Uni­ver­ sity of Science and Technology (Social Sciences Edition)], 2010:3: 27–37. Sengyou 僧祐. Chu Sanzang jiji 出三藏記集 [Collections of Notes on the Tripitaka]. In TSD, 55: 1–114. Shi Yunli 石云里. “Tianbu zhenyuan li de shenmi xuwen 《天步真原》里的神秘序文 [The Mysterious Preface to Tianbu zhenyuan].” Guangxi minzu xueyuan xuebao (Ziran kexue ban) 广西民族学院学报（自然科学版） [Journal of Guangxi Uni­versity for Nationalities (Natural Science Edition)] 12, no. 1 (February, 2006): 23–26. Sima Qian 司馬遷. Xin jiaoben “Shiji” sanjiazhu 新校本史記三家注 [New Collated Edition of the “Grand Historian’s Records” with Three Commentaries]. Edited by Yang Jialuo 楊家駱. Taipei: Dingwen shuju, 1979.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture

431

Smith, Richard. Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society. Boulder: Westview press, 1991. Song Zhiye 宋芝业. “Xue Fengzuo Zhong-xi zhanyan huitong yu lifa gaige xue 薛凤祚 中西占验会通与历法改革学 [Xue Fengzuo’s Integration of Chinese-Western Divina­ tion and Calendar Reform].” Shandong shehuikexue 山东社会科学 [Social Sciences of Shandong], 2011.6: 38–43. Soothill, William. Han Ying Foxue da cidian 漢英佛學大辭典 [Great Chinese-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terms]. Taipei: Mile chubanshe, 1983. Standaert, Nicolas. “European Astrology in Early Qing China: Xue Fengzuo’s and Smogulecki’s Translation of Cordano’s Commentaries on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.” SinoWestern Cultural Relations Journal 23 (2001): 50–79. Wan Minying 萬民英. San ming tonghui 三命通會 [Symposiums on the Three Fates]. Taipei: Wuling chubanshe, 1995. Xiao Dewu 肖德武. “Xue Fengzuo huitong Zhong-xi de nuli ji shibai yuanyin fenxi 薛凤 祚会通中西的努力及失败原因分析 [Analysis on Xue Fengzuo’s Efforts to Integrate Chinese and Western Scholarship and the Reason of his Failure].” Shandong shifan daxue xuebao (Renwen shehui kexue ban) 山东师范大学学报（人文社会科学版） [Journal of Shandong Normal University (Edition of Social Sciences and Humanities)] 55, no. 2 (2010): 67–71. Xin jiaoben Hanshu 新校本漢書 [New Collated Edition of the History of Han]. Compiled by Ban Gu 班固, edited by Yang Jialuo 楊家駱. Taipei: Dingwen shuju, 1986. Xin jiaoben xin Tang shu 新校本新唐書 [New Collated Edition of the New History of Tang]. Compiled by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修. Edited by Yang Jialuo 楊家駱. Reprinted in Taipei: Dingwen shuju, 1981. Xue Fengzuo 薛凤祚. “Tianbu zhenyuan, Renming bu 天步真原人命部 [On Human Fate, True Origin of the Pacing of Heavens].” In Siku weishou shushulei gujidaquan: mingxiang jicheng 四庫未收術數類古籍大全：命相集成 [Astrology Section in the Great Collection of Numerological Books not Included in the Four Treasuries], edited by Liu Yongming 劉永明, pp. 1357–1619. Guangling: Jiangsu Guangling guji keyinshe, 1995. Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 薮内清. Zōho kaitei Chūgoku no tenmon rekihō 増補改訂中国の天文 暦法 [Expanded and Corrected Version of China’s Astronomy and Calendar]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1990. Yano, Michio 矢野道雄. Kusyar Ibn Labban’s Introduction to Astrology. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Institute for the Study of Language and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1997. Yano, Michio. Hoshiuranai no bunka kōryūshi 星占いの文化交流史 [History of Cultural Interactions of Star Divinations]. Tokyo: Keisō shobō, 2004. Yano, Michio. Mikkyō senseijutsu 密教占星術 [The Tantrist Astrology]. Tokyo: Tokyo ­bijutsu, 1986.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

432

Chang

Yelü Chun 耶律純. Xingming zongkuo 星命總括 [General Summary of Natal Astrology]. In Siku quanshu 四庫全書 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], vol 809. Reprinted in Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1983. Yunlu 允祿. Qinding xieji bianfang shu 欽定協紀辨方書 [The Imperial Book for Accomodating and Distinguishing Times and Locations]. In Siku quanshu zhenben 四 庫全書珍本 [Rare Edition of the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], vol. 5: 202–209. Reprinted in Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1974. Zhu Fahu 竺法護, trans. Shetoujian taizi ershibaxiu jing 舍頭諫太子二十八宿經 [Prince Shetoujian’s Sutra of Twenty-eight Mansions]. In TSD 21: 410–420. Zhu Lüyan 竺律炎, and Zhi Qian 支謙. Modengqie jing 摩登伽經 (Mātangi Sūtra). In TSD, 21:399–410. Zhu Zhenheng 朱震亨. Danxi xiansheng xinfa 丹溪先生心法 [Secret Tips of Mr. Danxi]. In Danxi Yiji 丹溪医籍 [(Mr.) Danxi’s Medical Books]. Compiled by Zhejiangsheng Zhongyiyao yanjiuyuan wenxian yanjiushi 浙江省中医药研究院文献研究室 [Laboratory of Bibliography, the Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Drugs]. Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, 1999.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

433

Chapter 15

Against Prognostication: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts Pingyi Chu

Coping with Chinese mantic practices was probably one of the most vexing problems that the Jesuits in China ever experienced. They never dreamed that these “superstitions” would one day nearly ruin their effort to bring the light of “rational” Christianity to what they saw as a benighted culture. In 1664, an antiChristian literatus named Yang Guangxian 楊光先 (1597–1669) successfully accused Adam Schall von Bell (1591–1666), then in charge of calendar-making at the Manchu court, and his Christian associates on several counts: treachery, altering the calendar, and usurping the emperor’s right of calendar-making. In the end, however, Schall was sentenced for choosing the wrong date for the funeral of the son born to the Shunzhi 順治 emperor’s favorite concubine. The judicial authority at court seems to have associated the inauspicious date chosen for the deceased newborn’s funeral with the emperor’s own early death. Schall and all the Jesuits at court were jailed, tried, and sentenced to death; others in the provinces were to be deported to Macau. The future of the mission was dangling by a thread. Thanks to a huge earthquake, however, Schall and his Jesuit colleagues were vindicated because the quake was thought to reveal the wrath of Heaven against an unjust trial. Schall died in 1666, soon after his release. Although the Jesuits at the Manchu court had attempted to shape their identity as mandarins of science, the Goddess of Fate seems to have played a joke on them, rendering both their initial downfall and eventual vindication through what they had considered “superstition.”1 Like their own mathematics and astronomy, Chinese superstition almost had the Jesuits expelled from China—but then also delivered them and their mission from total destruction. “Superstition,” therefore, is an important issue. Modern scholars have noticed its widespread evocation and its rhetorical usefulness in tearing down the so-called “feudal” establishments during the Republican era, but also for missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.2

1 Chu Pingyi, “Scientific Dispute”; An Shuangcheng, “Tang Rouwang an shimo.” 2 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_017

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

434 1

Chu

On the Origin of the Term Mixin

The Chinese adoption of the Western concept of “superstition” (mixin 迷信) started gaining popularity in the last decade of the nineteenth century. According to Shen Jie 沈潔, mixin was a loan term from the Japanese rendering of “superstition” in the nineteenth century.3 Mixin was first used as a verb, meaning “to believe blindly and firmly” in the nineteenth-century context in China.4 Mixin was irrational but not completely negative as this firm belief might kindle the flame of commitment necessary for the Chinese people to establish a new state in the modern world. For a time during the early twen­ tieth century, some conservative literati labeled belief systems other than Confucianism as mixin in the hope of defining China’s Confucian national character: Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian organizations were thus said to be “deluded.”5 However, mixin soon came to mean more generally the antithesis of rationality and was used to designate a set of “irrational” practices, referring to any religion, cult, or aspect of folklore that invoked supernatural powers. During this period, the concept of mixin was tied to the spirit of the European Enlightenment within which the rational capacity of human beings was mobilized to defend against religious or secular authorities. After the May Fourth Movement, however, even Confucianism could not escape from the accusation of mixin as it was the pillar supporting the “feudal” imperial establishments. Science, which was considered the only rational enterprise of human beings, would become the sole judge of whether a belief was mixin or not.6 Mixin indeed rarely appears in the Chinese lexicon before the Republican period. Thanks to modern technology, one only has to check major databases to verify this impression. In databases like Zhongguo jiben guji ziliao ku 中國基 本古籍資料庫 [Database of Basic Chinese Ancient Texts], Siku quanshu 四庫全 書 [Complete Library of the Four Treasures], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan hanji dianzi wenxian ziliaoku 中央研究院漢籍電子文獻資料庫 [Database of Digital Chi­ nese Documents], CBETA 中華電子佛典 [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Texts], and Zhonghua daozang 中華道藏 [Chinese Daoist Canon], one can easily find the two characters mixin; however, the two characters usually belong to two parts of a sentence separated by a comma. There is a single instance of mixin

3 Shen Jie reserves the possibility that there might be an earlier Western origin, but she cannot find evidence for this; see “‘Fan mixin.’” 4 Caspar, “Guojia lun.” 5 Chen Hsi-yuan, “Zongjiao.” 6 Song Hongjuan, “‘Mixin.’”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

435

in the Chinese Buddhist canon; however, it describes a confused state of belief. The text reads: There are thirteen different states of believing. […] The seventh is called confused belief (mixin), which is also called bad belief. This is caused by inversion. 信相差別有十三種。… 七者有迷信，謂惡信，由顛倒故。7

In this entry, mixin does not involve the concept of rationality. This correlates with the assumption that the term derived its meaning from the Christian idea that belief should be informed by reason. Mixin became a common term among Chinese scholars after 1949, who used it to remark on anything considered irrational in ancient texts composed by great Chinese thinkers (zhuzi 諸子). Interestingly, however, in the original texts they refer to, the term had never appeared. The fact that Chinese scholars employed it so unconsciously in their commentatorial work reveals how deeply the term mixin had penetrated into modern daily life by this time. There are several instances in which the Jesuits used mixin in their writings, but this has not been noticed by scholars. For example, Inácio da Costa’s  (Guo Najue 郭納爵, 1603–1666) Zhusumi 燭俗迷 [Enlightening the Common Bewil­ derments], dated around 1642, uses mixin three times; and Xingmi pian 醒迷篇 [Awakening the Bewildered], copied in 1658 by a Chinese convert named Andele 諳德勒, uses it nine times.8 The twelve occurrences of the term mixin in these two books significantly surpass its use in all of the extant documents produced in more than two thousand years of preceding Chinese history taken together. Moreover, both books feature refutations of Buddhism, Daoism, and Chinese customs that evoke supernatural powers. More significantly, the authors of both books argue that their refutations of Chinese beliefs can be induced from reason (litui 理推). In their Latin writings, the Jesuits use “superstitio” quite often to discuss Chinese customs such as burning paper money.9 It is thus fair 7 Asanga, Dasheng zhuangyan jinlun. “Inversion” here means believing what is not true. 8 The same number of references to mixin appear in a later copy done in 1667 by another Chinese convert, Luo Guangping 羅廣平. The Xingmi pian has several extant manuscript copies, but only these two bear the name of the copier or author (BnF, Chinois, 7149, 7150–I, 7151–I, 7174–I–XXII; ARSI, Jap.Sin. I, 150). Although the contents are similar, the text length and wording are not the same. According to the preface of the copy BnF, Chinois, 7150–I, the author intended to have this book published, so perhaps the texts of these copies are different because they were still under revision. 9 Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals, 164–183.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

436

Chu

to say that the Jesuits and their Chinese converts co-created the term mixin, which was associated with European concepts of reason and superstition. They tried to dismiss native Chinese teachings (jiao 教), which were said to be bewildered (mi 迷) or deluded (wang 妄), in order to reshape the religious landscape in favor of Christianity. A detailed analysis of the term would require further research. For now, we can conclude that mixin has a longer history after the encounter between Christianity and Chinese customs in the seventeenth century than before that time. The concept of superstition appeared in European languages mostly as a noun or an adjective. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China, mixin was usually used as a verb; denoting the act of “indulging oneself in heterodox belief or custom,” mixin was alleged to be operating in Buddhism, Daoism, and mantic practices. This situation changed in the late nineteenth century when it was constructed as a category for religious and folk practices that did not comply with the standards of Enlighten­ment rationality. In what follows, I will use newly published materials to examine a short but crucial episode in the long history of mixin in China. I will focus on what must be considered the most compre­hensive attack of prognosticative practices voiced in seventeenth-century China—namely by Ferdinand Verbiest  (Nan Huairen 南懷仁, 1623–1688), the successor of Adam Schall. Verbiest thought that “pagan practices” of predicting the future could not only lead believers astray but also could become lethal to the mission and thus had to be firmly rebutted. The result of Verbiest’s struggle against Chinese mantic practices was that “pagan customs” formerly considered relatively harmless were now seen as a threat to the mission. By examining Verbiest’s refutations of Yang Guangxian’s theories on the issue of prognosti­ cation, this paper will highlight how Verbiest’s arguments took a different form than previous works on Chinese “superstitious” customs. The way the art of prognostication was organized in Chinese and Christian cultures, I suggest, reveals different visions of fate, freedom of human action, and the power that determines the course of human destiny. Acknowledging these differences provides us with a vantage point for observing what are also two different concep­tions of how life should be conducted and how to deal with future uncertainty. 2

From “Pagan Custom” to Heresy

The Jesuits were aware of the “pagan practices” of divination ever since they came to China. Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) named astrology, choosing dates, and

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

437

geomancy as the most distinct Chinese “superstitions,” but he considered them to be more or less harmless “pagan customs.”10 The Jesuits and their converts did not refute these practices in the early seventeenth century. Likely this was because they were then dealing with other thorny opponents, namely the Buddhists who had successfully persecuted Chinese Christians in 1616. While the apologetic writing produced during this period thus mainly focused on rebutting Buddhism, the “superstitious customs” were nonetheless thought to be not far from heresy. After introducing Chinese superstitions, Ricci described the three Chinese teachings in his journal. Two of these three teachings, Buddhism and Daoism (the other being Confucianism, of course), were obviously hazardous to true belief.11 This order is noteworthy for many later apologetic texts tend to refute Chinese fortune-telling and religions as if they were a package. Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe 艾儒略, 1582–1649), who preached in Fujian during the 1620s to the 1640s, held a series of conversations with his followers on a variety of subjects. These conversations were recorded in the Kouduo richao 口 鐸日抄 [Diary of Oral Admonitions]. In 1630, his interlocutors had discussions with Aleni about problems with fengshui, choosing auspicious dates, and astrology. They were eager to know the justification for not observing these customs as these deeply affected their own daily lives. They also wanted to know how Christians in Europe dealt with practical matters such as choosing a burial ground. Aleni employed a simple strategy by citing examples to demonstrate that these practices were not effective and, therefore, imposed no actual influence on daily life.12 The dialogue format would later be adopted by other Christian writers discoursing on Chinese “superstitions” of prognostication before the 1650s. Although Aleni resolutely denied the legitimacy of these practices in Christian culture, his interlocutors also inquired about issues of fortune and lifespan, ironically transforming him into a sort of diviner. It was probably some pious Chinese converts who first insisted on the heretical nature of fortune-telling, which often resorted to the supernatural powers of various deities but did not at all acknowledge the Christian Lord of Heaven. Around 1638, a Chinese convert, Zhu Zongyuan 朱宗元 (ca. 1617–1660), wrote a book entitled Da ke wen 答客問 [Answering Questions from a Guest]. In this book, he discussed the three teachings in China. He defended Christianity as the only true teaching, discredited Buddhism and Daoism, and presented 10 Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century, 82–92. 11 Ibid., 93–114. 12 Aleni, Kouduo richao. On fengshui, see 52–55 and 67–68; on choosing an auspicious date, see 191–192; on astrology, see 131–134.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

438

Chu

Confucianism as an ancient form of Christianity. Also denounced were cults of different deities in Chinese folk religion and various methods of prognostication. Chinese mantic practices were thus placed on the same level as those “heresies” in Zhu’s book.13 Although both employed dialogue form in their respective texts, Aleni’s target audience was Christians and literati who were curious about Christianity, Zhu’s was not. Aleni treats mantic practices as merely customs that his followers had to face; he also explains how Christians in the West dealt with them. Zhu, in contrast, considers mantic practices as heresies to be dismissed altogether along with other folk beliefs. Zhu’s categorization of mantic practices as heretical was influential. Many later treatises produced during the 1640s and 50s adopted his classification of the mantic arts as part of Chinese religious practices and refuted them as heresies. While Zhu was explaining to nonbelievers why Christianity forbade certain prognostic practices, these treatises were monophonic apologetic works directed at the “pagans’” religious beliefs. Both Aleni and Zhu were in southern China when they wrote their discourses on Chinese mantic practices. In contrast, Inácio da Costa recorded his reflections on “deluded customs” in northern China around 1642. Da Costa’s treatise is the first European study of Chinese folk religion. It does not particularly focus on Daoism and Buddhism, which were considered the most dangerous enemies of Christianity. Instead, da Costa discusses the worship of local deities and argues that these are not true gods.14 Mantic practices, which shared the same cosmology as these forms of pantheism, are also under attack in his work. His investigations of Chinese mixin customs and mantic practices are far more detailed than those of other Jesuits, who mainly singled out divination, geomancy, physiognomy, horoscopy, and choosing dates as main categories of discussion. 3

From Heresy to Threat to the Church

Had the Jesuits never served at court as mandarin astronomers, they probably would still have defended their religion against these popular Chinese customs of prognostication; however, they may never have regarded them as a direct threat. Diviners, fortune-tellers, and spiritual mediums had the authority to interpret the future for others but, unlike the Buddhists, they lacked the institutional power to organize themselves in order to curtail the activities of the 13 14

Zhu Zongyuan, Da ke wen, 33a–37a. Da Costa, Zhusumi, n.p.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

439

Christian community. They should not, theoretically, have been a serious threat. After Adam Schall von Bell had successfully secured positions in the Astro­ nomical Bureau for the Jesuits and their Chinese converts in the dynastic transition in 1644, he firmly established a foothold for the Christian community at court. This achievement, however, was at best half a blessing. Criticism from within and without the Society surged and at times undermined the accomplishments of these court Christians. Some Christians in Rome suspected that they were themselves engaged in Chinese superstitions since the Astronomical Bureau was mainly responsible for making the state calendar for these auspicious dates. Others accused them of arrogance because they had attempted to save souls by secular means. Still others argued that their livelihood as mandarins had compromised their mission. In the end, Schall had to justify his comments on the appropriateness of dates on the calendar.15 In 1662, he wrote a short treatise entitled Minli puzhu jiehuo 民曆鋪註解惑 [Enlightening the Bewildered Regarding the Commentary in the Almanac]. In this text, he affirms that these practices were not part of Western astronomy; he also gives reasons why the institute that he was in charge of continued these practices.16 In the treatise, Schall explains that the mantic practices were the product of Chinese adoration for the ancients who had laid down these rules and systems. Moreover, the emperor had ordered annotating the almanac in order to homogenize the custom and bring the cosmos in accord, not because he believed in these practices himself; in other words, this was a civil, political matter rather than a religious one. In short, then, Schall argues that his venture into astrological almanacs had nothing to do with superstition. He also makes it clear that all these commentaries were actually directly copied from previous calendars and that he had asked the emperor to replace Chinese almanac commentaries by European meteorology in 1644, that is, soon after he had assumed control of the Astronomical Bureau, but that the emperor had not replied. He had had no choice but to continue the practice while distancing himself from all these duties, assigning them to one of the sections within the Astronomical Bureau. After stating his reasons for keeping these in the eyes of the Europeans seemingly superstitious practices, Schall cites Chinese texts and

15 Hsia, Sojourners, 30–50. 16 Huang Yilong, “Zhong Xi wenhua zai Qingchu de chongtu yu tuoxie”; “Tang Ruowang ‘Xinli xiaohuo’ yu ‘Minli puzhu jiehuo’ ershu lüeji”; “Yesuhuishi dui Zhongguo chuantong xingzhan shushu de taidu.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

440

Chu

uses reason (lizheng 理證) to justify his decisions.17 It is important to note that the Manchu rulers were also very cautious, at least during the early years of the dynasty, to avoid a dramatic change of Chinese customs. The time of Schall’s treatise is noteworthy. In 1659 and 1660, Yang Guangxian, a proponent of orthodox Confucianism and merchant who after viewing a picture of the crucifixion decided to wage a campaign against this “evil” religion, published a series of accusations against the Jesuits. In addition to his charges against Christianity, he argued that Jesuit changes in the calendar were intended to subvert the authorities of the dynasty itself. Yang was also an expert in Chinese mantic arts. As Director of the Astronomical Bureau, he had changed the direction of the door of the She 歙 county Landsmannschaft (huiguan 會館) in Beijing for reasons of fengshui.18 He also pointed out that the Astronomical Bureau had chosen an incorrect date for the funeral of the son of the Shunzhi emperor’s favorite concubine, an accusation that involved very complicated theories and calculations.19 Judging from the fact that the Jesuits were sentenced on this account, the court seems to have believed that this reason alone justified banning the Jesuit mission and killing five Christian officials in the Bureau. The Jesuits at court were probably caught by surprise that while their astronomy could survive Yang’s attacks on scientific grounds, they were unable to escape the Chinese superstition of fengshui. In 1669, Ferdinand Verbiest successfully regained their position, thanks to Yang’s failed attempt to repair the calendar by the old houqi 候氣 (waiting for the qi) method and the political struggle between Kangxi and his regents.20 After the Jesuits had resumed the status of court astronomers, Verbiest published a series of treatises to defend their astronomy and rebut Chinese mantic practices. He knew that even though their astronomy was superior to its Chinese counterpart, there was no guarantee that it would also serve as a ­ladder to their theology. Verbiest’s “Budeyi” bian 不得已辯 [A Refutation to “I Cannot Restrain Myself”] refuted Yang Guangxian’s astronomical accusations point by point.21 He wrote three other treatises dealing with the problem of mantic practices, though, and to these we will now turn.

17 Schall von Bell, Minli puzhu jiehuo, 495–515. 18 Xu Shangyong, Xulu yizhuang heji, 1a. 19 Huang Yilong, “Court Divination.” 20 Huang Yilong and Chang Chih-ch’eng, “The Evolution and Decline.” 21 Verbiest, “Budeyi” bian.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

4

441

Rebutting Prognostications

Unlike previous Christian texts that criticize mantic arts, Verbiest’s treatises against prognostications are not in dialogue form. He does not aim to explain why prognostication should not be practiced or to introduce European alternatives to deal with these problems. His target of attack is very clear: Yang Guangxian’s theory and practice regarding fortune-telling. To rebut these, he published three texts, all in 1669: Wangze bian 妄擇辯 [On the Absurdity of Choosing Auspicious Dates], a vindication for the crime that the Jesuits were accused of having committed; Wangzhan bian 妄占辯 [On the Absurdity of Divination; the main target of this work is astrology], a critique of Yang’s astronomical and astrological practices; and Wangtuijixiong bian 妄推吉凶辯 [On the Absurdity of Prognostication], an attack on Chinese mantic arts in general. In his essay Xuanzeyi 選擇議 [A Discussion on the Selection of a Date for the Funeral of Prince Rong], Yang argued that the theory and practices of choosing a date for a funeral are firmly dependent on how one applies the principles (li 理) of mutual production and conquest of yin-yang and wuxing. If one abides by these principles, misfortune could be transformed into auspiciousness. However, he adds, this can only be achieved by those well versed in the relevant texts, those who understand the underlying principles. Alas, most practitioners of the major three mantic arts—astrology, geomancy, and horoscopy—do not study but simply attempt to exploit these arts for their livelihood. Since they do not apprehend the principles of yin-yang and wuxing transformation, according to Yang, they do more harm than benefit. Although the basic information on mantic arts can be found in the almanac (tongshu 通書), Yang laments those in charge of compiling the almanac are unfortunately equally ignorant of the underlying principles. Worse still, they even use the almanac to conceal their ignorance of the art. Yang then details the horoscopic information of Prince Rong who had died in infancy, and concludes that the year, the month, the date, and the hour of his funeral were all extremely inauspicious. He questions why Adam Schall did not consult any other texts, or if he did, why he did not reveal the reasons for his choice.22 We cannot recover how the contemporaries felt about this association, but judging from the result, Yang’s arguments must have been persuasive to a certain extent. Two years or so after the prince’s funeral, the Shunzhi emperor himself died—an event that people must have connected with the inappropriate selection of the date and time for the burial of his son. Schall might or might not have been directly involved in the process of selecting the 22

Yang Guangxian, Budeyi, 1163–1167.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

442

Chu

date, but as the chief official of the Astronomic Bureau, Yang insisted, he nonetheless had to be held responsible, that is, punished. Ridiculous as it may seem, since Yang’s original accusation against Schall concerned treachery, the final verdict on Schall and the Christian community illuminates how much weight mantic practices carried in early Qing times. Verbiest could not have disagreed more with Yang’s opinion. In his essay Wangze bian, he points out that there are numerous, mutually contradictory schools of choosing dates. Already the Hongwu 洪武 emperor of the Ming had considered the chaotic situation unbearable and ordered the Astronomical Bureau to unify the relevant knowledge. Nothing could be achieved. Thus Verbiest sarcastically comments on Yang’s own incapability to distinguish the correct theory from the false ones: instead of refuting the latter, he asserts, Yang rather lumped all theories under the general category “sacred legacy of the sages” in order to ward off criticism. Even if these mantic texts were indeed bequeathed by the sages, Verbiest holds, later commentators were divided as to their original meaning. And since the authors are dead, there is no way to verify their intentions. Verbiest then questions where the so-called principles lie. He cites two authori­tative texts, the Yijing 易經 and Lishi mingyuan 曆事明原 [Illuminating the Origin of the Calendrical Matters], to argue that mantic texts should be read symbolically. For cooking, for instance, one uses fire and therefore one has to prepare water to keep at hand in case of an emergency. Similarly, the purpose of commentaries in the almanac is to act as a reminder to remain vigilant and prudent. By the same token, the correspondence of ganzhi 干支 and wuxing is also symbolic. Kui 癸, for example, corresponds with water but it is not water itself. The symbol of water cannot quell a real fire. Without realizing the signifying system, Yang’s method of choosing dates is simply a result of abusing information contained in the almanac. He knows nothing about the principle of calendrical learning and its usage. Verbiest also resorts to the authority of the emperor who, after all, had proclaimed Yang’s failure in solving the calendrical problem. As a result, the calendar Yang made during his directorship of the Astronomical Bureau features an entirely wrong arrangement of dates and should be the one to be condemned.23 Next, Verbiest goes on to criticize fengshui, questioning if the geomancers really knew the location of the so-called auspicious spots—and if they did, why they did not keep these land lots for themselves. Moreover, he says, many have chosen supposedly superior locations for their tombs but produced no effect whatsoever. In reality, the so-called auspicious place must merely satisfy 23 Verbiest, Wangze bian, 265–272.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

443

considerations of symmetry and the size of a tomb.24 Similarly, whether or not a date is auspicious has nothing to do with ganzhi but indicates only a proper length of time for a funeral. Verbiest concludes that those who do not understand the symbolic significance of the mantic system are the ones who defy sages and their traditions.25 In the Wangzhan bian, Verbiest attacks Yang’s methods in that field of inquiry. He denies that Yang has any real understanding of astronomy, and thus he distorts the spirit of astrology. Yang’s so-called textual tradition of astrology consists of nothing but popular texts circulating at that time. If he does not possess any knowledge about celestial motions and is incapable of making and using astronomical instruments, how can he understand and interpret the significance of the variations of celestial bodies? Heavenly bodies rotate with regularity and can be verified by anyone who understands the rules these rotations are subject to. Moreover, many astrological events described in divination books, such as the sun falling to the earth, are simply impossible according to European astronomy, which had recently been recognized as the sole authority on these matters by the court. Verbiest then again applies his theory of symbolism and claims that astrological predications serve only as warning signs as to the misconduct of the emperor. That is also why constellations and stars were named after offices within the imperial bureaucratic system. This system of naming is unique to China, reveals the man-made features of Chinese astrology, and proves that stars do not actually exert any impact on human affairs. In addition, many Chinese astrological phenomena cannot be verified by the more advanced system of Western astronomy. Chinese astrology, then, does not even get close to the essence of the phenomenal world—and if it cannot even account for celestial or terrestrial phenomena, how can it possibly serve to predict the future with any efficacy?26 Although published in the same year, Wangtuijixiong bian must be the last of the works in this series, as it takes passages from and summarizes the arguments of the two previous texts. This essay by Verbiest is dedicated to exposing the internal contradictions of Chinese mantic arts and, in effect, attempts to destroy them once and for all. We do not know much about Yang’s practices of astronomy after he took over the position left vacant after Schall’s imprisonment in 1665. According to Verbiest, Yang and his vice-director Wu Mingxuan 吳明炫, a Muslim astronomer, mainly revived geomancy, fortune-telling, and 24 Ibid., 280–282. 25 Ibid., 282–285. 26 Verbiest, Wangzhan bian, 343–375.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

444

Chu

liuren 六壬 to predict the fortune by celestial phenomena. However, these techniques bore no relation with celestial motions, Verbiest argues. He further characterizes Yang as a fortune-teller who attacked the Western new methods simply because these were far more difficult to learn and employ. In fact, Verbiest sneers, Yang advanced the interests of fortune-tellers at the expense of the interests of the empire. Citing the 1669 edict which vindicated the Jesuits and reinstated them in the Astronomical Bureau, he claims that the overruling of the 1664 Calendar Case proved that the emperor affirmed the correctness of the new methods. Backed by imperial authority and his recent triumph, Verbiest then proceeds by waging his ferocious attacks against all Chinese mantic arts.27 Divination, geomancy, physiognomy, horoscopy, and choosing dates are all within the range of Verbiest’s fire in Wangtuijixiong bian. He resorts to his theory of signification once again to unveil the arbitrary and man-made nature of these practices, and he repeats his argument that if the diviners could really foretell and change the future, they might be better off reserving all the fortune for themselves and would not have to earn a living in such a difficult manner. “How is it that they know other people’s futures better than their own?” Verbiest asks. In particular, he ridicules those who seek out fortune-tellers to inquire about their chance to become officials; it is the court, not a fortune-teller, he reminds, who owns the power of bestowing official posts.28 He further criticizes practitioners of the mantic arts for usurping the power of the Lord who alone determines the fate of human beings. Believing in prognostication diminishes the benevolence of the emperor, cultivation from teachers, and support from parents. Not only are the mantic arts useless, they even damage the harmony of human relations. In the case of inauspicious predictions, they stir up anxieties, leading people to complain about their fate instead of making efforts to improve their lives.29 Verbiest insists that the future cannot be foretold. How the future will develop is knowledge that rests with the Lord on high and is beyond human grasp. Verbiest then continues to assault the moral economy of prognostication. Many mantic books claim that only good deeds invite good fortune, which changes according to one’s state of mind. Verbiest argues that this is merely an excuse for the failure of predication. If this assertion in mantic texts is right, though, it only goes to prove that moral cultivation is the only means that leads to good fortune. Hence, what one should really consult are not fortune-tellers 27 Verbiest, Wangtuijixiong bian, 295–300. 28 Ibid., 305–307. 29 Ibid., 307–308.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

445

but teachings that lift morality (the subject of many of his own writings), Verbiest acrimoniously remarks. He even emphasizes that those who want to know why good deeds do not always correspond to good fortune can find answers in his works. Here, Verbiest certainly implies that someone who wants to know his future will be better off as a Christian than by consulting a fortuneteller. He points out that there exists only one true Principle (li 理). Since mantic techniques are divided into different schools and the theories are mutually contradictory, this clearly proves that what a fortune-teller possesses must be a false principle.30 At the end of this text, Verbiest defends the Jesuits’ choice of the date and place for Prince Rong’s funeral: such a defense seems to be necessary because this bureaucratic affair is now under his jurisdiction. He also affirms that the almanac that the Astronomical Bureau has compiled is useful and serves the needs of the common people; and he suggests readers consult Schall’s Mingli puzhu jiehuo to understand that the applications of the almanac are all based on the true Principle. Next, Verbiest explains that the original name for fengshui is dili 地理 (the principle of the earth) exactly because it has to be based on the Principle (li). The selection of a suitable burial ground simply depends on whether its shape is symmetrical. This is also the main consideration for the Astronomical Bureau, which is not the sole institute responsible for choosing a burial ground and date because both have to be authorized by the Board of Rites. The fact that the Board of Rites can overrule the decision of the Astronomical Bureau proves that the selection of a so-called auspicious date depends on convenience rather than auspiciousness.31 Last but not least, Verbiest takes on Yang’s scornful attitude toward the depths of Western learning. Verbiest admits that “Western Confucians” (xiru 西儒) who have just arrived in China will encounter language difficulties when reading Chinese texts. But rather than give up, they invite Chinese literati to help them. Up to now, he relates, the cooperation between Western and Chinese Confucians has resulted in more than 500 books, all of which are based on the true Principle and put the false ones on trial. These books use plain language since that is the best way to illuminate the Principle that is as bright as a torch and needs no disguise. People like Yang whose internal vision cannot bear the light of the new calendrical methods can only cover up their ignorance by beautiful rhetoric. However, Verbiest argues, rhetoric cannot improve the precision of astronomical observations or instruments, which are the only two avenues to understand celestial operations and the applications 30 Ibid., 309–312, 318–322. 31 Ibid., 322–330. See also Park’s contribution in this volume.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

446

Chu

of the almanac. Yang is so ignorant regarding calendrical methods, instruments, and their applications that he completely misreads the official calendar as a mantic text. According to Verbiest, then, the problem is not that the Westerners cannot apprehend Chinese texts but rather lies in how one should read these texts.32 5 Conclusion My examination of the history of the term mixin has revealed that it was not imported first from Japan in the last decade of the nineteenth century, nor did it often appear in Chinese sources before the Jesuits built their mission in China. Mixin is a neologism constructed by the Christian missionaries and their converts in the seventeenth century. It somehow slipped from usage until it reappeared as a translated term. In both the early Qing and the late Qing, European concepts of reason rendered discourses on mixin in China possible. Reason, deriving from classical Western philosophy and permeating Catholic natural philosophy, underlies Jesuit discussions of Chinese mixin. In contrast, later Qing criticisms of mixin relied on a concept of reason formulated during the Enlightenment when religion no longer played an important role in human affairs. To those who adhered to the ideas of the Enlightenment, Buddhism, Daoism, the cults of deities, mantic practices, and even Christianity were not exempt from the accusation of mixin (blind beliefs). But the earlier criticisms of the Jesuits and their highbrow literati converts had shown how different Europeans and Chinese envisioned the future, fortune, and a good way of life. When the Jesuits arrived in China, they dealt with the local beliefs with caution. They recorded these strange customs and advised their followers not to practice them, but they did not strongly dispute them. It was probably literati converts like Zhu Zhongyuan who first started to protest vehemently against mixin, which included mantic practices. The language employed to this end was similar to that used to defend Confucian orthodoxy against Buddhism; in fact, the Jesuits recognized that the values of ancient Confucianism were akin to those of Christianity. However, when they took over the positions at the Astronomical Bureau they could no longer avoid practicing prognostication for the empire and the emperor. When Yang Guangxian criticized their incompetence in astrology and fengshui, they were vulnerable and aware of the danger of not being able to handle his accusations. After the storm of the 32 Ibid., 331–336.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

447

Calendar Case had passed, Verbiest responded to Yang’s attack and dismissed the validity of prognostication in general. It is noteworthy that Verbiest does not often evoke the authority of the Lord, as is the case in other Christian apologetic texts; rather, he mostly relies on moral reasoning. Nonetheless, like a Christian theologian, he declares that the future is not up to human beings to decide; it is vested in the hands of the Lord. For a Christian, the future is determined yet unpredictable. Before time comes to an end, God intervenes in human destiny in his own way and changes its course at his own will. Human existence is situated in this nexus of tension and fear. Obeying the laws laid down by the Lord is the only appropriate way to live, the only way to cope with the future. It is such an assumption of moral economy that underpins Verbiest’s refutation of Yang’s argument in favor of practicing prognostication for the empire. Verbiest’s suasion certainly did not prevent the Chinese from practicing mantic arts. We do not even know how far his treatises spread. Nevertheless, he at least clarified the positions and arguments for Christian priests and converts who would dedicate themselves to the same apologetic enterprise. People in the Qing empire, however, continued to immerse themselves in a cosmology of correspondence where the future of the state and human affairs depended on the interaction and transformation of cosmological powers like yin-yang and wuxing. Theoretically speaking, it is possible to manipulate such processes once one knows how the dynamics of these forces play out. There is no absolute authority to dictate how one should pursue one’s happiness via correct techniques. The knowledge of mantic arts is organized under these premises. Although Chinese divination texts tend to emphasize the significance of morality, it is more important to duly perform the techniques. Those who believe in mantic arts, ironically, probably believe less in destiny than others since foretelling the future is accompanied by instructions on how to change it. By contrast, for noble gentlemen (junzi 君子) such as Confucius or Qu Yuan 屈 原, it is precisely their efforts to face a determined destiny that constitutes their image as tragic heroes in Chinese history. They did not shy away from fate and did not attempt to maneuver through it. Leaving a model for the moral way of life, it is this acceptance of fate and insistence on moral principle that discloses their integrity.

Works Cited

Aleni, Giulio. “Kouduo richao 口鐸日抄 [Diary of Oral Admonitions].” In Yesuhui Luoma dang’anguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 耶穌會羅馬檔案館明清天主敎文獻

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

448

Chu

[Chinese Christian Texts from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus], vol. 7, pp. 1–594. Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2002. An Shuangcheng 安雙成. “Tang Rouwang an shimo 湯若望案始末 [The Adam Schall Case].” Lishi dang’an 歷史檔案 [Historical Records], 1992.3: 79–87. Asanga 無著. Dasheng zhuangyan jinlun 大乘莊嚴經論 [Mahāyaanasūtrālaṃkāra, Expositions of the Doctrine of the Great Vehicle According to the Yogācāra School]. Translated by Prabhākaramitra 波羅頗蜜多羅 (CBETA) T31 No. 1604. Caspar, Bluntschli Johann. “Guojia lun 國家論 [On the State].” In Qingyibao quanbian 清議報全編 [Complete Collection of The China Discussion], edited by Liang Qichao 梁啟超, juan 9, pp. 1–58. Taipei County: Wenhai chubanshe, 1986. Chen Hsi-yuan 陳熙遠. “Zongjiao: Yige Zhongguo jindai wenhuashi shang de guanjianci 「宗教」── 一個中國近代文化史上的關鍵詞 [Zongjiao/Religion: A Keyword in Modern Chinese Cultural History].” Xin shixue 新史學 [New History] 13, no. 4 (2002): 37–66. Chu, Pingyi. “Scientific Dispute in the Imperial Court: The 1664 Calendar Case.” Chinese Science 14 (1992): 7–34. Da Costa, Inácio. Zhusumi 燭俗迷 [Enlightening the Common Bewilderments]. BnF, Chinois, 7147. Hsia, Florence C. Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Huang, Yilong 黃一農. “Court Divination and Christianity in the K’ang-hsi Era.” Trans­ lated by Nathan Sivin. Chinese Science 10 (1991): 1–20. Huang Yilong. “Yesuhuishi dui Zhongguo chuantong xingzhan shushu de taidu 耶穌會 士對中國傳統星占術數的態度 [The Jesuits’ Attitude toward Traditional Chinese Astrology].” Jiuzhou xuekan 九州學刊 [Jiuzhou Journal] 4, no. 3 (1991): 5–23. Huang Yilong. “Tang Ruowang ‘Xinli xiaohuo’ yu ‘Minli puzhu jiehuo’ ershu lüeji 湯若 望《新曆曉或》 與《民曆鋪註解惑》二書略記. [Brief Excerpts of Adam Schall’s Xinli xiaohuo and Minli puzhu jiehuo].” Guoli zhong yang tu shu guan guan kan 國 立中央圖書館館刊 [National Central Library News Bulletin] 25, no.1 (1992): 151–157. Huang Yilong. “Zhong Xi wenhua zai Qing chu de chongtu yu tuoxie: Yi Tang Ruowang suo bian min li wei ge’an yanjiu 中西文化在清初的沖突與妥協: 以湯若望所編民曆 為個案研究 [Conflicts and Compromises between Chinese and Western Cultures in the Early Qing: The Case of the Almanac Compiled by Adam Schall von Bell].” In Western Learning and Christianity in China: The Contribution and Impact of Johann Adam Schall von Bell, S.J. (1592–1666), edited by Roman Malek, vol. 1, pp. 431–473. Nettetal: Steyler, 1998. Huang, Yilong, and Chang Chih-ch’eng. “The Evolution and Decline of the Ancient Chinese Practice of Watching for the Ethers.” Translated by Chu Pingyi. Chinese Science 13 (1996): 82–106.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts

449

Nedostup, Rebecca. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. Ricci, Matteo. China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci, 1583–1610. Translated by Louis J. Gallagher. New York: Random House, 1953. Schall von Bell, Adam 湯若望. Minli puzhu jiehuo 民曆鋪註解惑 [Enlightening the Bewildered Regarding the Commentary in the Almanac]. In Yesuhui Luoma dang’anguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 耶穌會羅馬檔案館明清天主敎文獻 [Chinese Christian Texts from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus] vol. 6. Taipei: Lishi xueshe, 2002. Shen Jie 沈潔. “‘Fan mixin’ huayu ji qi xiandai qiyuan ‘ 反迷信’ 話語及其現代起源 [The Modern Origin of ‘Anti-mixin’ Discourse].” Shilin 史林 [Forrest of History], 2006.2: 30–42. Song Hongjuan 宋紅娟. “‘Mixin’ gainian zai Zhongguo xiandai zaoqi de fashengxue yanjiu ‘ 迷信’ 概念在中國現代早期的發生學研究 [A Study of the Concept of ‘Mixin’ in the Early Republican Era].” Beijing daxue yanjiusheng xuezhi 北京大學研究生學 志 [Graduate Student’s Journal of Beijing University], 2008.4: 65–75. Standaert, Nicolas. The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008. Verbiest, Ferdinand. “Budeyi” bian 不得已辨 [A Refutation to “I Cannot Restrain Myself”]. In Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian 天主教東傳文獻 [Christian Texts Transmitted to the East], edited by Wu Xiangxiang 吳相湘, ser. 1, pp. 333–469. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1965. Verbiest, Ferdinand. Wangtuijixiong bian 妄推吉凶辯 [On the Absurdity of Prognosti­ cation]. In Faguo guojiatushuguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 法國國家圖書館 明清天主教文獻 [Chinese Christian Texts from the National Library of France], edited by Nicolas Standaert, Ad Dudink, and Nathalie Monnet, vol. 16, pp. 287–336. Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2009. Verbiest, Ferdinand. Wangze bian 妄擇辯 [On the Absurdity of Choosing Auspicious Dates]. In Faguo guojiatushuguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 法國國家圖書館 明清天主教文獻 [Chinese Christian Texts from the National Library of France], edited by Nicolas Standaert, Ad Dudink, and Nathalie Monnet, vol. 16, pp. 261–285. Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2009. Verbiest, Ferdinand. Wangzhan bian 妄占辯 [On the Absurdity of Astrology]. In Faguo guojiatushuguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 法國國家圖書館明清天主教文獻 [Chinese Christian Texts from the National Library of France], edited by Nicolas Standaert, Ad Dudink, and Nathalie Monnet, vol. 16, pp. 337–375. Taipei: Ricci Institute, 2009. Xingmi pian 醒迷篇 [Awakening the Bewildered]. BnF, Chinois, 7149, 7150–I, 7151–I, 7174–I–XXII; ARSI, Jap.Sin. I, 150.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

450

Chu

Xu Shangyong 徐上鏞, ed. Xulu yizhuang houji 續錄義庄後集 [Combined Records of Welfare Farm]. In Chongxu shexian huiguan lu 重續歙縣會館錄 [Supplement to the Records of the She Landsmannschaften], pp. 1a–35b. Peking: She-hsien hui-kuan, 1834. Yang Guangxian. Budeyi 不得已 [I Cannot Restrain Myself]. In Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian 天主教東傳文獻 [Christian Texts Transmitted to the East], edited by Wu Xiangxiang 吳相湘, ser. 2, pp. 1031–1332. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1965. Zhu Zongyuan 朱宗元. Da ke wen 答客問 [Answering Questions from a Guest]. BnF, Chinois 7036, 1697 reprint.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

451

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

Chapter 16 Li and Lackner

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge? Divination and Western Knowledge in Late Qing and Early Republican China Fan Li and Michael Lackner In China, reflecting on destiny is a practice dating from antiquity, and there has always been scholarship on this topic, the so-called “study of fate” (mingxue 命 学). That scholarship involves both learning and art. The learning part consists of all sorts of reflections and explanations regarding fate. It played an important role in Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist doctrine, and especially in the “Neo-Confucian” School of the second period of Confucianism. The art is the operating level of that scholarship, primarily prediction, and especially the specific actions of divination and fortune-telling based on the Classic of Changes [Yijing 易經]. By the period of intellectual transformation at the end of the Qing dynasty and the early years of the Republic, some space still remained for “learning” regarding destiny, as it was split up into the different areas of Western-style, modern academic disciplines. As for the “art,” there was practically no room at all for that in the environment of the new era and the modern system of differentiated fields of study. That situation undoubtedly marginalized the “study of fate.” The change thus brought about was not just a change in the course of existence of some scholars. Besides that there was change relating to how modern Chinese intellectuals thought about fate, and their individual actions regarding it. So there is considerable academic significance to researching the marginalization of the “study of fate” as seen in that intellectual transformation. 1

The Age of Intellectual Transformation as Context

Generally speaking, the state of mind of scholars in imperial China was that of mental and physical integration of the clan and the state, with stress on the unity of conduct and learning, and a trinity of expounding in writing, rendering meritorious service, and having moral character, with moral character being the highest realm. Thus, cultivating one’s moral character, regulating one’s family, and managing state affairs and putting the country in order were all

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_018

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

452

Li And Lackner

integrated with scholarly learning, with no obvious conflicts or contradictions. So a scholar’s pondering about the issue of fate and the actions he would take with regard to fate would merge into unity with his learning and his conduct. As a kind of intellectual pattern, the “study of fate” had a very natural existence. Whether as the metaphysical study of fate by a Confucianist, a Daoist, or a Buddhist, or as actions to predict the future through divination and fortunetelling, all of that enjoyed a normal existence in the scholar’s per­spective, even becoming a part of his everyday self-cultivation. Moreover, the metaphysical and physical aspects of the “study of fate” were harmoniously compatible for the scholar. While he could subscribe to the idea of delving into fate, fortune, and the nature of things, in his everyday life he could also engage in prediction through divination and fortune-telling. That situation underwent a huge change in the time of intellectual transformation at the end of the Qing dynasty and the early years of the Republic. As a “scholar” (shi 士) transformed his identity into that of a modern “intellectual” (zhishi fenzi 知識分子), the values and standards which he embraced changed. The “study of fate” could not maintain its former status. Of course, that change was inseparably linked with the context of the so-called age of intellectual transformation. “Intellectual transformation” refers to a change in the system of knowledge; that is, the updating of the substance of knowledge and the change in how knowledge is manifested. It should be noted that China’s native system of knowledge underwent change, transforming and drawing closer to the Western, modern system of knowledge. The core of that was a change in the academic system, which brought with it a shift from China’s pattern of classical learning to a Western, modern pattern; that is, from the study of the four areas of Confucian classics, history, philosophical writing, and belles-lettres, to the study of the seven academic fields of literature, science, law, commerce, agriculture, industry, and medicine. Generally speaking, the end of the Qing and beginning of the Republic was China’s era of the transformation of knowledge. Although Western learning did propagate to a certain extent in China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the scope and content of that spread was very limited, and it was not enough to change the existing knowledge structure of the overwhelming majority of scholars in China. But that situation changed fundamentally in the wake of the Opium War. On the one hand, the effort put into spreading Western learning increased sharply. On the other hand, some scholars in China began closely examining Chinese and Western culture, probing the significance of the progress Western culture had made, and studying Western learning for the sake of self-strengthening. In particular, following the Sino-Japanese War of

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

453

1894–95 and the Hundred Days’ Reform, among scholars the response to Western learning was universal, and the conscious acceptance and adoption of Western learning began. Thus the translation and compilation of many Western books took place at that time. Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) described it this way: There was a coup after the Hundred Days’ Reform, and that was followed by the disastrous Boxer Rebellion, exposing all the more how much the Qing dynasty was in decline. Young students one after the other went to study overseas, a multitude of them going to Japan because of its proximity. The translation sector flourished especially in the years Renyin 壬寅 and Guimao 癸卯 (1902–1903), when no fewer than several dozen periodicals were regularly published. As each new Japanese book appeared, a number of translators would spring into action. The importing of new ideas was in full swing.1 Understanding and acceptance of the concept of classifying academic disciplines began among certain Chinese scholars during the time of the Westernization Movement in the 1870s and 1880s. For example, Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897) in his 1883 work “Qu xuexiao ji bi yi xing ren cai lun 去學校積弊以 興人材論” [“On the Need to Abolish Corrupt Practices in Schools So As to Promote the Development of Talent”] used the modern Western concept of the classification of disciplines to criticize the traditional academia’s practice of not attaching importance to differentiating branches of learning.2 He advocated following suit in how the modern West classified disciplines, and encouraging people to specialize in one or a few useful fields of study. In 1884, Zheng Guanying 鄭觀應 (1842–1923), said at the beginning of an essay titled “Kaoshi 考試” [“Examination”], The way scholars are developed in the Far West is to arrange several subjects, first learn arts, sciences, and mathematics, all without exception, and after that, each person concentrates on an area based on what he is good at, with a military career more important than a literary one, and the navy in turn more important than land routes.3

1 Liang Qichao, “Qingdai xueshu gailun,” 79–80. 2 Wang Tao, “Qu xuexiao ji bi yi xing ren cai lun.” 3 Zheng Guanying, “Shengshi weiyan,” 291.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

454

Li And Lackner

That shows not only Zheng’s understanding of the Western concept of the classification of disciplines, it also shows his acceptance of the Western principle of the classification of disciplines with “each scholar specializing” in one to be his field of study. So when Zheng proposed a plan to reform the imperial examination, he advocated specific examinations in branches of Western learning. Yan Fu’s 嚴復 (1853–1921) translations introduced his countrymen to Western social science works such as Tian yan lun 天演論 [Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics], Qun xue yi yan 群學肄言 [Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology], Shehui tongquan 社會通詮 [Edward Jenks’ A History of Politics], and Mule mingxue 穆勒名學 [John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic]. He often used the formats of a preface, a guide to the reader, notes, and interspersed comments to cite elements of Chinese learning, and to compare, contrast, and corroborate the Western learning he explains in the books. In “Tian yan lun: zi xu 天演論：自序” [“Evolution and Ethics: Author’s Preface”], he presents this inference: Looking at the teaching of the logic of Westerners, I saw: In terms of their methods of the investigation of things and their extension of knowledge, there are the art of induction and the art of deduction [...]. Then I pushed the books away from me, got up and said: These things are in fact our doctrine of the Classic of Changes and Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋). To let the so-called originally hidden phenomenon come into appearance is deduction; to derive the invisible from the visible is induction.4 That discourse by Yan Fu prompted a palpable reaction in academic circles. Great scholars including Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1868–1936), Liu Shipei 劉師培 (1884–1919), Liang Qichao, and Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927) all followed that path of blending Chinese and Western learning, using Western, modern criteria for classifying disciplines to connect Chinese and Western learning. They tried to construct a new system of knowledge which would be China’s own. For example, in “Zhou mo xueshushi xu 周末學術史序” [“History of Learning in the Late Zhou Period”], Liu Shipei borrowed the already accepted modern Western concept of classifying disciplines to categorize traditional Chinese learning. For the late Zhou period, he regrouped sixteen fields: psychol­ogy, ethics, logic, sociology, religious studies, politics and law, mathematics, military science, pedagogy, science, philosophy, numerology, philology, 4 Yan Fu, “Tian yan lun,” 1319–1320.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

455

industrial arts, law, and literature.5 In that way, the study of China’s native classics and history was placed within the modern Western division of academic fields and its system of knowledge. As a matter of course, the new classification system could not do justice to the subtle specificities of China’s traditional learning. At the same time the transformation of the knowledge system was under way, the status of scholars was also changing, specifically from the classical status of “scholar” to that of “intellectual.” In traditional Chinese society, learned people stood at the head of the ideal social order of scholar, peasant farmer, artisan, and merchant (shi, nong 农, gong 工, shang 商). Scholars played an irreplaceable role. However in the framework of the social change at the end of the Qing dynasty, along with the establishment of a modern educational system came the abolition of the ancient imperial examination system. A direct outcome of the end of the imperial examination was a major blow to scholars heading the lineup of the four social strata. It led to the breakup of traditional society structured with those four social groups as the fundamental components. “The direct social significance of the end of the imperial examination system and the founding of colleges was a fundamental change in the orientation of upward mobility in society, cutting off the social origin of traditional scholars,”6 and because of that, “scholar” became a title relegated to history. What replaced it was the intellectual developed by the modern educational system. “The gradual disappearance of ‘scholars’ and the emergence of intellectuals as a social group was one of the most salient features differentiating modern and traditional Chinese society.”7 As a group able to move freely in society, intellectuals were by their nature very different from traditional scholars in terms of their background and social function. Intellectuals were no longer at the head of the four social groups and the basic source of officials. They no longer shouldered extensive social education functions or the political responsibility of governing the state. Instead, intellectuals became experts in various aspects indispensable to life in society, contributing their own expertise and accomplishments to society. That is, because of the change in their status and function, most intellectuals were no longer “erudite persons” within the knowledge system, instead they became “experts” in various fields. The traditional scholar’s self-cultivation of character and study in the pursuit of being an “erudite person” were fused together, and that concept found less and less of a market in an intellectual’s study in pursuit of being an “expert.” 5 Liu Shipei, “Zhou mo xueshushi xu,” 503. 6 Luo Zhitian, “Jindai Zhongguo shehui quanshi de zhuanyi,” 193. 7 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

456

Li And Lackner

China’s former concept of the integration of self-cultivation and the pursuit of study gradually shifted to a separation of the two. In other words, seeking knowledge and pursuing scholarship became a professional activity, not only barely related to the cultivation of one’s moral character, but even gradually divorced from responsibility for governing the country. This phenomenon was inseparable from the gradual dominance of the modern Western pattern of knowledge and its values and standards. However, sentiment and practice in everyday life could certainly not be completely rationalized, and many elements of Chinese tradition were retained. On the matter of fate, the contradiction between rational knowledge and everyday practice brought about a separation between rational reflection and actual practice on the part of some intellectuals. Thus the “study of fate” could not retain the place it had in the past, and could only move toward the m ­ argins. But even during the height of China’s intellectual transformation, the mantic arts continued to flourish in Chinese popular culture. 2

The Classification of Knowledge and the Marginalization of the “Study of Fate”

In ancient China, pondering and arguing over the “study of fate” was omnipresent. From the pre-Qin “Hundred Schools of Thought” to the Qing dynasty Confucians, generations of scholars all without exception left records of their thought and their practice of the “study of fate,” and manifested their ideas in various ways which became part of China’s native system of knowledge. This system took shape very early on. It must have been during what Jaspers called that “Axial Age” of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Simultaneously with the birth of that system the classification of knowledge or creation of branches of learning must have occurred. In any case, the categorization was in general complete as of the Han dynasty. It was specifically embodied in the classification of the ancient books which summarized knowledge at that time. The Qi lüe 七略 [Seven Summaries], which father and son Liu Xiang 劉向 (77–6 bce) and Liu Xin 劉歆 (46 bce–23 b.c.) compiled at the end of the Western Han, were already quite a refined categorized list of the ancient books. The Qi lüe consisted of a Summary, the Six Arts, the Masters of the Schools of Thought, Poetry, Military Texts, Divination and Numerology, and Formulas and Techniques. In a general sense, thoughts and knowledge about the “study of fate” were distributed in the Six Arts section in the ancient works on Changes, Documents, Poetry, Rites, the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Analects, and in the Masters section encompassing the doctrines of the

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

457

Confucianists, the Daoists, Yin-Yang, the Legalists, and the Mohists. The “study of fate” is furthermore clearly embodied in the Poetry section in poems such as “Qu Yuan fu zhi shu 屈原賦之屬” [“The Category of Qu Yuan’s Poetry”]. Meanwhile, specific knowledge relating to the “study of fate” in the narrow sense is concentrated in the Divination and Numerology section’s categories of the five phases, Yarrow and Turtle-Shell Divination, and Assorted Methods of Divination. It should be said that the knowledge system of the Qin and Han era had already been demarcated more or less into the metaphysical Dao 道 (way) and physical Qi 器 (tools), and that was embodied in the demarcation of the six parts of the Qi Lüe, in which the Six Arts liuyi 六藝 (that is, the Six Classics liujing 六經) and the great sages enjoyed the highest status. They illustrate that the great sages, who were the tributaries from which the Six Arts and the Six Classics flowed to become the source of Chinese learning, constituted the Dao of the system of learning, while things such as numerology, formulas and techniques were its Qi, having a relatively lower status.8 The Sui shu: jing ji zhi 隋書：經籍志 [History of the Sui Dynasty: Treatise on the Classics], compiled in the early Tang, further collated and classified the ancient books from the pre-Qin to the early Tang, thus creating a categorized system of knowledge of the Sui-Tang period. In that system, the four-category arrangement of classics, history, philosophical writing, and belles-lettres replaced the categories of the Han dynasty Qi lüe, and those four categories remained in use right up until the Qing dynasty. Seen from the angle of the “study of fate,” the knowledge, which in a broad sense concerned the “study of fate” was distributed among all four categories, classics, history, philosophical writing, and belles-lettres, while the study of numbers and the five phases which concerned the “study of fate” in a narrow sense was listed under “philosophical works” (zi bu 子部). That is, knowledge pertaining to divination and numerology was demoted from a major heading in the Qi lüe to a minor heading under “philosophical works.” In the Siku quanshu zongmu 四庫全書總目 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], the four-category classification was greatly improved, reaching the high point in the classification of China’s ancient writing. In the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries, knowledge, which in a broad sense concerned the “study of fate” was scattered among the four categories of classics, history, philosophical writing, and belles-lettres, while knowledge relating to the “study of fate” in the narrow sense was concentrated in the category of “Divina­ tion and Numerology” under philosophical works, encompassing the sub8 For the occurrence of divination in the bibliographic treatise of the Hanshu (Hanshu yiwenzhi), see Raphals, Lisa, “Divination in the Han shu Bibliographic Treatise.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

458

Li And Lackner

headings of “Meterological Divination,” “House and Tomb Geomancy,” “Divi­ nation,” “Books on Fate and Horoscopes,” and “Yin-Yang and the Five Phases.” That method of categorization was a direct successor to the History of the Sui Dynasty: Treatise on the Classics, and it shows clearly that the status of knowledge relating to the “study of fate” in the narrow sense in the classification of ancient books had not changed since the Tang. In “Siku quanshu zongmu: zi bu zongxu 四庫全書總目：子部總序” [“Com­ plete Collection of the Four Treasuries: General Discussion of the Philosophical Works”], Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805) elaborated on the intrinsic relationships within the system knowledge of the “philosophical works.” He expresses the view that the six categories of Confucians, Strategists, Legalists, Agriculturalists, Healers, and Astronomical and Astrological Calculations all belong to governmental issues9 and are the most important part of the organization of knowledge of the philosophical works. In contrast, the mantic techniques— arranged under a separate category “numerology” (shushu 數術), followed by “arts of enjoyment” (youyi 游藝)—are just performed after learning, but if a technique achieves its highest level, it becomes a vehicle of the Dao. Therefore, the “arts of enjoyment” are counted under the general category of art (yishu 藝 術). In Ji Yun’s view, those two categories of knowledge could all be seen as minor ways (xiaodao 小道).10 Those words reflect the deep-rooted notions of Dao and Qi of scholars of his time. Moreover, he regarded knowledge concerning divination and numerology to be “maybe useful, maybe not,” (或有益或无 益)11 and found it impossible to draw a conclusion about it. So such knowledge was just listed under philosophical works using the reasoning that these theories “were well-known since long and their principles were hard to be totally rejected.”12 From that one can see the place of this category of knowledge in the “official” minds of scholars, as well as the place of the “study of fate” in the narrow sense.13 9 Ji Yun, “Siku quanshu zongmu,” 769. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 However, Ji Yun’s brushnotes, the Yuewei caotang biji 閱微草堂筆記 speak an entirely different language. They reveal Ji Yun’s deep trust in the existence of ghosts and demons as well as the equally deep conviction that the future can be foreseen by several methods of divination. Ji may be skeptical with regard to certain techniques and persons, but he nevertheless gives credit to the basic trustworthiness of fortune-telling and geomancy. For selected translations see Ji Yun, Pinselnotizen aus der Strohhütte der Betrachtung des Großen im Kleinen; and Chi Yün, Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: The Notes of a Confucian Scholar.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

459

Although the classifications and arrangements of the History of the Sui Dynasty: Treatise on the Classics and the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries show that the “study of fate” in the narrow sense was quite marginalized, in any case it continued to play an important role on a metaphysical level as knowledge from the “philosophical works.” In the era of the transformation of knowledge at the end of the Qing and the early years of the Republic, that sort of existence became a problem, and the “study of fate” became a target for neglect or elimination. Intellectual circles in the late Qing era had an unending series of various things to say about bringing in Western learning to improve, and even reshape, Chinese learning. But real implementation on the institutional level did not take place until the new policies of the final years of the Qing, which were embodied in the formulation and implementation of the new academic structure. In 1901 the Qing court decided to implement a new policy, and made abolishing the imperial examination and founding colleges an important measure in that policy. Drawing up and implementing charters for new types of colleges was put on the agenda. Through the hard work of Zhang Zhidong 張之 洞 (1837–1909) and others, the drafting of a series of charters for new-style colleges was finally finished in 1903, and the Qing court was asked to proclaim the implementation of a “Memorial to Set Regulations for the Imperial University of Peking” (“Zouding jinshi daxuetang zhangcheng” 奏定京師大學堂章程) and “Imperial Command on Regulations for Institutes of Higher Learning” (“Qinding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng” 欽定高等學堂章程), thus constructing a new type of educational system. That educational system stipulated that a university would have curricula in eight branches of learning: the study of Confucian classics, politics and law, literature, medicine, science, agriculture, engineering, and business. Because knowledge on the metaphysical plane regarding the “study of fate” had been scattered among native learning in the forms of the classics, historiography, and literature, it still had a place in that new knowledge system within the fields of the study of Confucian classics and literature. But ancient philosophy (zi xue 子學) was eliminated and not made a branch on the list, and knowledge of divination and numerology by that ancient philosophy could not be included in the new system. Thus the “study of fate” in the narrow sense had no place in the new knowledge system. Zhang Zhidong’s plan for “study divided into eight branches of learning” (bake fenxue 八科分學) was revised after the founding of the Republic of China. In early 1913 the Ministry of Education issued the “Universities Directive” (“Daxue ling” 大學令) and the “Regulations for Universities” (“Daxue guicheng” 大學規程), stipulating in principle which academic disciplines and divisions of universities were to be set up. It decided universities would

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

460

Li And Lackner

abolish the study of Confucian classics as a field, and that universities would demarcate the seven academic disciplines of the humanities, the sciences, law, business studies, agricultural studies, engineering, and medicine. With that, Chinese academia began to abandon classical studies and create categories of academic study and a system of knowledge similar to that of the West. In those seven disciplines, the humanities were divided into the four fields of philo­sophy, literature, history, and geography. Study of the classics, history, phi­losophical writing, and belles-lettres in China’s native academic system were more or less merged into the humanities. That shows the “four fields of study” were incorporated into the “seven academic disciplines” knowledge system; that is, they were reoriented from China’s traditional knowledge system onto the track of the modern Western knowledge system. As for the “study of fate,” knowledge and thinking on the metaphysical dimension continued along with the classics, history, philosophical writing, and belles-lettres encompassed within the study of philosophy, literature, and history. In particular, Con­fu­cianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, which had produced the majority of speculations on “fate” and “astrology,” were basically brought within the scope of philosophy. Under the canopy of philosophical thought, the metaphysical “study of fate” began moving into new territory. As for the “study of fate” in the narrow sense as represented by the knowledge and practice of divination and numerology, there was still no way for modernization, and it did not enter the new knowledge system. Completely excluded from the mainstream knowledge system, that sort of “study of fate” was utterly marginalized. 3

Conflicting Attitudes of Intellectuals

The traditional scholars’ attitude to knowledge may be characterized as a product of intentionally merging subjective and objective factors, because reading and scholarly research were certainly not done purely out of a thirst for knowledge and the acquisition of academic truth, they were undertaken due to the requirements of cultivating one’s moral character, regulating one’s family, and managing state affairs and putting the country in order. As a matter of course, one should not forget the pressure of the civil service examination system as a powerful incentive to acquire knowledge. Because the “study of fate,” as part of the “minor ways,” belonged to the realm of accepted (and not rejected) knowledge, its place was just a question of hierarchy. However, no mediation between the two ways of thought was attempted. The state of a coexistence of practices in daily life on the one hand, and the fervent enthusiasm for the spread and the application of new knowledge on the other hand could possibly have

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

461

continued for a considerable time span; however, the sedimentation of Western learning gradually became more and more profound and radical. The change in the structure of scholars’ knowledge and their value system which it set in motion was nothing other than to draw closer to the West. On the one hand, along with the change in the social status of old-style scholars and the emergence of modern intellectuals, reading and scholarly research gradually became a professional activity, knowledge became an objective target, something no longer tied closely to a person’s cultivation of moral character and conduct. On the other hand, categorized learning replaced breadth-of-knowledge learning, and that brought about fundamental change in the structure of scholars’ knowledge, and a change from “erudite person” to “expert.” Moreover, it meant an “expert” who thought in terms of science. Of course, that transformation was not achieved in a single step. Instead, it was a process involving two generations of scholars at the end of the Qing and the start of the Republic. For the “study of fate,” the occurrence of the transformation and its intensification were increasingly detrimental. During the first decades of the increasing impact of Western knowledge in Late Imperial China, many of the paragons of reform apparently did not perceive any difficulty in practicing divination; let us just give a few examples: Feng Guifen 馮桂芬 (1809–1874) was an enthusiastic practitioner of both geomancy and fate calculation; Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 (1811–1872), although he was certainly not the author of the Ice Mirror (Bingjian 冰鑒, a work on physiognomy, which is extremely successful in present-day China and mistakenly ascribed to him), was inclined to several practices of divination, especially physiognomy. Zhang Zhidong wrote two calligraphies for a handbook on divination by dominoes; Zheng Guanying, the famous author of Words of Alarm in Times of Prosperity (Shengshi weiyan 盛世 危言) was a fervent practitioner of Daoist longevity techniques, including divination and magic. An interesting case in this context is Yan Fu, who frequently consulted the Classic of Changes. Let us have a look at one entry of his diary from 1911: Consulted the oracle with regard to prosperity and got the hexagram Dayou 大有. The text to the line that corresponds to the cyclical character Yin and to the phase of ‘Wood’ points to perfect prosperity; it seems empty but it isn’t empty. The line that corresponds to the fellow human beings is moving in secrecy, it has been produced by the cyclical character Si that stand for officials and the aforementioned Yin line overcomes it. This is a hexagram of wealth and dignity controlling other human beings, and it points to absolute success.14 14

Yan Fu, “Yan Fu riji,” 1507.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

462

Li And Lackner

In his diary, Yan Fu often left a blank space for the later outcome of the oracle, in this case it reads: “Result: later, on a day of transition between the cyclical characters Jia 甲 and Yin 寅, that is to say on a day between emptiness and plenitude, I obtained financial means.”15 In other entries, Yan Fu asks about appointment as an official, illnesses of his brothers, the choice of a dwelling place, of burial places in the sense of traditional geomancy, about marriages and travel schedules.16 It is characteristic that these practices, so closely connected with the world of daily experience (Lebenswelt), never appear in the published writings of Yan Fu and his contemporaries. In one of the numerous comments he added to his translation of Mill’s A System of Logic, Yan Fu remarked that If one looks at the beginnings of the nine streams of learning in China, like geomancy, medicine, and astrology, all of them follow an order; and if one explores the earliest basis on which they are grounded, like the assignment of the five phases and the heavenly stems and earthly branches, like the idea that each of the Nine Stars governs auspicious and inauspicious [fate] then we have to acknowledge that they are highly sophisticated, but it is impossible to tell the reason why this is so. In fact, there can be no other reason than the fact that their examples are built on fabrication and cannot be understood as real predictions.17 He made this distinction in order to demarcate the difference between “old learning” and “Western learning.” The former is also characterized by a fundamental subjectivity, it is a teaching “accomplished by the heart, it is supported by seemingly serious grounds, it is articulated by seemingly reasonable arguments, it is embellished by erudite allusions that make it even more majestic; but has one ever explored whether their examples and the conclusions drawn from them are reliable?”18 However, for the Yijing Yan Fu makes an exception. It is not true, like many defenders of western learning nowadays say, that mathematics is the root of this learning. It is a useful tool, but not a root. 15 16

Ibid., 1508. In his interpretations, Yan Fu followed—word by word—a Qing dynasty manual, the Zengshan bu Yi 增刪卜易, published in 1690. 17 Yan Fu, Yan Fu mingzhu congkan, 199. 18 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

463

On the other hand, the great Yi[jing] speaks about the utmost of the Way, it enacts the numbers to rest upon images, it establishes images to counter meaning (执数以存象，立象以逆意) […] with the numbers it pervades pattern.19 At the same time, the Yijing is “learning about deductive reasoning” (wai zhou zhi xue 外籀之學).20 By different generations of reformers until the turn of the century, Western knowledge was not explicitly perceived to be in contrast with the traditional practices. Choosing an appropriate day for a journey or a wedding, recurring to the Classic of Changes for resolving an imminent question, asking a fortuneteller for advice before the examination, using talismans for apotropaic purposes, and judging the ability of persons for different kinds of government employment according to the standards of traditional physiognomy seem to have been wide-spread practices—not only, as being claimed by some Chinese scholars today, within the realm of the “popular” belief system, but also, and predominantly, by the learned élite. Once again, only a teleological perspective, solely based on a modern system of exclusive knowledge organization, would see a contradiction in the behavior of the reformers mentioned above.21 After the founding of the Republic, and in particular during the time of the May Fourth Movement, a social environment endorsing “science” basically took shape. The attitude toward the “study of fate” among the newly emerging intelligentsia was very different from that of previous generations. Some scholars had already studied the issue and come to a decision, and the flag of “science” was hoisted during the time of the New Culture Movement. That signified not just scientific knowledge, methods, and consciousness, even more so it indicated a kind of system of values, a kind of universal credo, a kind of standardizing yardstick by which to evaluate things; that is, the so-called “scien­tism” or exclusive application of science. The word ‘scientism’ […] is to be understood as meaning the belief that science, in the modern sense of that term, and the scientific method as 19 20 21

Ibid., 201. Ibid., 202. More examples for the ambivalent attitude characteristic for the intellectuals of the period of transition: Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988), Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990), Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1885–1968), and Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 (1893–1964) all consulted fortune-tellers, see Qian Mu, Ba shi yi shuang qin, shiyou zaji, 185 (We are indebted to Xiong Yuezhi for this information). They are far from being exceptional.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

464

Li And Lackner

described by modern scientists, afford the only reliable means of acquiring knowledge as may be available about whatever is real.22 During the time of the New Culture Movement, situations like the following even appeared under that sort of umbrella of conviction: “All traditional culture and practices which conflict with science and reason constituted superstitious belief, and that included Confucian ethics, religion, monarchy, as well as folk beliefs and customs.”23 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942) pointed out that If belief in science is the compass pointing to the invention of truth, [then] things such as gods and demons, spirits, concocting immortality pills, amulets, fortune-telling, divination by the trigrams, planchette writing, geomancy, yin-yang and the five phases which are so contrary to science are all sheer fallacy and nonsense, wholly lacking in credibility.24 Such an atmosphere and temporal environment was of course extremely unfavorable for the development of the “study of fate,” especially in the narrow sense, to the point where during the years of the Republic those who engaged in the “study of fate” had to make a supreme effort to draw close to “science” or “philosophy.” Of course, there were also certain intellectuals regarded as “conservative” who still made a place in their daily lives for the “study of fate.” For example, the well-known scholar Wu Mi 吳宓 (1894–1978) would occasionally record his trigram divinations in his diary, some examples being as follows—28 July 1937: “Prior to the invasion, I continue to consult the Yi [Classic of Changes] to divine whether tomorrow will bring good fortune or bad.”25 25 March 1939: “Upset the past few days, worried that Father will be killed in Xi’an. Tonight especially frightened and can’t settle down. So I used the divination method of opening a book with eyes closed and running a finger to a line on some page.”26 6 July 1946: Used the Jian Jia Lou Shi 蒹葭樓詩 [Reed House Poetry] seeking an answer as to whether Mi should remain at Qinghua or go to Wuhan University 22 John Wellmuth cited after D.W.Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought, 20. 23 Song Hongjuan, “‘Mixin’ gainian zai Zhongguo xiandai zaoqi de fasheng xue yanjiu,” 71. 24 Chen Duxiu, “Jinri Zhongguo zhi zhengzhi wenti,” 170. 25 Wu Mi and Wu Xuezhao, Wu Mi riji vol. 6, 180. 26 Ibid. vol. 7, 10.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

465

this year. The phrase I obtained was “yi fang jiao zi en ji zhi 義方教子恩及 侄.” I assumed that zi referred to ‘warm and virtuous’ and zhi referred to ‘overcome strength,’ so the phrase seemed to mean that Mi should go back to Qinghua.27 Judging from those entries, Wu Mi’s divination had certain characteristics. One was that this action was not part of everyday life, and divination was often only carried out at a time of fast change or some specific moment in life. For example, the divination of 28 July 1937 to forecast good or bad fortune took place at the critical time after the “7 July incident” when the Japanese invaders were about to enter Beiping. The 1939 divination about his father was due to Xi’an being bombed by the Japanese and the desperate military situation. As for the 1946 divination, that was in the face of a crucial choice, a divination to decide to go or to stay. The second characteristic of these divinations is that they were for himself, and very private. Judging from the diary, we basically do not see any record of Wu Mi divining on behalf of anyone else, in sharp contrast to Yan Fu, who carried out lots of divinations for others. In any case, against the larger background of “scientism” being in vogue, despite Wu Mi’s criticism of “scien­ tism,” he could not avoid taking into consideration the overall social envi­ronment and could not openly engage in divination which the mainstream intelligentsia defined as “superstition.” In fact, in Wu Mi’s generation of intellectuals the separation between Western thinking’s reverence for rationality and the reality of an individual’s Chinese-style emotional life is more obvious than in Yan Fu’s generation at the end of the Qing, and the intrinsic contradiction and conflict is greater as well. Constrained by various kinds of tangible and intangible factors, certain practices in life could only become more personalized and more private. That fact in itself shows clearly that Chinese-style “study of fate” could do nothing but go into decline. To summarize, within the overall pattern of the transformation of knowledge in modern China, both the classification of knowledge and the changes in the social identity and attitudes of scholars were quite disadvantageous for the traditional “study of fate.” The “study” or “method” of the “study of fate” was split up into different modern academic branches, mainly emphasizing the philosophical level. But because the “study of fate” did not conform to the main stream of Western learning, and because it could take no dominant place within the study of philosophy, it was marginalized with each passing day. As for the “technique” or “tools” in the “study of fate,” their own destiny was even worse, and they fell out of the ranks in the face of the increasingly strong tide 27

Ibid. vol. 10, 81.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

466

Li And Lackner

of scientism, reduced from part of a “great cultural tradition” to one of the “minor traditions,” and on the path of decline. 4

Defending the “Traditional Sciences of China”

The year 1927 witnessed the beginning of the most forceful attack against socalled “superstitious professions and localities” that China had ever known. A secularization campaign of an unheard-of size nationalized temples and their properties—mostly by turning them into schools; offices and booths of fortune-tellers were closed and the fortune-tellers were forced to choose other, more “progressive” professions. In addition practicing Chinese medicine was forbidden. The rhetoric, and the aims, but also the sanctions of this campaign against “superstition” lead directly to the much later campaigns of the People’s Republic, even though they still lacked the totalitarian means for their ultimate enforcement. In the context of these actions against “superstition,” China also for the first time witnessed a definition of “superstition” pillowed on political power, because religions were on the political agenda and had to be defined in “modern” ways. Since many influential members of the ruling party adhered to Protestant denominations (which were understood as agencies of modernization), Christianity successfully monopolized the modern concepts of “religion,” “faith,” and “superstition.” Rebecca Nedostup and Erik Hammerstrom have sufficiently described the ways in which other Chinese religions, like Buddhism or Daoism had to shape their dogmatic and organizational framework in accordance with these new concepts.28 In the following, we will try to tackle the question from another perspective: a short introduction into the seemingly lost cause of those who pleaded for the dignity of the mantic arts of traditional China. More than any other phenomenon related to religion, mantic practices suffered from the verdict of “superstition.” We will first try to give a brief account of the reasons for this; after that we will provide some information about a relatively late response of a representative of these “traditional sciences” and his attempt to position them in the new context of scientism and enlightenment. By doing this, we follow the motto of Cato the Younger, “Causa victrix di placuit, sed victa Catoni” (the victorious cause pleased the Gods, but Cato liked the defeated one). It is true that Western science in the shape it had taken when arriving in China did not offer many possibilities for integrating divination and related 28

See Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes; and Hammerstrom, “Buddhists Discuss Science in Modern China (1895–1949).”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

467

practices into the kind of new knowledge Chinese reformers were aspiring to. For those who later would plead for a complete Westernization, such an integration would of course make no sense; but even the scholars that adhered to the idea of a Chinese origin of Western learning seem to have excluded all of the “traditional Chinese sciences” from their catalogues: in his Exhortation to Learning (Quanxuepian 勸學篇) Zhang Zhidong does not mention anything related to shushu arts, whereas the notions of “fairs,” “railways,” “parliament,” “physics,” and “chemistry” are abundant. In the first version of Wang Renjun’s 王仁俊 (1866–1914) Ancient Subtleties of the Natural Sciences (Gezhi guwei 格致 古微, 1896), Wang added a kind of thematic index on the last pages of his compendium by which one could find specific topics. In order, these were: Astron­omy, Mathematics, Geography, Military Arts, Medicine, Chemistry, Mining, Mechanics, Meteorology, Hydraulics, Thermionics, Electricity, Optics, Acous­ tics, Script, Painting, Trade, Engineering, Botany, and Governmental Practices. Neither are mantic arts mentioned in the plagiarized version, entitled Quintessential Records of the Natural Sciences (Gezhi jinghua lu 格致菁華錄, 1897)29. Even the once-revered Classic of Changes now became simply a device for conveying the idea that chemistry and physics existed in ancient China. In the course of time, an even more radical “transvaluation of values” and a more drastic disenchantment of the world had to take place that eventually led to the discovery of a contradiction between Lebenswelt and Weltanschauung. The Chinese world was struck by the apprehension of something never seen before: Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 (1823–1901) calls it the “huge change (bianju 變 局) of once in three thousand years” and Zeng Jize 曾紀澤 (1839–1890) speaks of “the creation of a new situation (chuangju 創局) such as never seen before in five thousand years.” Even the chronologically excessive mode of speaking here makes it clear that the situation was perceived as a highly dramatic one. This discovery of the gap between Weltanschauung and Lebenswelt was orchestrated in the discursive realm of concepts like “science,” “faith,” and “super­stition.” The spread of Social Darwinism, initiated by Yan Fu, had depicted China as a species threatened by extinction, which could only be overcome through a strengthening of the nation as a species. This idea became the cornerstone for a scientism, a “faith” or “belief” in science almost without parallel in world history. Kexue 科學, a loanword from the Japanese (that increasingly 29

In this version the index of Western sciences comes first, and this Westernized index constitutes the structure of the new book; the Chinese works are found only within an appendix at the end of the work; a watershed event in the history of science in China, which has been mentioned in a contribution to Nathan Sivin’s Festschrift: See Lackner, “Ex Oriente Scientia?”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

468

Li And Lackner

superseded older ideas like gewu 格物—natural philosophy, Naturkunde), was perceived as the main tool for making China “fit” for survival. However, this demanded a decisive break with traditional knowledge. “Science” had become a belief, a faith—even for many liberal representatives of 20th century enlightenment in China. In his book on the “Rise of modern Conscience,” Heinz D. Kittsteiner has shown how the increasing sedimentation of the notion of the laws of Nature in the minds of scholars and common people in 18th century Europe increasingly changed the concept of conscience and its role and function in society.30 In a similar way, Western science in China allowed for a gradual exclusion of several religious practices as “superstitions.” In the modern languages derived from Latin and in English, the term can be traced back to the idea of a “holdover” from older beliefs, something like a remainder, as it is expressed by Roman historians. With the rise of Christianity in Europe, it denotes pagan beliefs and, eventually, every non-Christian religion. In consequence, as a loanword translated from Latin, the German “Aberglaube” basically means “false belief.” The Chinese word mixin 迷信, literally “belief that is confused, that has gone astray, lost the way,” is a loanword from the Japanese. Although it occurs once in Buddhist texts, it is used in the verbal sense (“erroneously placing one’s trust into a practice”).31 We should also keep in mind that in East Asia, “faith” (xinyang 信仰) is a modern concept that owes much to monotheistic religions based on some kind of credo and is perhaps not suitable for the “trust” (xin 信) in the efficiency of magic, ghosts, and divination. Let us dwell for a moment on the career of the notion of mixin in China: Although we still lack a comprehensive conceptual history of the term, Song Hongjuan 宋紅娟 has recently made an important contribution to this problematic issue. Song identifies two phases: A first one, in which the term mixin refers to “foreign religions”, and gradually includes Buddhism (as practiced in Tibet and Mongolia), Islam, and, in some cases, Christianity, while explicitly excluding Confucianism.32 This pattern, with its most important defender Liang Qichao (who heavily drew on Japanese scholars like Hirata Tōsuke 平田 東助 (1849–1925)) followed more or less the exclusionist model of Christian attitudes, replacing Christianity by Confucianism. A subsequent phase witnessed the discovery of the Mandate of Heaven as the Chinese parallel to the Western “superstitious Rule by Divine right.” In consequence, Confucianism 30 31 32

See Kittsteiner, Die Entstehung des modernen Gewissens. For precedents in the polemical discourses inaugurated by the Jesuits, see Chu’s contribution to this volume. Song Hongjuan, “‘Mixin’ gainian zai Zhongguo xiandai zaoqi de fasheng xue yanjiu.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

469

became part of the incriminated “superstitions.” Between 1915 and 1919, with the rise of the New Culture Movement (Xin wenhua yundong 新文化運動), in addition to the legitimizing idea of the Mandate of Heaven, which was a constituent ideology of the traditional élite, a series of “popular” beliefs and practices were increasingly subsumed under the category of “superstitions,” as, for instance, the belief in demons and ghosts, divination and fortune-telling, exorcism (including talismans and amulets), witchcraft etc. Let us also not forget that, from its very beginning in China, Christianity had taken a stand against fortune-telling. The rise of “religious studies” in the 1920s was mainly the result of the effort of Chinese Christians, and people like Li Ganchen 李乾 忱 (with his Superstitions: Their Origin and Fallacy (pochu mixin quanshu 破除 迷信全書), published in 1923) contributed a great deal to ban mantic practices from an “enlightened” Christian point of view. Whereas the conceptual history of terms like mixin and minjian 民間 (“popular,” but also “unofficial”) in modern and contemporary China requires more in-depth study, such is certainly not the case for “science.” The aspiration to a scientific worldview not only shaped the reforms of the political and educational system and radically transformed the interpretation of intellectual history, but “Mr. Science” (Sai xiansheng 賽先生) became also instrumental in suppressing “feudal superstitions.” Scientism also became a tool for legitimizing the role of intellectuals in the kind of technocracy some of them were striving after. As we have seen before, divination and mantic knowledge had no apparent corresponding systematic places in contemporaneous Western knowledge; in consequence, they were wiped out of the new organization of knowledge, even in parts that were concerned with Chinese intellectual history: there was no place in the new field of “Chinese philosophy,” not even in “Chinese religion.” Despite their prominent place in Chinese history, the “Sciences of traditional China” are perhaps the field that has been the most repressed from historical memory. It descended to an underground existence from which it has only recently emerged. However, mantic knowledge as a cornerstone of cultural heritage did not completely remain without defenders. In the following, we will try to delineate some characteristics of the argumentation that was used by one of the most outstanding scholars of mantic knowledge in Late Imperial and Republican China. In conjunction with Wei Qianli 韋千里 (1911–1988), and Xu Lewu 徐樂吾 (1886–1949), Yuan Shushan 袁樹珊 (1881–1952?) was famous as one of the “Three Pillars” of traditional mantic arts. He was born into a family of “learned physicians” in Zhenjiang/Jiangsu province. Both his father and grandfather had been physicians in the tradition of “Confucian doctors” (ruyi 儒醫); his

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

470

Li And Lackner

father, Yuan Kaichang 袁開昌, was known for his erudition “not only in the Classics, but also in the hundred schools of Ancient China.”33 Yuan Shushan’s most voluminous publication, the Historical Biographies of Chinese mantic practitioners (Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan 中國歷代卜人傳, 1948) was initiated by his father, and Yuan claimed to have merely annotated this monumental work.34 After having studied at Peking University, Yuan went to Japan, where he studied sociology. When he came back to Zhenjiang, he “pursued the profession of a physician, and in addition he cast hexagrams for the sake of fate calculation.”35 In Yuan’s view, the situation of the “study of fate” no longer depended on its being more or less refined,36 but it was facing the question of survival.37 It is from this stance that Yuan Shushan composed a series of books related to the mantic arts; the scope of the fields covered by one person would have been almost inconceivable in traditional China, but it seems that Yuan realized the urgent need for a synthesis of the knowledge he wanted to defend. Besides the Historical Biographies we have already mentioned, his main publications dealt with chronomancy (Divination with the help of the liuren diviner’s board (Da liuren tanyuan 大六壬探源), 1923), an exhaustive book-length treatise on Physiognomers, East and West (Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan 中西相人探 源, 1937), a book on divination by milfoil and its astrological connotations (Shu bushi xingxiangxue 述卜筮星相學, 1928), a work on hemerology (that is, the choice of auspicious days, Xuanji tanyuan 選吉探源) and a collection of biographies of 64 eminent Chinese (Register of Fates (Mingpu 命譜), 1939); starting with Confucius and ending with Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), whose lives were analyzed according to their Eight Character horoscopes. A comprehensive work on the “patterns of fate,” first published in 1915 under the title An Investigation of the Patterns of Fate (Mingli tanyuan 命理探源), was republished in 1951 as a New Investigation of the Patterns of Fate (Xin mingli tanyuan 新命理探源). The majority of these works are characterized by a novel combination of the traditional explanation of the respective techniques with ample recurrence to passages in the Classics and various authoritative texts of traditional China. Another element in this combination that frequently occurs

33

See Zheng Tong’s 鄭同 “Yuan Shushan xiansheng zhuan 袁樹珊先生傳” [Biography of Yuan Shushan], in Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 22. 34 For short descriptions, anecdotes and various kinds of spatial, temporal and topical forms of analysis of Yuan‘s publication, see R.J. Smith’s Fortune-tellers and Philosophers. 35 See ibid. 36 Yuan Shushan, Xin mingli tanyuan, 1. 37 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

471

(although not in all of his works) is the attempt of giving evidence for the existence of comparable practices in Western tradition. Yuan’s entire oeuvre is characterized by innovative approaches. One of them consists of systematizing traditional knowledge: [… in the old books on divination] there were passages with examples without comments and explanations, there were others with comments and explanations, but without examples; there were misleading verbose passages without exactitude, and there were passages of a much too general character that lacked profound erudition.38 Although he was convinced that mantic knowledge was the quintessence of Chinese national culture (guocui 國粹), a new order had to be imposed on this knowledge. By bringing in historical examples (mainly drawn from the dynastic histories and local gazetteers) to give evidence for theories, and by ela­bo­rating theories where, so far, only examples had been given, Yuan Shushan can be credited to have systematized mantic arts in a way similar to how some scholars in the late Ming had dealt with dream divination or the art of dissecting characters in their “encyclopedias.”39 They brought a literati “order” into a hitherto scattered knowledge consisting of popular beliefs and practices on the one hand and erudite writings on the other. Yuan’s oeuvre, which was also characterized by a novel form of systematic cross-references between the different branches of divination, should “open up a new era for the study of fate.”40 It is clear that Yuan’s understanding of the “quintessence of Chinese national culture” differs dramatically from that of scholars like, for instance, Liu Shipei. In a radical attempt at redefining this quintessence, Tang Jicang 湯濟滄 (an author of textbooks for education in National Studies, guoxue 國學) argues for an integration of mantic arts into the curriculum: The former Prime Minister has installed the examination as one of the Five Powers […] in the examination system of Tang dynasty, each of the techniques was eligible for the examination. The knowledge of the currents of esoteric techniques should thus vigorously compete with the knowledge of other techniques. Because of its increasing sophistication, 38 39

40

Ibid., 3. Like for example the Mengzhan yizhi 夢占逸旨 [Lofty Principles of Dream Interpretation] by Chen Shiyuan 陳士元 (1516–1597), or the Zichu 字觸 [Associations Connected to Chinese Characters] by Zhou Lianggong 周亮工 (1612–1672). Yuan Shushan, Xin mingli tanyuan, 2.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

472

Li And Lackner

it will certainly not lead people on the path of superstition. Have not martial arts and the game of Go all been invented in China; but, in turn, the Japanese—what a shame, have profoundly refined them! Let us incorporate astrology in the curricular framework of astronomy; physiognomy is in close relationship with employing persons of talent and choosing friends, and people who have a bit of common sense will not completely dismiss it. Each one of the countries in East and West do have words for phrenology and chiromancy. My statement becomes even clearer and easier to understand if one looks at milfoil divination and other practices. To sum it up, because of the benefit they bring to all activities of society, (these arts) can promote the progress of academic learning. It is therefore not appropriate to say we have no other choices and have to reject them.41 Some of the main arguments of that period for the defense of mantic theories and practices can be found in this quotation: they are not superstitious; there are parallels to Western traditions; and, finally, “society” (a new term that had been coined around the turn of the 20th century) can benefit from the traditional arts. Let us remember that in the course of the campaign against superstition all religious groups were forced to justify their existence as “useful members of the society”; eventually, even organizations of fortune-tellers that “promised to be good citizens” were established. For Yuan, the challenge to the national quintessence brought about by Western learning can only be met by following three principles: First, a return to tradition; but the system has to be perfected in order to demarcate the difference with charlatans; second, an emphasis of the scientific nature of the system or at least the congruence with science; and third, a demonstration that the West has a similar system of knowledge; but, comparing both system in terms of completeness and antiqueness, the Chinese study of fate is the fountainhead.42 The programmatic character of these principles is reflected and realized not only in Yuan’s methodology, but also in his various prefaces, brief notes and comments in his books. Moreover, the recommendatory forewords of several dozen contemporaries help us shed some light on the precarious situation of his learning in the period from 1915 to the end of the 1940s. In the following, we 41 “Tang Xu 湯序” [Tang’s preface], in Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 31–32. 42 Lackner (Lang Mixie), “Linglei de kexue,” p. 267.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

473

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

will try to analyze some of these texts (which we could call “paratexts”, according to Genette’s definition) in terms of the interplay between “science,” “Western knowledge,” “superstition,” and “morality.” 5

The Scientific Character of Traditional Mantic Arts

In sharp contrast to the perception that “science” is a Western invention, Wang Qingmu 王清穆 (1860–1941, a prominent entrepreneur and local reformer from Jiangsu), in a recommendatory preface that Yuan cites on different occasions stated that in China’s antiquity, the term ‘science’ did not exist, it is an imported term that passed through many places; ‘science’ is interpreted as referring to all kinds of systematic research; therefore, how can the specialized techniques of China not be science?43 Here, a case is made for the identity of “system” and “science.” Another quotation (which Yuan drew from the brush notes of Nie Yuntai 聶雲台, 1880–1953, grandson of Zeng Guofan) emphasizes the impersonal character of science: Some of my close friends perform subtle research in fate studies, and their statements frequently hit the mark; all of them have acquired their understanding of the methods by reading books, none of them had a teacher. Is ‘science’ not the ability to find the correct number [for a prognostic statement] through compliance with a fixed law?44 The appeal to abandon the traditional ways of transmission from “teacher to student” (shisheng guanxi 師生關係) was one of the predominant definitions of “science” in Late Imperial and Republican China. The large amount of historical evidence for the reliability of fate calculation Yuan had introduced encouraged many of his defenders to stress “experience” as an important constituent of “science”; Gong Yinshan 龔蔭杉 praised the importance attached to experience and the fact that [Yuan’s work] is based on truth:

43 Yuan Shushan, Xin mingli tanyuan, 2. 44 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

474

Li And Lackner

In recent times, Western styles of study have spread to the East, and science is flourishing. In all matters, experience is emphasized and empty talk is not appreciated. Relying on truth means not to be bothered by illusion. Let alone the position of the teachings about the five phases, their circle of production and destruction in time and space. For the word ‘Fate’ is a dimly discernable thing at the firmament, the maximum of obscurity [… he continues, has not Confucius himself, in spite of the saying that he rarely spoke about fate, been deeply involved in the study of fate etc.]. The advice of this book is not empty talk, but an emphasis of experience; it is not bothered by illusion, but relies on truth, so it is definitely different from nothingness and obscurity.45 As far as methodology is concerned, Yuan quotes another passage from Nie Yuntai’s brush notes: I opine that [Chinese] astrology has the same pattern as algebra; in the latter case the characters for the heavenly stems and earthly branches and others can stand for numbers, in the first case, the heavenly Stems and earthly branches can stand for human affairs.46 Let us note that Nie Yuntai had studied chemical and electrical engineering in the United States and eventually became instrumental for the industrial and commercial development (especially the textile branch) during the Republican era. In almost all of these definitions, we can identify an attempt at incorporating mantic knowledge into a universal concept of science that is not limited to the notion of Western science. These definitions not only work by inclusion, they are also exclusive: It is interesting to note that this concept of science did not embrace the Social Darwinist idea of “survival of the fittest” that was so widespread in Republican China in Yuan’s time. As early as in the 1915 edition of his Mingli tanyuan, he remarks that history teaches that the weak are not necessarily devoured by the strong, and the superior are not always victorious, as well as the inferior are not always defeated. What else than Fate can produce these phenomena? If one does not know fate and struggles in vain, one will definitely become depraved, evil conduct will lead to the loss of lives, and there will be no more fine men

45 46

Ibid., 8. Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 93.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

475

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

under heaven. How can we, under these circumstances, want the families to be regulated and the state in order?47 The study of fate is therefore opposed to the idea of a continuous progress towards a better state of mankind, at least in the view of the survival of the fittest. The contempt for blind faith in “strength and power” is also clearly visible in a poem dedicated to Li Bingying 李丙瑩: “The scholars of our present times value the new knowledge, but Zou Yan 鄒衍 was eager to talk about Heaven. They do not know that there are patterns and numbers, all they know is strength and power.”48 In a foreword to Yuan’s book on Divination by milfoil and astrology, Dong Kang 董康 (1867–1947), who had studied law in Japan and was responsible for the first draft of the Constitution of the Qing Empire, remarks that there is no thing in this world that is purely “advantage” or purely “shortcoming”: yin-yang are always a mixture of advantages and shortcomings and only those who know this are entitled to give detailed explanations.49 Let us also mention the fact that the need for justification of mantic knowledge in terms of science triggered new forms of a cosmological and philos­ophical rationale, which we would hardly find in previous epochs. Dong Kang states that “we can conclude that this learning is congruent with physics and with science; having said this, the prediction of good or bad luck is based on the pattern of mutual resonance between Heaven and Man.”50 6

“Superstition”: A Conceptual and Ideological Pitfall

“Superstition” stood in strong contrast to “science.” In another recommendatory preface Ying Mingpan 應鳴槃 (for Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan) makes use of the age-old argument that the study of fate could motivate people to lead a better, a more virtuous and conscientious life (an idea we already find, for instance, in Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 recommendatory prefaces for books on fate calculation)51 for the demonstration that his learning is not superstitious: “the way of the research on fate calculation is not negative, but positive; it is not 47 Yuan Shushan, Xin mingli tanyuan, 3. 48 Ibid., 9. 49 “Dong Xu 董序” [Dong’s preface], in Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 34. 50 Ibid. 51 See for example his preface to a diviner’s handbook from 1162: Zhu Xi, Zhu Xi ji, Juan 75, vol. 7, 3920.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

476

Li And Lackner

superstition, because it corrects man’s aberrances and their lack of faith.”52 The dissection of mixin into its components mi (which has to be understood as “aberrance,” “going astray”) and xin as “faith” gives us evidence for the still fragile conceptual position of the term. Another evidence for the precarious character of the concept can be found in a preface by Zhang Enshou 張恩壽 (jinshi of 1904), who remarks that in the material culture of our days, many people dismiss superstition. But what is superstition? It means to be fond of eccentric behavior, an ‘aberrance’ (mi) is not ‘faith’ (xin). To become aware of the patterns of righteous conduct is ‘faith’ and not ‘aberrance.’ This can be explained by the fact that eccentricity is unfounded and fabricated, that it has nothing to faithfully rely on, it has just gone astray. In contrast, righteous behavior is definitely manifest, it definitely indicates a direction, with a deep faith one does not have doubts, how could this be called aberrance!53 Divination is perceived as a procedure that contributes an educational value to human conduct; it encourages us to moral behavior. Besides the fact that in traditional China, asking an oracle was frequently connected with rituals of purification, we can identify a religious function of divination, the kind of psychotherapeutic “pastoral care” assigned to the diviner. This is in accordance with Confucius’ statement that “those who do not know fate cannot be regarded as superior men”54, “one can deduce from this statement the benefit of milfoil divination and astrology for the course of the world and the heart of Man.”55 Another supporter of Yuan’s work was Lin Gengbai 林庚白 (1896–1941). Lin had participated in the 1911 revolution, had served as a Secretary General to several extraordinary Parliament sessions and was close to Sun Yatsen. He was also a poet, who founded the periodical Changfeng zazhi 長風雜誌 and the literary society Shiren xiehui 詩人協會. In the recommendatory preface he dedicated to Yuan Shushan’s Divination by milfoil and astrology, Lin first notes “that for a period in my life, I became interested in divination and astrology, because I thought it was fun”56. He composed a book with the title Mirroring Men (Renjian 人鉴, a kind of humorously illustrated physiognomy, which was 52 53 54 55 56

“Ying Xu 應序” [Ying’s preface], in Yuan Shushan, Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan, 2. “Zhang Xu 張序” [Zhang’s preface], in Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 35. Lunyu 20:3. Lackner (Lang Mixie), “Linglei de kexue,” 268. “Lin Xu 林序” [Lin’s preface], in Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 38.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

477

an allusion to the Bingjian ascribed to Zeng Guofan); the book was successful, but some of my friends immediately rebuked me, saying ‘you believe in historical materialism; how come you advocate these things, aren’t you contradicting yourself?’ Afterwards, to my great surprise, Qian Xuantong 錢玄同 insulted me as a scoundrel in Yusi zhoukan 语丝周刊 [Threads of Language Weekly].57 In contrast to the early reformers of the nineteenth century, the movements of New Culture and May Fourth had in fact inspired some intellectuals (and Qian Xuantong (1887–1939) belonged to the most radical ones among them) to perceive a “contradiction” between the New Science and the traditional sciences. However, Lin Gengbai makes a case for skepticism as a vital part of materialism (including skepticism towards modern scientism), and continues: “The function of the five phases are derived from matter. In accordance with a certain time and with respective numbers, they produce changes and variations. This is by no means something dull and mechanical!”58 The third point of Yuan’s programmatic statement cited above was perhaps the most difficult one to prove. None of the disciplines of Western science known in China offered a bridge to the traditional sciences of China. For the mantic arts of China, the contemporaneous Western knowledge did not offer a point of contact. As already mentioned, Western science had been perceived as a kind of comet fallen down from heaven, without much awareness of its historical development. At most, there was a vague idea that science had liberated humankind from “superstition,” and the protestant founders of religious studies in China had drawn on Allan Menzies’ (1845–1916, a theologian influenced by evolution theory) ideas that “primitive religions” (including the Chinese ones) would progressively culminate in Christianity and its alleged sympathy for science.59

57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes, 13 and 306, note 41.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

478 7

Li And Lackner

“Western Science” as Legitimation

Yuan could not know that the paragon of Western science, Johannes Kepler, had left more than a thousand horoscopes, a practice that Galilei also embraced; he was not familiar with the interest Newton took in astrology and alchemy, which all could have made a fine argument for his purpose. So he recurred to rather marginal branches of Western pseudosciences: for instance, the works of Katherine Blackford (1875–1958) served as proof of the congruence between China and the West in the field of physiognomy. John G. West reports on Blackford: During the early decades of the twentieth century, Katherine Blackford, M.D., urged America’s businesses to reinvent their employment policies by drawing on the discoveries of modern science, especially Darwinian biology. Employment selection procedures, in short, needed to be based on the facts of natural selection. According to Blackford, this meant first of all that businesses must understand that every person’s mental and physical traits have evolved through a long process of ‘survival of the fittest.’ As a result, ‘every feature of his body, as well as every little twist and turn of his mental abilities, his morals, and his disposition, are the result of heredity and environment of his ancestors extending back into antiquity [...] plus his own environment and experiences.’ Moreover, ‘every mental and psychical state and activity is accompanied by its particular physical reaction.’ Therefore, to determine a person’s moral and mental characteristics, one merely needed to examine the corresponding physical manifestations of those moral and mental traits. Promoting a system of scientific ‘character analysis’ that might be described as a cross between phrenology and eugenics, Blackford identified nine physical traits she said provided the keys to unlocking a potential employee’s inner secrets, including skin color, form (for example, the shape of the nose, chin, and mouth), physical size, and the structure of the muscles, the brain, and the digestive system.60 In Yuan’s work on physiognomy, we find enthusiastic comments on Blackford, whose theories were highly successful (but also very dubious from our present point of view):

60 West, “Meet the Materialists, part 7.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

479

[The categories of her physiognomy] prove the validity of the techniques used by our ancient sages of physiognomy insofar as they discuss the particularities of physical disposition […] it seems there is no difference […] these categories are the ancestor of each country on the globe.61 The discovery of Blackford’s theories also induces Yuan to attack the blind belief in a seemingly invariant form of Western science: People today are indifferent and forgetful, they indulge in despising the past and cherishing the present, they discard the root and follow the branches; not only that they do not talk about the Great Way of morality, but in the search for a learning that enables us to know and to understand humans, they reckon that this is merely the task of Western learning—ridiculous! My book shall entertain people of my taste. The reader is asked to be attentive and critical, and shall not be awe-stricken by the word ‘scientification.’62 Yuan identified the Western study of phrenology as an equivalent to the East­ ern physiognomy, and therefore as a bridge to “Western science.” One of his authorities was a work by Fengpingsheng 風萍生 (a pseudonym which we have not yet been able to identify), Phrenology (Guxiang xue 骨相學), published in 1919. Yuan quotes: The arts of divination and astrology are common to both East and West. We can roughly divide them into two parts: there are deductive methods, like divining a person’s fate. There are inductive methods, like judging a person’s mental character. Divination [by the Changes] and astrology belong to the first category. Astrology was practiced in Ancient Greece, where they matched human affairs and the celestial bodies and thus predicted inauspicious and auspicious events in human life. The art of the Changes produced the ‘River Chart’ and the ‘Luo Scripture,’ it evolved into the Eight Trigrams in order to understand the mysteries of creation and to understand the Will of Heaven by divination. The second category is phrenology, which is the Eastern art of physiognomy. Their aims are identical. One judges the moral character based on the shape of the head’s bones; another one analyzes the lines of the bones in the human

61 Yuan Shushan, Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan, 95. 62 Ibid.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

480

Li And Lackner

face or the human palm. From their characteristics, one judges inauspicious and auspicious events in human life.63 In some cases, Yuan Shushan was rather selective in his use of authorities. A close reading of further passages in Fengpingsheng’s book reveals that he was quite critical of the traditional arts belonging to the first category like divination [by the Changes] and astrology. Fengpingsheng differentiated between “yixue 易學” and “yishu 易術”; he established a sharp distinction between these two categories and showed that only yixue belonged to philosophy.64 In the attempt to fulfill the third point of his programmatic declaration (which, as has been said, was the most problematic one), Yuan was not only selective, but also eclectic in the choice of his authorities. For the evidence of a “congruence” between Western and Chinese science, Yuan also drew heavily on Chen Jiesheng’s 陳傑生 Discussion of the Patterns of Fate (Mingli shangque 命理商榷, 1925),65 where, among other analogies, we find the identification of the heavenly stems and earthly branches with the symbols in chemistry, the scientific nature of geomancy, the principles of electricity reflected in the relationship between the ten heavenly stems as well as yin-yang, etc. However, in spite of the fact that this kind of parallels and analogies would have easily been eligible for espousing the cause of a “Chinese origin of Western science” (Xixue zhongyuan shuo 西學中源說), Yuan only rarely recurs to this idea. Even in the book on Physiognomers, East and West, he is far from trying to give detailed evidence. The heyday of this “theory” was long gone, so the “congruence” or “coincidences” (xiangtong 相通) seemed more defendable than the painstaking efforts to retrace a Chinese origin of Western science. So far, we have tried to give a preliminary overview of arguments that were used by several defenders of the traditional sciences of China vis-à-vis Western science. The majority of them were highly erudite persons, almost all of them held an academic degree, either from a Chinese or a foreign university. Most of them were involved in the modernization of the country, as entrepreneurs, engineers, politicians, poets or jurisprudents. However, except for Dong Kang (who acted as president for several Chinese universities), we have not identified an active member of the contemporaneous academia; this is perhaps due to the fact that professors at the universities had more difficulties in realizing 63 Fengpingsheng’s transcriptions of “astrology” as ashituoluoji 阿施托罗吉 and “phrenology” as fuleinuoji 富雷诺吉 mark their foreign origin. Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiang­ xue, 102. 64 Lackner (Lang Mixie), “Linglei de kexue,” p. 270. 65 Yuan Shushan, Shu bushi xingxiangxue, 87.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

481

the possibility of a bridge between their specialized disciplines and the traditional knowledge, given their official duties as representatives of Enlightenment, whereas the advocates of mantic arts rather belong to the species of literate and civilized people in the broad sense. We may perhaps find the idea of a different—if not multiple—modernity in all these statements, since the persons who defended the cause of traditional mantic arts were by no means ignorant people or “charlatans,” but entrepreneurs, jurists, poets etc., who were far from radical anti-modernist ways of thought. This observation also holds true for Japan, if we examine Takashima Kaemon’s 高島嘉右衛門 (1832–1914) Takashima ekidan 高島易断 [Judgments based on the Yijing]. Takashima, who came from a family of lumber merchants, was consulted by the Prime Minister, generals, high-ranking officials, and judges. In our view, the success of Yuan’s program has to be judged from different perspectives: 1) He definitely succeeded in systematizing a hitherto scattered knowledge; by demonstrating the inner coherence of each single mantic art and the coherence between them, he synthesized the traditional knowledge. Since he was well versed in traditional literature, his books can still serve as an excellent source for the history and theory of divination. Applying the methods of Chinese horoscope analysis to the biographies of eminent Chinese (as he did in his Register of Fates; for the entries on all the people analyzed he added, in an appendix, parts of their writings relevant for divination) was also a novel approach in terms of systematization and historicity. As an historian and systematic thinker, he can be credited with a scientific approach, notwithstanding the question of whether his prerequisites are acceptable or not. 2) The rather timid way in which he emphasized the scientific nature of the mantic arts should not prevent us from acknowledging the fact that he (and others) claimed a universal definition of science, whose hallmarks were its systematic and impersonal character, independent of its geographical origin. However, his “proofs” are rather rhetorical claims than scientific evidence; but, had he been aware of the difference between natural science and humanities, he could have argued in a more convincing way. We should also take into account the fact that “Western Knowledge” was received and perceived in China without its long history, which reminds us of the lack of historicity that characterizes a large part of the reception of “Eastern Wisdom” in the West. A historization of Western Knowledge had rarely taken place in that period. 3) To apply the yardstick of Western sciences (in the plural) is by far the weakest point in the defense of Chinese divination. Yuan Shushan and his friends could neither have known of Peter Burke’s idea of a cultural knowledge nor of Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity that is so frequently used for legitimizing divination

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

482

Li And Lackner

in present-day China. Yielding to the necessities given by the state of the art of Western science at Yuan’s time, he had to resort to marginal, if not dubious avatars of “science,” because the factual analogies with the West (astrology, casting lots, ancient physiognomy, and many other arts) were no longer part of the Western curriculum. As far as we can see, the religious element inherent in divination (so frequently invoked by modern defenders of mantic arts) seems to have completely escaped him and his contemporaries: in the wake of Westernization, Confucianism had lost its life-world religious components and was no longer part of the experience realm. And, as a matter of course, we should not forget the narrow definition “religion” had been subject to in Yuan’s times. As an honest “Confucian doctor,” Yuan Shushan rather followed ­“science” and remained silent about religion. In consistent continuity with the Republican rhetoric and policy, the People’s Republic of China put a violent end to the kind of “soft modernity” we alluded to. As the historian Gyan Prakash noted: “What began as representations of science staged to conquer ignorance and superstition became enmeshed in the very effects that were targeted for elimination.”66 We have qualified the arts of prediction of traditional China as a lost cause. In the light of recent developments in China, this has perhaps to be revised. The first conference on “Theory and application of the Yijing” that has not been organized by a university or an academy, has taken place in Hainan in December 2011. It was sponsored by the owner of Hainan Airlines, a fact that reminds us of the social position of the defenders of predictive arts in Republican China. For the last couple of years, the Chinese mainland has witnessed a tremendous expansion of books on divination, both serious and esoteric ones. The question of how deeply the sedimentation of Western Enlightenment has been engrained could also motivate Westerners to rethink the definitions of science and knowledge we are perhaps too accustomed to.

Works Cited

Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀. “Jinri Zhongguo zhi zhengzhi wenti 今日中國之政治問題 [The Issue of Politics in Modern China].” In Chen Duxiu wenzhang xuanbian 陳獨秀文章 選編 [Selected Works of Chen Duxiu], pp. 268–271. Beijing: Shenghuo, dushu, xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1984. Chi, Yün. Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: The Notes of a Confucian Scholar. Edited and translated by David L. Keenan. London; New York: Routledge, 1999. 66 Prakash, Another Reason, 34.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

483

Fengpingsheng 風萍生. Guxiangxue 骨相學 [Phrenology]. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1919. Hammerstrom, Erik J. “Buddhists Discuss Science in Modern China (1895–1949).” Ph.D. thesis. Indiana University, 2010. Ji Yun 紀昀. “Siku quanshu zongmu: zi bu zongxu 四庫全書總目：子部總敘 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries: General Discussion of the Philosophical Works].” In Siku quanshu zongmu 四庫全書總目 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], edited by Yong Rong 永瑢, p. 769. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965. Ji, Yun. Pinselnotizen aus der Strohhütte der Betrachtung des Großen im Kleinen. Translated by Konrad Herrmann. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1983. Kittsteiner, Heinz D. Die Entstehung des modernen Gewissens. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995. Kwok, Danny Wynn Ye. Scientism in Chinese Thought 1900–1950. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965. Lackner, Michael. “Ex Oriente Scientia? Reconsidering the Ideology of a Chinese Origin of Western Knowledge.” Asia Major 21, no. 1 (2008): 183–200. Lackner, Michael. (Lang Mixie 朗宓榭). “Linglei de kexue: Minguo shiqi de Zhongguo chuantong xiangshu yu Xixue 另類的科學：民國時期的中國傳統相術與西學 [Another Science: Traditional Chinese Mantic Arts and Western Knowledge in Republican China].” In Lang Mixie Hanxue wenji 朗宓榭漢學文集 [Collected Sinological Works of Michael Lackner], edited by Xu Yan 徐艷, pp. 263–271. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2013. Liang Qichao 梁啟超. “Qingdai xueshu gailun 清代學術概論 [Introduction to the Learning of the Qing Dynasty].” In Liang Qichao lun qing xue shi er zhong 梁啟超論 清學史二種 [Liang Qichao’s Comments on the History of Learning of the Qing Dynasty in Two Types], annotated by Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚, pp. 1–90. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1985. Liu Shipei 劉師培. “Zhou mo xueshushi xu 周末學術史序 [Prolegomena to a History of Learning in the Late Zhou Period].” In Liu Shenshu xiansheng yishu 劉申叔先生遺書 [Writings of the Late Mr. Liu Shenshu], pp. 503–528. Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1997. Luo Zhitian 羅志田: “Jindai Zhongguo shehui quanshi de zhuanyi: Zhishifenzi de bianyuanhua yu bianyuan zhishifenzi de xingqi 近代中國社會權勢的轉移：知識分子 的邊緣化與邊緣知識分子的興起 [Shifting Powers in Modern Chinese Society: The Marginalization of Intellectuals and the Rise of the Marginal Intellectuals].” In Quanshi zhuanyi: Jindai Zhongguo de sixiang, shehui yu xueshu 權勢轉移：近代中 國的思想，社會與學術 [Shifting Powers: Thought, Society, and Academia in Modern China], pp. 191–241. Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1999. Nedostup, Rebecca. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

484

Li And Lackner

Prakash, Gyan. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Qian Mu 錢穆. Ba shi yi shuang qin, shiyou zaji 八十憶雙親，師友雜憶 [Remembering my Parents at the Age of Eighty, Remembrances of Teachers and Friends]. Hong Kong: Sanlian, 1998. Raphals, Lisa. “Divination in the Han shu Bibliographic Treatise.” Early China 32 (2008– 2009): 45–102. Smith, Richard J. Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991. Song Hongjuan 宋紅娟. “‘Mixin’ gainian zai Zhongguo xiandai zaoqi de fasheng xue yanjiu‘ 迷信’ 概念在中國現代早期的發生學研究 [Study on Early Occurences of the Concept of ‘Superstition’ in Modern China].” Beijing daxue yanjiusheng xuezhi 北京 大學研究生學志 [Graduate Students’ Journal of Beijing University], 2008.4: 65–75. Wang Tao 王韜. “Qu xuexiao ji bi yi xing ren cai lun 去學校積弊以興人材論 [On the Need to Abolish Corrupt Practices in Schools So As to Promote the Development of Talent].” In Huangchao jingshiwen sanpian 皇朝經世文三編 [Third Collection of Writings on Statecraft by the Imperial Court], edited by Chen Zhongyi 陳忠倚, pp. 660–661. Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1979. West, John G. “Meet the Materialists, part 7: Katherine Blackford, M.D., and the ‘Scientific’ Selection of Employees.” Evolution News and Views. December 7, 2007. (accessed May 22, 2014). Wu Mi 吳宓, and Wu Xuezhao 吳學昭. Wu Mi riji 吳宓日記 [Diary of Wu Mi]. Beijing: Shenghuo, dushu, xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1998. Yan Fu 嚴復. “Tian yan lun: zi xu 天演論：自序 [Evolution and Ethics: Author’s Preface].” In Yan Fu ji 嚴復集 [Collected Works of Yan Fu], edited by Wang Shizhu 王栻主, vol. 5, pp. 1319–1320. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986. Yan Fu 嚴復. “Yan Fu riji 嚴復日記 [The Diary of Yan Fu].” In Yan Fu ji 嚴復集 [Collected Works of Yan Fu], edited by Wang Shizhu 王栻主, vol. 5, pp. 1506–1510. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986. Yan Fu 嚴復. Yan Fu mingzhu congkan: Mule mingxue 嚴復名著叢刊：穆勒名學 [Collection of Yan Fu’s works: John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic]. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1981. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. “Lunyu” yizhu 論語譯注 [The “Analects”, with Translations and Annotations]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980. Yuan Shushan 袁樹珊. Shu bushi xingxiangxue 述卜筮星相學 [On Milfoil Stalks and Astrology]. Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 2010. Yuan Shushan 袁樹珊. Xin mingli tanyuan 新命理探源 [New Investigation of the Patterns of Fate]. Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 2010.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Contradictory Forms of Knowledge?

485

Yuan Shushan 袁樹珊. Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan 中西相人探源 [An Exploration of Physiognomers East and West]. Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 2010. Zheng Guanying 鄭觀應. “Shengshi weiyan: Kaoshi xia 盛世危言：考試下 [Words of Alarm in Times of Prosperity: Examination, Part 2].” In Zheng Guanying ji 鄭觀應集 [Collected Works of Zheng Guanying], edited by Xia Dongyuan 夏東元, vol. 1. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1982. Zhu Xi 朱熹. Zhu Xi ji 朱熹集 [Collected Works of Zhu Xi]. Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

486

Jun

Chapter 17

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea Yong Hoon Jun 1 Introduction The National Library of Korea 國立中央圖書館 possesses a manuscript titled Seongyo 星要 [The Essentials of Stars]. Since it lacks any paratextual material, scholars have remained in doubt thus far as to who wrote the book, why it was written, or which other books were related to it. Its title merely seemed to suggest that it was ‘a book about astronomy,’ and Nam Byeong-cheol 南秉哲 (1817–1863), a renowned nineteenth-century Joseon 朝鮮 astronomer and mathematician, was presumed to be its author. In this paper, I will trace where the knowledge contained in Seongyo originates and show that it stands in a long line of East Asian writing about Western horoscopic astrology and was indeed written by Nam Byeong-cheol. In short, Nam reproduced the astrological contents in Seongyo from a book titled Zhong-Xi xing yao 中西星要 [Essence of Stars in China and the West] written by Ni Ronggui (倪榮桂, 1755–?), a late eighteenth-century Chinese fortune-teller, who had himself extracted them from Tianbu zhenyuan 天歩眞 原 [The Principles of the Pacing of the Heavens], the co-production of Polish Jesuit missionary Nikolaus Smogulecki (Mu Nige 穆尼閣, 1610–1656) and Xue Fengzuo (薛鳳祚, 1600–1680), a Chinese scholar.1 The knowledge of Western horoscopic astrology contained in Smogulecki and Xue’s book in turn originated in late tenth/early eleventh century Islamic as well as mid-six­teenthcentury European sources, namely in a Chinese translation of Kusyar ibn Labban’s al-Madkhal fī Ṣinā ʿat Aḥkām al-Nujūm (or simply Madkhal) called Tianwen xiangzong 天文象宗 [Appearance Principles of Astrology] and, among other related European sources, in a book by the mathematician and astrologer Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576).2 The ultimate origin of the knowledge to be found in Tianbu zhenyuan (and thus in Seongyo), however, lies in Claudius

1 Note of the Editor: For Smogulecki and Xue, see Chang’s essay in this volume. 2 According to Standaert, Smogulecki excerpted astrological contents from a facsimile reprint of Cardano’s in Cl. Ptolemaei Pelusiensi IIII de Astrorum Iudicijs, … Pretera Geniturarum XII … See Standaert, “European Astrology in Early Qing China,” 54–55.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_019

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea

487

Ptolemy’s second century ce astrological classic Tetrabiblos [Four Books], of which both Madkhal and Cardano’s work are in effect annotations. 2

Nam Byeong-cheol, the Author of Seongyo

Seongyo is a roughly eighty-four-page manuscript with ten lines per page. What chiefly points to Nam Byeong-cheol as its author is the fact that there are four characters—Gyujae-jangpan 圭齋藏板 (printing board owned by Gyujae)— on the pages of the ready-lined paper. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was a common practice for bibliophiles to use exclusive manuscript papers with the name of their study rooms printed on them in the center of each page. For instance, Yeonam-sanbang 燕巖山房 (study room of Yeonam) was used by Bak Ji-won 朴趾源 (1737–1805), Ajeong-jangpan 雅亭藏板 ­(printing board owned by Ajeong) by Yi Deok-mu 李德懋 (1741–1793), Jayeon-gyeongsiljang 自然經室藏 (possession of natural classics library) by Seo Yu-gu 徐有榘 (1764–1845)—and Gyujae, the name printed on the pages of Seongyo, was Nam Byeong-cheol’s pseudonym. What is more, the professional astronomical knowledge of a reformed astrolabe included in Seongyo is also indicative of the most famous astronomer and mathematician in nineteenth-century Joseon. On his father’s side, Nam descended from the distinguished family of Uiryeong Nam 宜寧南氏, and on his mother’s side he was related to the powerful Andong Kim clan 安東金氏 who in effect ruled Joseon during much of the nineteenth century. During the reigns of Kings Heonjong 憲宗 (r. 1834–1849) and Cheoljong 哲宗 (r. 1849– 1863), Nam successively filled various government posts. King Heonjong especially favored him and presented him with the pseudonym Gyujae (his posthumous epithet was Munjeong 文貞), while King Cheoljong appointed him supervisor Jejo 提調 of the national astronomical office Gwansanggam 觀 象監 in 1859. Already as a youth, Nam had displayed a talent for composition and excellent abilities in mathematics and astronomy. The three books today considered his masterpieces are the mathematical treatise Haegyeong sechohae 海鏡細艸 解 [Selected Explanation of Ceyuan haijing 測圓海鏡] (1861) and two works on astronomy, Chubo sokhae 推步續解 [A Follow-up Commentary on Astronomical Calculation] (1862) and Uigi jipseol 儀器輯說 [Compiled Explanation of Astro­ nomical Instruments] (year unknown). After his death, his younger brother, Nam Byeong-gil 南秉吉 (1820–1869), arranged his manuscripts and published Gyujae yugo 圭齋遺稿 [Collected Works of Nam Byeong-cheol] (1864). Seongyo and Hoehoe ryeokbeop 回回曆法 [Method of the Islamic Calendar] are also

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

488

Jun

estimated to be his works—the former, subject of this paper, is about Western horoscopic astrology and the latter about the calculation of eclipses using the Islamic calendrical method.3 Nam’s writings have not received much detailed scholarly attention during the last few decades, though his opinion on the theory of the ‘Chinese origin of Western science’ has been frequently cited. In eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury Korea, this theory, which holds that much of Western science actually originated from ancient China, was widely accepted so that Nam’s opinion presented an unusual exception: In an essay titled Seo chubo sokhai hu 書推步續 解後 [The epilogue to Chubo sokhae], he insisted that the excellence and originality of early Western science must be recognized. 3

Seongyo, a Book on Horoscopic Astrology

Seongyo contains astrological theory as well as descriptions of the methods necessary to carry out Western horoscopic astrology. Individual topics include how to use a reformed astrolabe, the power of the twelve zodiacal signs (hwangdo-sibigung 黃道十二宮), the meaning of the twelve houses (sibiwi 十 二位), the nature of the celestial bodies, and the influence of their placement on the weather and the choosing of auspicious sites. The book was not clearly divided into chapters and verses, but it could be roughly categorized into two parts. The first half deals with how to create a reformed astrolabe called Seongban 星盤, how to use it to identify the exact position of the sun and the twelve zodiacal signs when a person was born, and how to arrange it according to the twelve houses printed on the horoscope (Samgakban 三角盤). While the original planispheric astrolabe had circles and lines representing the horizon, the equator, the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, and the almucantar of the sky on the earthly plate jipyeongpan 地平版, this reformed astrolabe left out the horizon and the almucantar. It had twelve timelines which would be assigned to the twelve houses by dividing a day into twelve parts on that plate. 3 Of the three works generally recognized to be Nam’s, Haegyeong sechohae is a book explaining the principle of Tianyuanshu 天元術 (method of the celestial element), a technique used to solve higher equations. Chubo sokhae describes how to apply Kepler’s elliptical orbit theory to the calculation of the Western calendar (Shixianli 時憲曆), following the style of Tuibu fajie 推步法解, a Commentary on Astronomical Calculation written by Qing dynasty scholar Jiang Yong 江永 (1681–1762). Uigi jipseol deals with how to make and use ten different types of major astronomical instruments, including the planispheric astrolabe as used in the West since antiquity.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

489

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea

On the constellation plate seongjwapan 星座版, which lapped over the earthly plate, there were only the twelve zodiacal signs. To practice divination, the first step was to find out the position of the sun by setting the astrolabe to the client’s date of birth. The twelve zodiacal signs on the constellation plate were then set to his exact time of birth. Next, the sun and the twelve signs were each assigned to the twelve houses. The same was done for the positions of the moon and the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) by referring to the Almanac of the Seven Celestial Bodies chiljeongryeok 七政暦. Once the celestial bodies and the twelve zodiacal signs were assigned to the twelve houses, the client’s fortune could be foretold by means of interpreting the arrangement of the horoscope’s components according to the principles laid out in the latter half of the book. Table 17.1 The names of the twelve houses in Seongyo

Name

English translation

Name

English translation

1. myeonggung 命宮 2. jaebaek 財帛 3. hyeongjae 兄弟 4. jeontaek 田宅 5. namyeo 男女 6. nobok 奴僕

Life (ascendant) Wealth Brothers Properties Man/woman Servant/slaves

 7. cheocheop 妻妾  8. jilaek 疾厄  9. cheoni 遷移 10. gwanrok 官祿 11. bokdeok 福德 12. sangmo 相貌

Wife/concubine Illness/danger Migration/journey Civil post/salary Fortune Appearance

The second half of Seongyo is about the basic principles of horoscopic astrology, such as the nature, power, and fortune of the celestial components, that is, the sun, the moon, the five planets, and the twelve zodiacal signs. The latter were classified into three groups consisting of four signs each: the fixed signs (jeonggung 定宮), the moving signs (jeongung 轉宮), and the bicorporal signs (ichegung 二體宮). What follows is an explanation of how to predict the weather, auspicious sites, and even the price of goods according to the position of the horoscopes’s components. Finally, Nam provides the reader with an introduction to the various potential arrangements of the celestial bodies in the horoscope—such as conjunction (hap 合), opposition (chung 衝), trine (samhap 三合), and sextile (yukhap 六合).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

490 4

Jun

Zhong-Xi xing yao by Ni Ronggui

Seongyo includes some clues as to Nam’s immediate sources; in particular, he mentions three astrological handbooks: Tianxue shiyong 天學實用 [Practice of Astrology], Tianbu zhenyuan, and Tianxue huitong 天學會通 [An Integration of Astronomical Studies]. The existence of Tianxue shiyong has only been revealed lately,4 and I was not able to identify it yet. Tianbu zhenyuan and Tianxue huitong, in contrast, are widely known as works of Xue Fengzuo (the first written in cooperation with Smogulecki)—and these two works do not, in fact, have the same contents as Seongyo. The quotation starting with “Yuepei shi an 月培氏按” (As Yuepei thinks), fortunately, contains another clue: According to a passage from Wuxi Jingui xianzhi 無錫金匱縣志 [Chronicle of the Wuxi Jingui Prefecture], quoted in Yuan Shushan’s Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan 中國歷代卜人傳 [Historical Biographies of Chinese Mantic Practitioners],5 a certain Ni Ronggui, also called “Yuepei 月 培,” was the author of a twelve-volume work called Zhong-Xi xing yao. That book is mentioned, albeit cursorily, by a number of authors on related issues. Thus, the Notes on Chinese Literature, first issued in 1867 by the British missionary Alexander Wylie (1815–1887), state that it was Ni Ronggui’s work, that it was made up of twelve books, and, additionally, that it had been first published in 1802.6 Quite recently, Chen Meidong mentioned Zhong-Xi xing yao as an example of the many astrological works of the Qing period that were reproduced from Mingyi tianwenshu 明譯天文書 [Book of Astrology translated in the Ming Period].7 Finally, Nicolas Standaert mentions Zhong-Xi xing yao in his discussion of the wide acceptance Smogulecki and Xue’s Tianbu zhenyuan enjoyed during the Qing period.8 Ni Ronggui is a little-known figure. All the Chronicle of the Wuxi Jingui Prefecture has to say of his life is that he “was born to love studying” and that he “studied many books on astronomy tianwen 天文, numerological conceptions xiangshu 象數 and fengshui 風水.”9 According to the preface to Zhong-Xi xing yao written by his former student Gu Bi 顧畢, Ni was as talented in the art of traditional divination as he was in Western astronomy; for instance, he could 4 Han Qi, “The Introduction of European Astrology in Late Ming and Early Qing China,” 103–110. 5 Yuan Shushan, Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan, 180. 6 Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, 133. In actual fact, Ni’s work was first published one year later, in 1803 (see below). 7 Chen, Zhongguo kexue jishu shi tianwenxue juan, 566. 8 Standaert, “European Astrology in Early Qing China,” 64–65. 9 Yuan Shushan, Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan, 180.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea

491

expertly compute the position of planets by way of spherical trigonometry. Gu Bi also relates that Smogulecki’s knowledge was successively passed on to Xue Fengzuo, Mei Wending 梅文鼎 (1633–1721), Yang Zuomei 楊作枚 (1676?–1740?), Han Xizuo 韓錫胙 (1716–1776), Hua Minggang 華鳴岡 (ca. late 18th century)— and, finally, to Ni: There were two people who succeeded in the high level astronomy of Smogulecki (穆尼閣), the most prominent scholar was Mei Wending 梅 文鼎, and the second was Xue Fengzuo 薛鳳祚. Yang Zuomei 楊作枚, who worked with Mei Wending, was comparatively outstanding in the Jingui 金匱 area. His study was brought to Han Xizuo 韓錫胙, who held various posts in succession of the district magistrate of Jingui 金匱. Han Xizuo introduced it to Hua Minggang 華鳴岡, and it was brought to Ni Ronggui. Later, he conducted in-depth studies, completed the work titled Xifa shibasheng mingpan tushuo 西法十八省命盤圖說, and edited a few more books on astronomy tantian 談天, date selection xuanri 選日, and fate calculation tuiming 推命.10 Zhong-Xi xing yao was first published in 1803 and seems to have been reissued several times (that is, in 1819, 1827, 1845, and 1880). As Wylie notes, within its twelve volumes there are separate texts titled, for instance, Xifa mingpan 西法 命盤 [Fate plate of western method], Tantian xuyan 談天緖言 [Introduction to celestial topics], Tianwen guankui 天文管窺 [Short survey on astronomy], Xuanze dangzhi 選擇當知 [Essential know-how for selection of auspicious days] and Luming yaolan 祿命要覽 [Essentials for fate calculation]. Xifa ming­pan deals with how to make and use the reformed astrolabe Xingpan 星 盤 designed by Ni himself—and the contents of this text, in particular, are very similar to those in the first part of Nam’s Seongyo. Although Nam added ­elements from other sources, thus creating a work in its own right, he clearly depended on Ni’s work. These are the parts he excerpted from Zhong-Xi xing yao: Much of the content of the latter half of Seongyo was copied from a text in the third volume of Ni Ronggui’s work, Tianwen guankui—which itself relies heavily on Smogulecki and Xue’s Tianbu zhenyuan as well as on Tianwen ­xiangzong, the translation of Kusyar ibn Labban’s al-Madkhal performed in the early years of the Ming dynasty. Xuanze dangzhi (also in volume 3 of Zhong-Xi xing yao) contained another explanation of how to use the reformed astrolabe, and this part, in contrast to 10

Gu Bi, “preface 序” to Ni Ronggui’s Zhong-Xi xing yao in Zhenben shushu congshu, vol. 55, 31–33.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

492

Jun

Table 17.2 Quotations from Zhong-Xi xing yao in Seongyo

Zhong-Xi xing yao (1803)

Form of text adoption in Seongyo

Xifa mingpan (1 scroll) Tantian xuyan (1 scroll) Tianwen guankui (3 scrolls) Xuanze dangzhi (3 scrolls) Luming yaolan (4 scrolls)

Content quoted with alterations and additions No content quoted Content quoted with omissions Content partly quoted (less than 20 lines) Content partly quoted (less than 20 lines)

Xifa mingpan, was considerably modified when Nam adopted it in Seongyo: Nam’s explanation differs considerably from Ni’s, which goes to show that he knew a lot about the fundamental principles and usage of the planispheric astrolabe. 5

Western Horoscopic Astrology in China

Tianbu zhenyuan and Lixue huitong 曆學會通 [An Integration of Calendrical Studies] Smogulecki and Xue’s Tianbu zhenyuan was first published in 1652–1653 and was revised or republished several times under different titles.11 Though we do not know the original form of the book in its entirety, a recent article by Shi Yunli enables us to lay out its structure.12 (see Table 17.3) As Standaert has shown, among these many chapters in Tianbu zhenyuan, especially parts 13–16, that is, Weixing xingqingbu 緯星性情部 (Part of the nature of planets), Shijiebu 世界部 (Part of world) or Tianwenbu 天文部 (Part of astronomy), Xuanzebu 選擇部 (Part of selection), and Renmingbu 人命部 (Part of human fortune) deal with Western horoscopic astrology. While I could not locate the content included in Ni’s Zhong-Xi xing yao in Tianbu zhenyuan, I was able to find it in Xue’s Lixue huitong. Lixue huitong, mentioned above under its alternative title Tianxue huitong, appears to have been published around 1664 as a drastically revised version of Tianbu zhenyuan. Though the version of Lixue huitong held by Tohoku 東北 University, Japan, is but a manuscript and has many missing parts, the Western 5.1

11 12

Shi Yunli, “Nikolaus Smogulecki and Xue Fengzuo’s True Principles of the Pacing of the Heavens,” 66–82. Ibid., 77–78.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

493

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea Table 17.3 Contents of Tianbu zhenyuan

Part

Contents

Part

1. Linian jiazi   曆年甲子

 

11. Jingxing bu   經星部

2. Taiyang taiyin bu  太陽太陰部 3. Riyueshi yuanli  日月食原理 4. Wuxing jingwei bu  五星經緯部 5. Biaoshang mengqiu  表上蒙求 6. Biaozhong mengqiu  表中蒙求 7. Biaoxia mengqiu  表下蒙求 8. Biaoshang  表上

 

12. Lifa bu   曆法部 13. Weixing xingqing bu   緯星性情部 14. Shijie bu   世界部 15. Xuanze bu   選擇部

Horoscopic astrology Horoscopic astrology Horoscopic astrology

 

16. Renming bu shang juan   人命部上卷

Horoscopic astrology

 

17. Renming bu zhong juan   人命部中卷 18. Renming bu xia juan   人命部下卷

Horoscopic astrology Horoscopic astrology

     

 

9. Biaozhong  表中

 

19. Lülü   律呂

10. Biaoxia   表下

 

20. Zhengxian bu   正弦部

Contents

astrological content copied from it by Ni survives: the parts titled Weixing xingqingbu and Shijiebu are clearly associated with the text Tianwen guankui in his Zhong-Xi xing yao. Wylie might have been the first to take notice of the relation between Tianbu zhenyuan and Zhong-Xi xing yao. In introducing Tianbu zhenyuan as a book on divination, he noted: “This is an astrological treatise in three parts, apparently translated from a European book on the subject.” He added, “It is difficult to understand what the missionary’s [Smogulecki’s] motive was in giving this to the Chinese, marked as it is by all the absurdities that characterized the system in the West two centuries ago.” Furthermore, Wylie revealed that Tianbu zhenyuan became the foundation of Ni’s Zhong-Xi xing yao. Serious research on the sources of the European astrological knowledge included in Tianbu

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

494

Jun

zhenyuan began with Nicolas Standaert. According to his article of 2001, the part of Tianbu zhenyuan called Renmingbu was a translation of an astrological book published in 1552 by the well-known Italian Renaissance surgeon and mathematician Gerolamo Cardano. The Western astrological content copied by Ni into Zhong-Xi xing yao, however, was not that of Renmingbu, which Standaert examined, but rather that to be found in Xue’s Lixue huitong. The sections Weixing xingqingbu and Shijiebu therein almost seem as if they were written by Smogulecki himself, or at least translated by him from other Western astrological sources—such as Cardano. The basis for all this mid-sixteenthcentury European astrological knowledge, though, was clearly Ptolemy’s second-century Tetrabiblos, of which Cardano’s book, Cl. Ptolemaei Pelusiensi IIII de Astrorvm Ivdicijs, was in effect one great annotation. Mingyi tianwenshu 明譯天文書 [Book of Astrology Translated in the Ming Period] and Tianwen xiangzong In the part of Zhong-Xi xing yao called Tianwen guankui, Ni alludes to a book titled Tianwen xiangzong which deals with Western horoscopic astrology. As mentioned above, the book was a translation of a book on Islamic astrology, Kusyar ibn Labban’s Madkhal, and its content was known to be almost identical with that of Mingyi tianwenshu. It is believed, however, that Ni extracted this material from Tianbu zhenyuan, and not directly from Tianwen xiangzong. Xue Fengzuo, co-author of Tianbu zhenyuan, must have been familiarized with the Western astrological knowledge to be found in Mingyi tianwenshu and Tianwen xiangzong by his teacher Wei Wenkui 魏文魁, who had rejected the Western calendar and supported the traditional one at the end of the Ming dynasty, as well as, as he wrote in the preface to the Renmingbu chapter of Tianbu zhenyuan, via a book titled Xifa tianwen 西法天文 [Western Astrological Method], translated in 1383 by Maham 馬哈麻. Furthermore, Xue related that the work of translating European astrological material into Chinese with Smogulecki had deepened his knowledge of the matter—even of the contents he could not understand from the Islamic sources he had previously consulted. Kusyar ibn Labban’s Madkhal, of which Mingyi tianwenshu is a translation, is itself in effect a translation/annotation of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos. The Arabic scientist divided his book into four parts, and, accordingly, Mingyi tianwenshu was later named Tianwenshu silei 天文書四類 [Four books of astrology]. In his comparison of Tetrabiblos and Madkhal, Yano Michio shows that, although most chapters are similar, Kusyar ibn Labban’s book is briefer than Ptolemy’s— and when Madkhal was translated into Chinese, some complex mathematical parts were left out, which is why Mingyi tianwenshu is even shorter. 5.2

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea

6

495

Closing Remarks

The Western astrological knowledge Ni Ronggui extracted from Smogulecki and Xue’s Tianbu zhenyuan contained Islamic and European material, the ­latter of which was based on sixteenth-century annotations of Ptolemy’s Tetra­ biblos, such as Cardano’s. Likewise Madkhal, of which Mingyi tianwenshu and Tianwen xiangzong are translations, also originated from Tetrabiblos. In other words, though he was probably ignorant of their common origin in Ptolemy, Xue recognized that the astrological traditions of Europe and the Islamic world were based on the same system, and he combined them in his and Smogulecki’s book. Ni drew on this material when he wrote about Western horoscopic astrology in early nineteenth-century China, and Nam reproduced Ni’s knowledge in his works written in mid-nineteenth century Korea. It is often said that Western horoscopic astrology was introduced to China three times: first, in the middle of the eighth century by way of India (along with Buddhism and represented by the establishment of Xiuyaojing 宿曜經 [Classic of Constellations and Celestial Bodies]); second, during the early Ming dynasty in the form of the translation of Madkhal from Arabic; and, third, in the seventeenth century via the translation of European astrological literature as conducted by the Jesuit missionaries. While all the knowledge to be encountered in the three texts examined here—Seongyo, Zhong-Xi xing yao, and Tianbu zhenyuan—is based on Tetrabiblos, the Indian link is completely missing. This is the case even in Nam Byeong-cheol’s Seongyo, this unique Korean version of a Chinese version of an Arabic version of Ptolemy’s ancient Greek classic.

Works Cited

Chen Meidong 陳美東. Zhongguo kexue jishu shi tianwenxue juan 中國科學技術史天文 學卷 [The History of Chinese Science and Technology, Chapter on Astronomy]. Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2003. Han, Qi. “The Introduction of European Astrology in Late Ming and Early Qing China: A Case Study of Adam Schall von Bell and his Tianwen shiyong.” Proceedings of the 3rd Templeton International Worshop: Inter-cultural and Intra-cultural Perspectives on Scientific Exchanges in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century East Asia. Seoul: The Templeton “Science and Religion in East Asia” Project, 2013. Mahama 馬哈麻. Mingyi tianwenshu 明譯天文書 [Book of Astrology translated in the Ming Period]. Sibu congkan sanbian 四部叢刊三編 [Four Branches of Literature Collection, third series] vol. 50. Taibei: Shangwuyin shuguan, 1979.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

496

Jun

Mahama 馬哈麻. Tianwen xiangzong Xizhan 天文象宗西占 [Western Fortune-telling by Appearance Principles of Astrology]. Qingzhen Dadian 清眞大典 [Collection of Islamic Material]. Vol. 21. Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2005. Nam Byeong-cheol 南秉哲. Haegyeong sechohae 海鏡細艸解 [Selected Explanation of Ceyuan haijing 測圓海鏡]. Collection of Kyujanggak Library of Seoul National University, 1861. Nam Byeong-cheol. Chubo sokhae 推步續解 [A Follow-up Commentary on Astronomical Calculation]. Collection of Kyujanggak Library of Seoul National University, 1862. Nam Byeong-cheol. Gyujae yugo 圭齋遺稿 [Collected Works of Nam Byeong-cheol], edited by Nam Byeong-gil 南秉吉. Collection of Kyujanggak Library of Seoul National University, 1864. Nam Byeong-cheol. Seongyo 星要 [Essence of Stars]. Collection of National Library of Korea. Nam Byeong-cheol. Uigi jipseol 儀器輯說 [Compiled Explanation of Astronomical Instruments]. Collection of Kyujanggak Library of Seoul National University. Ni Ronggui 倪榮桂. Zhong-Xi xing yao 中西星要 [Essence of Stars in China and the West]. Zhenben shushu congshu 術數珍本叢書 [Collection of Rare Books on the Mantic Arts] vol. 55. Taibei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1995. Ptolemy, Claudius. Tetrabiblos [Four Books]. English translation by J.M. Ashimand. Claudius Ptolemy Tetrabiblos. Bel Air: Astrology Classics Publishing, 2002. Shi, Yunli. “Nikolaus Smogulecki and Xue Fengzuo’s True Principles of the Pacing of the Heavens: Its Production, Publication, and Reception.” EASTM 27 (2007): 63–126. Smogulecki, Nikolaus (Mu Nige 穆尼閣), and Xue Fengzuo 薛鳳祚. Tianbu zhenyuan 天 歩真原 [The Principles of the Pacing of the Heavens]. Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書 集成初編 [Collected Collectanea, First Series] vol. 718. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. Smogulecki, Nikolaus (Mu Nige 穆尼閣), and Xue Fengzuo 薛鳳祚. Lixue huitong 曆學 會通 [An Integration of Calendarical Studies]. Collection of Tohoku University. Standaert, Nicolas. “European Astrology in Early Qing China: Xue Fengzuo’s and Smogulecki’s Translation of Cardano’s Commentaries on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos,” SinoWestern Cultural Relations Journal 23 (2001): 50–79. Wylie, Alexander. Notes on Chinese Literature. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1922. Yano, Michio 矢野道雄. Kusyar Ibn Labban’s Introduction to Astrology. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1997. Yano, Michio. Mikkyō senseijutsu 密教占星術 [Astrology of Esoteric Bud­dhism]. Tokyo: Tokyo bijutsu, 1986. Yuan Shushan 袁樹珊. Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan 中國歷代卜人傳 [Historical Bio­ graphies of Chinese Mantic Practitioners]. Taibei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1998.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

497

Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea

Part 6 Reflections on Mantic Arts

∵

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

498

Jun

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

499

Chapter 18

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Divination and Shifting Rationalities in Late Imperial China Andrea Bréard 1

Introduction: On Quantification of Chance in China

In a chapter on ‘Heavenly Patterns’ (tian wen 天文) in a late Ming popular encyclopedia, we can read that “a comet in the Dawn constellation portends an epidemic among the people that will strike one in ten.”1 Such quantification of an uncertain future through a probabilistic argument might well indicate that Chinese astrologers did evaluate chances mathematically on the basis of histori­cal records, correlating unusual celestial phenomena and natural cala­ mities. Another potential field in which they might have applied mathematical methods and reasoning to determine the unknown future was divination, or in Chinese terms, ‘fate calculation’ (suan ming 算命).2 Divinatory knowledge, particularly since the late imperial era, was not generated by innate endow­ ments of the mind, but mainly by numbers (shu 數) and principles (li 理), considered as the appropriate modes of rational thinking. There were, and still are, many divination techniques in which numbers and calculations are a central com­ponent.3 Yet, we have mainly prescriptive texts on these techniques, some metadiscourse on their cosmological and numerological implications, but little on the mathematical reason that might eventually underly those elements in the techniques, which relate to a rational quantification of chance. It is the purpose of this article to analyze the place of divination techniques in relation to mathematical knowledge in late Imperial China. I will use divination with dominoes as a case study to question the relevance of mathematical theory as a knowledge generating component in devising divinatory schemes. In the case of dominoes, these operate with numerical values attached to certain combinations of two, three or more tiles resulting from a random throw. 1 Huixing ru yizhu renmin bing shi fen zhi yi 彗星入翌主人民疫十分之一. Quoted from Miaojin wanbao quanshu, chapter 1, 18B (reprint Sakade et al., vol. 12, 48). 2 On techniques of fate calculation, see Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers, 174–184. 3 For some examples of the importance of numerological techniques for field operations during the Qing, see Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers, 213–215.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_020

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

500

Bréard

To determine these values correctly from a modern probabilistic point of view, that is, attributing a higher value to a less frequent combination, mathematics was not indispensable: one might have repeated a random throw sufficiently often and observed empirically the likelihood of obtaining a specific combination. Another possibility would have been to theoretically consider the aleatory experiment of throwing a set of dominoes and to either entirely enumerate all the possible outcomes of neighboring tiles, or to calculate with the help of combinatorial procedures,4 how many possibilities lead to the same result. These two possible approaches, the ‘empiricist’ and the ‘rationalist’ approach to legitimate the correct knowledge production of divination techniques, are of course complemented by the ‘numerological’ approach, an approach that justifies the association of a certain numerical and interpretative, prognostic value of a domino combination through a cosmological argument. Based on this particular technique of divination, divination with domino tiles that were equally used for gambling (see sections 2 and 3), I will argue in the conclusion (section 5), that there was what I call a numerological turn in the quantification of chances. In other words, I will show that the available mathematical theories (see section 4.2) played an initial role, but lost their influence upon schemes of rewarding certain combinations with counters. Bringing dominoes into a closer relationship with cosmological ideas and the associated number symbolism, paralleled by their growing structural affinities with the Yijing (see section 4.1), that, in turn, had served as THE theoretical model for combinatorial considerations (see section 4.3), allowed divination techniques with dominoes to develop and spread during the late Qing within a system of correlative thinking in numbers, well established in the Chinese intellectual tradition. 2

Dominoes as a Case Study in the History of Rationality

Domino-like tiles in China, depicting a pair of two numbers from one to six, are material representations of the roll of two dices, and it seems that historically, that is what they have evolved from.5 Made out of ivory, bone or paper and 4 The transmitted mathematical tradition only attests of knowledge on combinatorial algorithms to determine combinations and permutations, but not of an operational concept of probability, that relates the relevant possibilities to all possible outcomes. However, such concept is not necessary to quantify chances, and developed in the West well after the solution of the problem of points, the locus classicus of the beginning of probability theory. See Daston, Classical Probability in the Enlightenment, chapter one (3–48). On the existence of probabilistic thinking in the Chinese intellectual tradition see Yi, “Geren de Yunqi.” 5 See Needham et al., Physics, 331.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

501

thus literally called ‘ivory tiles’ (yapai 牙牌), ‘bone tiles’ (gupai 骨牌) or ‘paper tiles’ (zhipai 紙牌),6 we can find their earliest descriptions included in a Yuan dynasty encyclopedia, the Xuanhe paipu 宣和牌譜 [Register of dominoes from Xuanhe era] by Qu You 瞿祐 (1341–1427).7 The title indicates the legendary origin of these tiles, which according to several authors date back to the Song dynasty:8 In the second year of Xuanhe reign [1120], in the Song dynasty, a certain official memorialized the throne, praying that the dominoes might be fixed as a pack of 32 tiles, counting altogether 227 pips [i.e. dots], in order to accord with the expanse of the stars and constellations. The combination ‘heaven’ [6 6][6 6] consisted of two tiles with 24 pips, figures of the 24 solar periods; ‘earth’ [1 1][1 1] also composed of two tiles contained 4 pips, figures of the cardinal directions of the earth—east, west, south and north; the combination ‘man’ [4 4][4 4], consisted of two tiles with 16 pips, represents man’s fourfold virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom, which develop into compassion, commiseration, shame and indignation, approbation or disap­proba­tion of deference. ‘Harmony’ [1 3][1 3] consisted of two pieces of 8 pips, figuring the breath of harmony, which pervades the eight divisions of the year. The other combinations had each their names, the categories all followed the moral principles of current objects. Once memorialized, the tables were stored in the imperial treasury, fearing that they were too complicated, they were not circulated. Only during the Gaozong era [1127–1162] in Song dynasty, it was proclaimed by imperial mandate that following these patterns they should be published by imperial authority and distributed all over the Empire. The same deck of dominoes as described here, that is a set of a total of 32 tiles, can be found in late Ming China in the entire encyclopedic genre of Complete books of a myriad treasures (Wanbao quanshu 萬寶全書), commonly referred to by historians as Encyclopedias for Daily Use (Riyong leishu 日用類書).9 The 6 See Culin, “Chinese games with dice and dominoes,” and Lo, “The Game of Leaves,” 401. 7 Qu You, Xuanhe paipu reprinted in Tao, Shuofu san zhong vol. 10. A slightly later, beautifully illustrated version of the Xuanhe paipu stems from the Zhengtong era (1435–1449). See the reprint Anonymous, Xuanhe paipu. 8 Translated according to Chen Yuanlong, Gezhi jingyuan. See also Bréard, “Usages et destins des savoirs mathématiques.” 9 A more detailed account of this genre and the contexts in which dominoes appear in them can be found in Bréard, “Knowledge and Practice of Mathematics,” and Bréard, “Usages et destins des savoirs mathématiques.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

502

Bréard

Figure 18.1 Illustration of a deck of 32 dominoes

original set was composed of twelve pairs and 8 singles as shown in the illustration below (figure 18.1)10 with the pips for the numbers four and one colored in red. Actually there were only 11 pairs and 10 singles in the Xuanhe deck, but the two dominoes [6 3] and [6 2] are considered a pair, although this is criticized by some authors. The deck also appears in independent manuals throughout the Qing, when it was amended and enlarged to encompass tiles with no pips representing the number zero or the Void. What is notable about the Chinese deck of domino tiles is that these material objects not only related to literary practices in drinking games, but were equally used for gambling11 and in divination techniques. Combinations of dominoes thus bear a multi-layered symbolism that can be read in three culturally different ways: in gambling where certain winning combinations stand out, in divination based on cosmological and moral interpretations of the

10 In Miaojin wanbao quanshu, scroll 8, 2B (reprint Sakade et al., vol. 12, 358). 11 It needs to be stressed that the Chinese game of ‘ivory tiles’ is in no way comparable to the Western blocking game, where dominoes are lined up in a row, such that adjacent tiles touch with matching values. In China, instead, four players, with eight dominoes each at hand, united these in groups of two, three, six or eight tiles to form specific winning combinations. Later versions, especially the contemporary games, include trick-taking elements.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

503

depicted numbers and in literary recreation where the names of combinations are associated with classical poems or excerpts from vernacular literature.12 The proximity of gaming or gambling and divination, mundane and sacred activities based upon chance mechanisms and involving the prediction of uncertain future events, can be observed historically in many cultures. In Europe for example, “tarot has shifted from ... a game with no purpose beyond providing mental stimulation”13 to a deck containing esoteric wisdom, providing spiritual advice and indications as to how to conduct one’s life. For early China, the overlap in “the psychology, terminology, procedures, and even the implements”14 of both activities has been shown for several early board games with varying degrees of randomness—but never without cosmological implications. The game liu bo 六博 (‘six rods,’ ‘the six learned scholars’) was played with twelve pieces (qi 棋). The moves of the pieces were determined by the throwing of six sticks, which were divided into two ‘sides,’ each piece being marked with one of the four animals symbolizing the four cardinal directions.15 Spirit-chess (lingqi 靈棋) probably goes back to the Later Han and a manual is included in the Daozang.16 The twelve chess pieces are divided into three groups of four marked ‘upper’ (shang 上), ‘middle’ (zhong 中) and ‘lower’ (xia 下). The text consists of prognostic interpretations of combinations such as ‘one upper, four middle, three lower’ resulting from a random throw of all the pieces landing on a board. Crossbow-bullet chess (tanqi 彈棋) played by two players also seems to have originated in the Han. Xiahou Dun, a Three 12

See for example the preface to the Ming dynasty manual Anonymous, Yan Ruoxi xiansheng paipu, underlining the recreational aspect of a leisurely reading of combinations of three tiles: “Recently, the Manual for the Xuanhe deck was altered, using the lines of poems for liquor-drinking games. Containing hundreds of combinations it was too complicated and the many kinds of verses quoted did not correspond to the original theme. On a leisure day, the game was changed, and only regular tiles of three were selected, retaining sixty poems that were all suitable and had a distinguished bearing, hoping that they bring joy and neither obscene jesting nor cruelty. They may be taken as the literary supply for drinking with a myriad ways of tension and relaxation.” (近有以宣和牌譜改為詩句以 觴政者其牌百葉乎太瀪所引示詩類多與本題不合暇日戲為更止取三面正牌六 十詩皆取其切題有風致者庶幾樂而不淫謔而不虐可以資文字之飲而弛張之道 萬焉) 13 Farley, A Cultural History of Tarot, 3. 14 Lewis, “Dicing and Divination in Early China,” 1. 15 The 1639 preface to Zhongli, Paitong fuyu, in reaction to the Liu bo suijin 六博碎金 [Brief Literary Masterpieces based on the Six Scholars (Game)], puts the dominos in direct lineage with the game of Liu bo. See my translation in section 4.1. 16 Needham et al., Physics, 326 points out that this game nevertheless belongs to folklore Daoism.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

504

Figure 18.2

Bréard

A late sixteenth-century manual showing the possible permutations of pips involving three pairs of fours, fives and sixes

Kingdoms general, “said that the stone pieces grouped themselves in various ways like the stars in heaven.”17 The twelve pieces, six of each color red and black,18 seem to have symbolized the twelve animals of the 12-year calendrical cycle and their opposite sides indicated alternative prognostications. In China, manuals for domino divination date significantly later than the first gambling manuals indicating the winning schemes for certain combinations of domino tiles. The latter begin to appear in the late Ming Complete Books of a Myriad Treasures, but the indication of the number of counters awarded disappears from later editions. The reason for this is unclear, but it was probably not related to a more severe prohibition of gambling activities during certain periods of Chinese history, since a text from the Wanli era (1573– 1620), which was even listed in the official History of the Ming Dynasty,19 equally gives the numercial value of specific combinations quantified in numbers of counters (chou 籌). Both the Liu bo suijin 六博碎金 (1573–1620), as well as a slightly later text, the Paitong fuyu 牌統孚玉 from Chongzhen reign (1628– 1644) with a preface dated 1639, propose pattern sheets for a different, enlarged set of dominoes. Nevertheless, the 32-tile set, which supposedly stems from the Xuanhe era, remains in circulation and the pattern sheets are reprinted regularly.20 The symbolic differences and the ability of the various sets of dominoes to “profoundly match principles and numbers” (lishu jingwei peihe 理數精微配 合)21 and to accord with Yijing numerology become the central objects of discussion of late Qing and early Republican texts.22 17 Needham et al., Physics, 327. 18 A short essay by a Jin dynasty author, Xu Guang 徐廣, included in Tao Zongyi, Shuofu san zhong, 4695–6 refers to six black and white pieces each: “黑白各六枚.” 19 See the reference to Zang, Liu bo suijin, in the Mingshi juan jiushiba zhi di jishisi 明史卷九 十八志弟七十四 [Ming History, scroll 98, Memoir no. 74]. 20 See for example Jin Xingyuan, Chongding Xuanhe pu yapai huiji. 21 See Zhongli Paitong fuyu, 4A (reprint 401). 22 Among the more recent texts on divination with dominoes are Liu Zunlu, Yapai canchan tupu, Qin Shen’an, Yapai Shenshu, Anonymous, Yapai lingshu ba zhong, and Xingxiang yanjiushe, Yapai shenshu ba zhong.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

505

Figure 18.3 Possible permutation of pips for a combination where three pips are equal (here: three aces) and the remaining three sum up to fifteen

As can be seen in all the abovementioned manuals and essays for gambling and divining with domino tiles, we can indeed speak of combinatorial practices associated systematically with these artifacts. It becomes evident from the way the printed pattern sheets of possible combinations are organized that the way the combinations are depicted follow a logical structure. They attest, for example, to a certain combinatorial activity, namely that of enumerating the possible permutations of the number of pips on a combination of tiles. The three tile combinations shown in figure 18.2 for example each depict a pair of the numbers four, five and six. The three doubles shown on the left are called ‘the regular cavalry,’ whereas all the other three are referred to as ‘irregular cavalries’ and correspond to the permutations of the three doubles of the numbers four, five and six. Figure 18.3 shows the layout of another manual from the Wanli era (1573– 1620),23 which systematically gives in tabular form all possible permutations (explicitly named bian 變) of the various categories of combinations. 3

Divination with Dominoes

Divination techniques with dominoes, similar to gaming, rely on the formation of certain combinations of tiles, but only consider groupings of two or three tiles. The Anonymous Qing dynasty manual Yapai shu for example explains with a concise rhyme how to use dominoes for divination: the entire deck is shuffled and laid out randomly in a row. The ‘expertise’ consists in figuring out which neighboring tiles form a combination, that allows to win points (kai 開). 23

In Zang, Liu bo suijin, 44B, reprinted in Xuxiu siku quanshu, 349–452, here: 391.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

506

Bréard 運全 排副 三牙 次牌 分一 明字 記排 上中 下閒 中看 平有 各幾 取多 裁開

歌 訣

“Memorization verse: Spread out in a row the entire deck of ivory tiles. Among them, look for how many points there are. For three subsequent throws, clearly note separately, for each result: upper, lower, middle or even.”

One, three, four, five or six points are thus attributed to certain categories of combinations of two or three tiles, each of these categories carrying a specific name and relating to a certain pattern of pips on the dominoes: 么 正 二 馬 合 不 快 三 軍 巧 同 一 三 三 四 六 開 開 開 開 開 開 數

二 三 靠 三 開

對 分 子 相 三 三 開 開

五 子 五 開

𐄐 “Unlike” 不同: 6 points. As can be seen from the pattern sheets, this category corresponds to three tiles, where all numbers are different, for example [1 2] [3 4][5 6]. It also includes all permutations, like [1 3][2 6][5 4]. 𐄐 “Five Spots” 五子: 5 points. Three tiles where five numbers are equal, for example [4 6][6 6][6 6]. 𐄐 “Ingeniously united” 合巧: 4 points. Three tiles where the sum of two numbers equals the number of the identical other four, for example [1 3][4 4] [4 4] and their permutations, like [1 4][3 4][4 4].

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

507

𐄐 “Divided reciprocally” 分相: 3 points. Three tiles where twice three numbers are equal, for example [4 4][4 6][6 6] and all possible permutations. 𐄐 “Cavalry” 馬軍: 3 points. The three tiles [4 4][5 5][6 6] and all possible permutations, like [4 5][5 6][4 6], etc. 𐄐 “Corresponding Spots” 對子: 3 points. One pair, for example [4 6][4 6], there are altogether sixteen rewardable pairs.24 𐄐 “Ace, two three” 么二三: 3 points. The three tiles [1 1][2 2][3 3] and also the possible permutations, such as [1 3][1 3][2 2]. 𐄐 “Two, three, six” 二三靠: 3 points. The three tiles [2 2][3 3][6 6] and also the permutations. 𐄐 “Correctly satisfied” 正快: 1 point. Three tiles with three equal numbers, and the other three forming a sum of fourteen to seventeen pips, for example [3 6][4 4][3 3], [1 1][1 3][5 6], [5 6][6 6][4 6] and all possible permutations. There are ninety possibilities altogether. With so many possible rewardable combinations, it was certainly not an easy task for the diviner to figure out which neighboring tiles counted for the total sum of points in one throw. This also added a degree of randomness to the procedure, since the diviner could manipulate the result by deciding to choose a certain combination, but not another one, or even by consciously overlooking certain combinations. The obtained total of points then determined the grade of one throw: a binomial combination of ‘upper,’ ‘lower,’ ‘middle’ and ‘even’: 如 遇 一一五八十十 開開開開開二 俱至至及十開 無四七九一以占 虔開開開開上法 誠為為為為為 禱下中中上上 告下下平中上 另 占

24

“Method for divining: Twelve points and more gives ‘upper-upper’. Ten or eleven points give ‘upper-middle’. Eight and nine points give ‘middle-even’. Five to seven poits give ‘middle-lower’. One to four points give ‘lower-lower’. If one only obtains one point, there entirely is no piety for a favor from the spirits, and one should perform another divination.”

Not all the manuals agree on this number. Heshang Yuren, Zhongding Xuanhe pu yapai huiji, for example indicates 16 patterns.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

508

Bréard

The procedure was repeated three times and, following the above cited explanations, the manuals then give the corresponding interpretations in a systematic combinatorial sequence—there are 125 possible outcomes—from the highest result ‘ 上上 上上 上上’ as the best outcome down to the lowest ‘下下 下下 下下’ as the worst case scenario for the client’s future. As mentioned in the introductory section, there are at least two primary layers of symbolism adherent to the visual and numerical patterns on the domino tiles: they carry a literary and a numerological significance, the latter in turn giving rise to cosmological interpretations and a quantitative value of a specific combination. Each of these symbolic levels has played a role in the different cultural practices related to the tiles: poetry and drinking games, gambling and divination. The prefaces to the domino manuals often explicitly account for the principles underlying the different layers of symbolism. Based on a series of conceptual connections, Qu You for example, in the introduction to his text, explains the six modes of associating the lines from a Tang dynasty poem with the different combinations of two, three, six or eight dominoes. Three of these modes thereby stem from the lexicographical categories, the ‘six writings’ (liu shu 六書), for the formation of the Chinese written characters:25 In the old register, ancient lines from Tang and Song dynasty poetry, and from the novels Xixiang 西廂 [ji 記] [Western Chamber] and Pipa 琵琶 [ji 記] [Tale of the Pipa] were cited. Although they are elegant, they are not pure. Now, I shall cite lines from Tang poetry, with the following methods: by “associative compounds” (huiyi 會意),26 following “its visual aspect” (jijing 即景),27 by “graphic representation” (xiangxing 象形), “by notation of number” (jishu 記數), “harmony of sound” (xiesheng 諧聲),28 and “analogy of color” (bise 比色), like [...] Based upon the association of the number six with “heaven, the dragon, an old man, [the color] green and a snowflake with six petals”29 the pair of double sixes, or ‘heavenly tiles’ (tianpai 天牌), is for example linked to a line from the poem Minghe pian 明河篇 [The River of Light] by the Tang poet Song Zhiwen 宋之問 (656–712):30 25 26 27 28 29 30

Qu You, Xuanhe paipu, 1A. Formation of a character by juxtaposition of two or several simpler characters, whose significance results from the combination of these elements. For example 1, 2 and 3 represent spring, 4, 5 and 6 summer. For example 6 (liu 六) is associated with lu 綠, the color green. Qu You, Xuanhe paipu, 2A. See Qu You, Xuanhe paipu.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

509

Chill wind in the eighth month, the air in the heavens is crystal. No clouds in the sky for thousands of miles, the river of stars is bright. 八月涼風天氣晶，萬里無雲河漢明.31

What I am particularly interested in, are the numerological implications of the number of pips on the tiles, and the way their importance changed over time with regard to the evaluation of combinations. As I will argue in the following section, where I will go into further detail about the symbolism of numbers, numerological aspects gained more and more importance over time in the interpretation and modification of domino sets and their quantitative values. 4

Reconstructing Rationality

It is without doubt, that in China a wide range of inductive and highly rationalized forms of divination by signs or conjecture enjoyed great popularity and prestige, more than intuitive forms depending directly on the visionary expe­ rience. But rationality—a term, that we still need to define for the present context—applied as a heuristic device, is not easy to grasp a posteriori. In order to reconstruct historically the underlying rationality, I proceed in two steps: first, I try to identify the structural affinities that divination (and gambling in the earlier phases) with dominoes has with Yijing numerology. In a second step, I will take into account combinatorial knowledge as we have it available in the transmitted mathematical texts, and see if there are any epistemological intersections with the kind of divination techniques I am interested in. 4.1 Identifying Structural Affinities Apart from the close relationship of gaming and divination techniques related to dominoes by their sheer material connection and a common combinatorial interest in enumerating possible outcomes and their permutations, we can identify three current themes in the prefaces to the gaming and divination manuals that go beyond the pure linguistic and literary associations in the earliest Xuanhe manuals providing phrases for drinking games. First of all, the question of lineage to either earlier games of chance or in particular to the Xuanhe manual for dominoes is regularly evoked. A second current object of philosophical discussion in the prefaces and commentaries is the accordance between principle and number (li and shu) with regard to the dominoes. Finally, and I believe that these were the most influential considerations upon 31

Qu You, Xuanhe paipu, 3A. Translation by Owen, The Poetry of the Early T’ang, 307.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

510

Bréard

the history of the domino deck in late imperial China,32 its relation to the Yijing is explicitly evoked. The sort of connection established by the authors is not one of a direct lineage traced to this exalted classic. Rather, they present domino divination as a derivative technique that evolved against the background of a long commentarial Yijing tradition. The preface to Paitong fuyu, dated 1639, relates to all of the three above listed themes. It is primarily a reaction to the slightly earlier Liu bo suijin [Brief Literary Masterpieces based on the Six Scholars [Game]] from the Wanli era (1573–1620) and proposes to enlarge the set of dominoes from 32 tiles in the Xuanhe deck to 64 tiles in order to conform with the number of hexagrams in the Classic of Change: I do not know if the dominoes simply took the number measures and absorbed them from the Liu bo. In the 5th year [of Chongzhen reign (20/2/1632–7/2/1633)], I was sick and desolate, a friend offered food and wine to comfort me, taking the Liu bo33 to assist us. The friend said: for the practical application of Liu bo, the dominoes are best. For the method of the dominoes, the Xuanhe pattern sheets are the most superior. Because he took them and showed them [to me], I knew that [in the Liu bo game] the sticks are limited to six, with the four directions on the upper and lower sides [of the sticks]. Because the numbers are in no case augmented, they do not reach the seven. There are nine categories [九疇 in the “Great Plan” of the Classic of the Documents], there are eight trigrams [in the Classic of Change], their principles are utmostly divine. The Way of the Gods joins Heaven and Earth. Dominoes use [the number] six. Six and six exhaustively transform the yin numbers. This is utterly useless for one’s lot, and ends in degenerated numerology. This is why it cannot attain to assist with the Dao. Although during my fever, I could not give serious thoughts to anything, how would I not deduce that these dominoes are not worth being valued? When reading all the pattern sheets of the Sequels to the Suijin34, I realized the inadequateness of the Xuanhe [-manual], which had not exhausted the transformations of the Six Scholars [game], and the complexities of the Brief Literary Masterpieces, 32 Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers, 238 argues that the popularity of certain divination techniques depended much on “its presumed relationship to the hallowed Yijing.” 33 Here, this could either be the Six Scholars [Game], or the text itself, the Liu bo suijin. 34 Reference to the different pattern sheets (pu 譜) included in the Liu bo suijin xudiao 六博 碎金續貂 [Sequels to the Brief Literary Masterpieces based on the Six Scholars [Game]], see Zang, Liu bo suijin.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

511

and which had not mirrored the origins of the Six Scholars [game]. The Sequels had not presented many of the essentials of the Confucian Great Achievements. In the Chuhong [pu] 除紅[普] [(Pattern Sheets for the game of ) Red Fours Out!], the Douyao [pu] 鬬腰[譜] [(Pattern Sheets for playing) Fighting for the Middle], the Shuangcheng [pu] 雙成[譜] [(Pattern Sheets for playing) Forming Pairs], and the Touqiong [pu] 投瓊 [譜] [(Pattern Sheets for playing) Throwing Fine Jade],35 the actual numbers gradually diminished, the forms and configurations were incomplete. Therefore, I pursued the origins back to the Taiji, and summed up the Great Accomplishments. I completely exhausted their disposition, and each was chosen based upon its meaning, even for the [number of] tiles I used sixty-four to evoke their completeness. The twelve winning counters are the flags of the variants. I gathered the names of domino com­binations of four [characters], differentiating old and new. I divided the structures (ti 體) of the dominoes in three, distinguishing the warp from the weft. I selected six kinds (ge 格) of domino [combinations], to penetrate the moral principles. I enlarged the domino arrangements to obtain four series, to elucidate the harvest of forgiveness (shushou 恕收). Diagrams, rules and patterns, altogether give the details, preparing for full perusal and observation. Selections from new and old meanings are gathered to provide for verse recitation games. The principles and numbers are clearly prepared,36 this is nearly like a magnificent spectacle of the ladies. At the times of Solitary Indignation (gufen 孤憤),37 they were used to play spirit-chess, at family reunions they were used to assist liquor-drinking games.38 It seems that the dominoes were of quite some benefit, whereupon Zhang Qiao[sou] 鄣樵[叟] collated the Suijin.39 I blame myself for gambling extensively. By chance I came upon dominoes and gradually became passionately devoted. How could I not be seduced 35 36 37

38

39

The enumeration of these pattern sheets corresponds to the content of Zang, Liu bo suijin. This phrase is repeated in another preface to the text, written by the author’s scholar friend Qian Bing 錢棅 (1619–1645). See Zhongli, Paitong fuyu, 引 1B (reprint 396). A chapter title from the Chinese legalist compilation Hanfeizi 韓非子. This chapter is commonly attributed to Master Han Fei himself, a philosopher and politician of the Warring States period (5th cent.–221 BCE). Shangzheng 觴政, a generic term for liquor-drinking games, is also the title of a manual by the Ming dynasty author Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道, the Shangzheng 觴政 (一卷), included in scroll 38 of Tao, Shuofu san zhong. Zhang Qiaosou also compiled another gaming manual, the Yingpu 穎譜 (一卷) [Pattern Sheets for the Game of Talents], which is included in Tao Zongyi, Shuofu san zhong, scroll 39, just before the Liubo pu 六博譜 (一卷) [Pattern Sheets for the Six Learned Scholars Game ] by Pan Zhiheng 潘之恆.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

512

Bréard

by the poems composed by the people of the past? When I was already sick, but had not yet recovered, I compiled them. One should only say that it served to recover from my sickness. All people of the world who are sick, necessarily will say that indeed it is capable of curing their disease. The end. Winter, Arrival of the twelfth year of Chongzhen reign [1639]. The slightly earlier text referred to here, the Brief Literary Masterpieces based on the Six Scholars [Game], had already suggested an enlargement of the Xuanhe deck from 32 to 56 tiles, where the number zero (or no pips) equally figures on the tiles. As the author argues in the introductory explanations, this extension of the deck relates structurally to the generation of the hexagrams, starting from the Taiji as the Void, or the tile with no pips, and then generating subsequently three categories of tiles: Among the tiles, there are two, which have no color40 in imitation of the meaning of the Taiji in the Classic of Change. Since all things come into being from non-being, there are 12 tiles with a single [number],41 like what in the Classic of Change is the ‘Former Heaven.’ When all things are doubled from being, there are 12 tiles with doubles,42 like what in the Classic of Change are the qian and kun diagrams in the ‘Later Heaven’. Furthermore, by ‘applying each kind and developing’43 one obtains 30 different tiles,44 like the various other trigrams.45 Nevertheless, from a numerical point of view, this suggestion is not entirely satisfactory, and one can understand the critical account in the preface to Paitong fuyu quoted above. Coming to the late Qing, it is interesting to note, that the more recent domino manuals constantly operate with the 32-tile deck and not the 56- or 64-tile deck, although through their numerological discourse they inscribe themselves into the number symbolism of the Yijing.46 One 40 41

The two blank tiles [0 0][0 0]. Meaning that there are six tiles with only one number on them: [0 1][0 2][0 3][0 4][0 5] [0 6]. Since each is double in the set, this makes twelve tiles. 42 The six tiles [1 1][2 2][3 3][4 4][5 5][6 6], of which each is double in the deck. 43 Lit. Chulei er zhang zhi 觸類而長之, this phrase is a quotation from the Great Appendix (Xici shang 繫辭上) to the Yijing. 44 Counting [a b] and [b a] as two different tiles, there are indeed 6 • 5 = 30 possibilities to derive a tile with two different numbers from one to six. 45 Zang, Liubo suijin, Introductory Explanations (fanli 凡例), p. 3B. 46 On the relation of the Yijing to gambling in general, see Li, Zhongguo fangshu, 20–27 (Bu bo tongyuan 卜博同源 [On the common origins of gambling and divining]).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

513

example is the Yapai tongpu 牙牌通譜 [Common Manual for Ivory Tiles], where the affinities with Yijing numerology are argued in terms of how the deck is generated, and how the odd and even forces, the principles of yin-yang and of motion and stillness, interact reciprocally to bring about transformations: During the second year of Xuanhe era in the Song dynasty [1120], dominoes were created for amusement in the palace and they were transmitted until today. Unfortunately we have no longer those who explain them, so I have used my sparetime for the purpose of a nap and came to the insight that the principles of ivory tiles depict and narrate the numbers of the trigrams from the [Classic of] Change. As for the [Classic of] Change, it takes 6 as the substance, 9 as the function. Therein are the numbers of production, there are the numbers of completion, and there are the numbers of mutual transformations. As for the numbers of production, what pips’ production is it? [Let me proceed] from 1 to 6: take six 1s, and on top, add 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, thus producing the tiles ‘earth tile’ [1 1], ‘three pips’ [1 2], ‘peace tile’ [1 3],47 ‘red five pips’ [1 4], ‘one five’ and ‘one six’. Take six 2s, and on top, add 1 to 6, thus producing the tiles ‘three pips’ [2 1], ‘invariably two’ with ‘five black pips’ [2 3], with ‘six pips’ [2 4], with ‘seven black pips’ [2 5] and with ‘eight black pips’ [2 6]. Take six 3s, […]. Take six 6s, and on top, add 1 to 6, thus producing the tiles ‘one six,’ ‘eight pips black’ [2 6], ‘9 pips’ [3 6], ‘four six,’ ‘five six’ and the ‘heaven tile’ [6 6]. Among these, from the numbers of the heaven, earth, man officials and the two, three and five constant numbers, only one is produced.48 Because its essence is even, it is such that even must produce pairs. This is the reason why it is doubled in order to make two tiles.49 What brings this kind of numerological discourse closer to the Yijing are not only conceptual, but also linguistic similarities. ‘Change,’ ‘transformation,’ yinyang, odd and even, regularly describe the kind of operations with which dominoes and the numbers one to six are manipulated to generate the tiles and their combinations. The expression ‘alternation and combination’ (cuo zong 錯綜)50 is also very common in the texts under consideration. This term brings us particularly close to the mathematical texts, since it is used as the 47 48 49 50

The orginal here should read hepai 和牌 instead of hepai 合牌. With the suggested procedure, the tiles [a b] are generated only once if a = b, whereas they are generated twice, giving [a b] and [b a], if a ≠ b. Translated from Zang and Nan, Yapai tongpu, scroll 1, 1A–1B. Each character appears also individually, or in synonymous binomes, like ‘exchanging and permuting’ (jiao cuo 交錯).

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

514

Bréard

technical term for ‘combinations,’ and even figures in the title of a combinatorial manuscript from the early 17th century. Chen Houyao 陳厚耀 (1648–1722) explicitly, in Cuozong fayi 錯綜法義 [The Meaning of Methods for Alternation and Combination], links combinatorial practices in hexagram divination to mathematics. Chen’s essay deals systematically with problems of permutation and combination in the case of divination with trigrams, the formation of hexagrams or names with several characters, combinations of the ten heavenly stems (tiangan 天干) and the twelve earthly branches (dizhi 地支) to form the astronomical sexagesimal cycles. Games of chance such as dice throwing and card games equally serve as a model to discuss algorithms for calculating combinations and permutations with or without repetition.51 In the foreword to his treatise, Chen Houyao underlines the originality of his contribution to the mathematical tradition in China and explicitly links the expression cuozong in the title of his treatise to the Classic of Changes: The Nine Chapters52 has entirely provided all [mathematical] methods, but they lack any type of method for alternations and combinations. The [Classic of] Changes says: ‘By three, by five, through the transformations; alternating and combining (cuozong) the numbers.’53  By ‘alternation and combination,’ one forms the numbers themselves from heaven and earth. As for example, by mutually alternating pairs even and odd, one forms the hexagrams, by mutually alternating the stems and branches, one forms the calendar, by mutually alternating the colors, one forms the brocade, by mutually alternating the five sounds, one forms the melodies. When one pushes this further, from ten to one hundred thousands, there is not one that would not as a consequence of alternation have the charm of the inexhaustible.54 51

52

53

54

For a more detailed account of the content of Chen Houyao’s manuscript, see Bréard, “Pratiques et mathématiques combinatoires en Chine.” A general survey of the history of combinatorics in China can be found in Bréard, “Usages et destins des savoirs mathé­ma­ tiques.” This is a reference to Jiu zhang suan shu 九章算術 [The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Procedures], the foundational and canonical work of mathematics in ancient China, compiled approximately during the first century AD. See Legge, The Yî King, 369–370: “[The stalks] are manipulated by threes and fives to determine [one] change; they are laid on opposite sides, and placed one up, one down, to make sure of their numbers; and the [three necessary] changes are gone through with in this way, till they form the figures pertaining to heaven or to earth. Their numbers are exactly determined, and the emblems of (all things) under the sky are fixed.” Translated from Chen Houyao, Cuozong fayi, 685.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

差 謬 故 書 以 其 知 法 學 甚 者 驗  ...... 吾 算 人 多 矣 並 無

515

數三位十法算二今 在 却二日得月有 位三用月甲是初一 復四三初子三六人 用一因六生數日甲 九十  日人後得子 除二三得至果病七 初  八病癸不來月 位共二共丑死問生 順得十得是   吾人 除一四四四   安至 至二 一十   否癸 末五一八歲   若丑   四三數加   何年    如 在 上   吾 十

4.2 Crossing Mathematical Knowledge During the Song dynasty (960–1279), gaming as a field of combinatorial practice emerges in relation to mathematical writing. Shen Gua 沈括 (1031–1095), a polymath and state official explicitly discusses the possible configurations in the game of Go (Chinese: weiqi 圍棋) with a square grid of nineteen lines and columns, where each position could be empty, contain a black, or a white stone. In the late Ming, mathematical chapters in some household encyclopedias are the locus, where divinatorial algorithms are stated and concrete examples provided. The prescriptive nature of procedural texts for numerical divination techniques fit perfectly into the algorithmic schemes of the Chinese written mathematical tradition. The ‘Rhyme to calculate if the sick person will die or live’ (Suan bing si sheng jue 算病死生訣), for example, is a memorization verse giving the mathematical algorithm in general, followed by an example with concrete numerical values. The method and the arithmetical operations are made explicit, and the effectiveness of the prediction method underlined by way of reference to the long-term experience of the diviner:55 Let us suppose that there is a man, born in the seventh moon of a jiazi year.56 This man was struck by a disease on the sixth day, twelfth moon in a guichou year. He came to ask: ‘How to know if I will be in peace or not?’ 55 56

Translated from Yu, Santai wanyong zhengzong, Mathematical Section Suanfa men 算法 門, scroll 22, 13A–13B (Reprint vol. 2, 373–374). The jiazi year is the first year in the sexagenary cycle of the Chinese calendar.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

516

Bréard

I have calculated the number three and consequently, he did indeed not die.  The method says: From the time of birth in a jiazi year until a guichou year, there are 40 years. By adding the twelve months and six days of sick­ ness, one obtains altogether the number 418. Place it [on the calculation device] and use the ‘multiplication by 3’. 3 times 8, 24. 1 time 3 equals 3. 3 times 4, 12. Altogether one obtains 1254. This number is laid down and furthermore division by 9 is used. […] One has a remainder of 3. […]  This method is based on much experience. I have calculated for many persons and there was neither deviation nor error. That is the reason why it is noted here to the attention of scholars. Besides such inclusions of divinatory algorithms in popular encyclopedias, there are also scholarly mathematical texts, which use divination and gaming devices to theoretically quantify the possible outcomes. I will limit myself in the following to occurrences in mathematical writings of problems that relate to Yijing divination. This will allow me to argue in the conclusion that not only the hexagrams were the paradigmatic model for combinatorial considerations from a mathematical point of view, but that, in turn, mathematical algorithms might have been used to devise winning schemes in other divination (and gaming) techniques, and in particular in divination with dominoes. 4.3 The Yijing as THE Model The very first problem that Chen Houyao states in his text takes the hexagrams as an abstract model for combinatorial considerations. He shows two ways to calculate the possible numbers of combinations in configurations with an arbitrary number of lines. Both algorithms relate constructively to the hexagrams, a question which, as we have seen earlier, was also an issue in nume­rol­ogical discussions of the construction of a set of dominoes in relation with the Yijing: 1. One can either superpose one line after the other, the number of c­ on­figurations with n lines then is calculated as 2n. In the case of the hexa­ grams, that is, a configuration made up of six lines, each either broken or unbroken, Chen underlines that the calculation of all possible combinations (with repetition) can either be obtained by successive multiplication of the two possibilities: Number of configurations consisting of 2 lines = 2 • 2 = 4 Number of configurations consisting of 3 lines = 4 • 2 = 8 ... Number of configurations consisting of 6 lines = 32 • 2 = 64 Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

517

2. Or one can superpose repeatedly, say n times, entire trigrams (of which there are eight). In this case one finds the total number of possibilities by considering 8n. Here is the complete problem-answer-procedure text as stated by Chen, where he gives the two alternative algorithms corresponding mathematically to the above two options to generate the sixty-four hexagrams:57 Let us suppose that the odd line is the Yang, and that the even line is the Yin. One even or one odd, one superposes until one obtains six lines. How many hexagrams does one obtain? [The answer] says: sixty-four hexa­grams.  The method says: one even, one odd, by counting this makes two. If one multiplies two by two, one obtains the four diagrams with two lines. If one multiplies again by two, one obtains the eight diagrams of three lines. If one multiplies again by two, one obtains the sixteen diagrams of four lines. If one multiplies again by two, one obtains the thirty-two diagrams of five lines. If one multiplies again by two, one obtains the sixty-four diagrams of six lines. If one superposes up to seven lines or more, one obtains the result equally by successively multiplying by two. Alternatively, one multiplies by itself the eight diagrams of three lines, one obtains the sixty-four diagrams of six lines. It is by multiplying by itself the said number obtained, that one saves half of the multiplications.  Let us suppose that we have the eight trigrams Qian 乾, Dui 兌, Li 離, Zhen 震, Xun 巽, Kan 坎, Gen 艮, and Kun 坤. By multiplying and superposing them,58 how many diagrams should we get? By superposing once more, again, how many diagrams should we get?  The answer says: When superposing at first, sixty-four hexagrams [diagrams of six lines], when superposing once more, 512 diagrams [of nine lines].  The explanation says: Gua 卦 originally do not have three characters [that is, three trigrams, thus nine lines]. Now, we wish to explore the numbers of its superpositions, that is the reason why we repeatedly add on to infer them. Each time when adding on one character [of three lines], one should also repeatedly multiply this [the number from the previous configuration] by eight. This gives the result.

57 Translated from Chen Houyao, Cuozong fayi vol. 4, 685. 58 Lit. yin er chong zhi 因而重之, here refers to placing one trigram above the other, thus obtaining diagrams with six lines, nine lines, etc. Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

518

Bréard

Figure 18.4 Arithmetic triangle in Jiao Xun, Jiajian chengchu shi (1797)

Jiao Xun 焦循, in his Jiajian chengchu shi 加減乘除釋 [Explanation of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division], goes even a step further in abstracting from the cosmological implications of the hexagrams, and links the transformations of lines in a hexagram to the Arithmetic Triangle.59 That Jiao Xun’s diagram ends with the sixth power of a binomial60 is justified by the fact that “this carries the signification of hexagrams which end with 64.”61 In an unpublished manuscript version of the Explanation of Addition, Sub­ traction, Multiplication and Division, Jiao Xun uses the arithmetic triangle as a generator of a new order for the hexagrams.62 He reads the binomial: (a + b)6 = 1a6 + 6a5b + 15a4b2 + 20a3b3 + 15a2b4 + 6ab5 + 1b6 59

60 61 62

It first appeared in China in a chapter on algorithms for root extraction, in Yang Hui’s 楊 輝 Xiangjie jiu zhang suanfa 詳解九章算法 [Detailed Explanations of The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Methods], completed in 1261, but we know, that it must have been circulating a century earlier. See Yang Hui’s commentary to the Arithmetic Triangle in scroll 16344, 5A–6B of the Yongle dadian 永樂大典 [Great Encyclopedia of the Yongle Reign].. See the coefficients 1, 6, 15, 20, 15, 6 and 1, whose sum is 64, in the bottom line of figure 18.4. Jiao Xun, Litang xuesuan ji, scroll 2, 18b. Elsewhere, Jiao Xun laments the rigid authority of the order of the hexagrams, established by Song dynasty scholars like Shao Yong. See Chen, Jiao Xun ruxue sixiang yu yixue yanjiu, 237–247.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

Figure 18.5

519

Algebraically generated hexagrams in Jiao Xun, Jiajian chengchu shi (1797)

in terms of possible mutations of the two types of lines of a hexagram. This idea is shown in figure 18.4, where Jia and Yi can be interpreted respectively as the two kinds of lines, continuous or interrupted, in a tri- or hexagram. Starting from the hexagram containing six Jia-lines (to the very right of figure 18.5, it is also the one possibility we have when muting zero lines, cf. 1a6), there are six possibilities (cf. 6a5b) to mute one line. When we mute two lines, there are 15 possibilities (cf. 15a4b2) leading to hexagrams with four Jia and two Yi-lines, etc. A contemporary and close friend of Jiao Xun, Wang Lai 汪萊 (1768–1813) provides us with a mathematical text called Dijian shuli 遞兼數理 [The Mathematical Principles of Sequential Combinations], that shows even clearer how important the hexagrams were as an abstract model for mathematical reflections.63 The text was completed in 1799, precisely where Horng locates the watershed between the Qian-Jia school, 18th-century Chinese mathematics and Wang Lai’s studies that led Chinese mathematicians into the 19th century.64 A closer look at the structure of The Mathematical Principles of Sequential Combinations reveals Wang Lai’s preoccupation to bring procedure, diagrams and explanations to the forefront, and complement these elements by a single paradigmatic numerical example drawn from the realm of divination. 63

64

The text was published in the second half of scroll four of Wang’s collected writings. See scroll 4 of Hengzhai suanxue 衡齋算學 [Hengzhai’s Mathematics]. Reprint in Guo Shuchun et al., Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui vol. 4, 1512–1516. See Horng, “Qingdai shuxuejia Wang Lai de lishi dingwei,” 8.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

re are 15 possibilities (cf. 15a4b2) leading to hexagrams with four Jia and two

520

Bréard

orary and close friend of Jiao Xun, Wang Lai 汪萊 (1768–1813) provides us

cal text called Dijian shuli 遞 兼 數 理 [The Mathematical Principles of

nations], that shows even clearer how important the hexagrams were as an

mathematical reflections.63 The text was completed in 1799, precisely where

watershed between the Qian-Jia school, 18th-century Chinese mathematics and

s that led Chinese mathematicians into the 19th century.64 A closer look at the

Mathematical Principles of Sequential Combinations reveals Wang Lai’s

ring procedure, diagrams and explanations to the forefront, and complement

a single paradigmatic numerical example drawn from the realm of divination. Figure 18.6 Wang Lai, Dijian Shuli, 1799 Wang Lai is interested in the combinatorial problem, how to find the ‘total

al combinations’ (dijian zhi text, zongshu 遞兼之總數) In this Wang Lai is interested in the combinatorial problem, how to

find the ‘total number of sequential combinations’ (dijian zhi zongshu 遞兼之 總數): �

�� = � ��� ���

not simply by adding up the ‘partial numbers of sequential combinations,’ the general method66 is depicted and justified by ‘diagrammatic explanations’ (tujie 圖解) of the total shuxuejia Wang Lai de lishi dingwei,” 8. and partial numbers of sequential combinations for 10 objects,67 followed by an example, which is a problem related to divination with hexagrams.68

hed in the second halfnof scroll four of Wang’s collected writings. See scroll 4 of Hengzhai for k =in 1Guo … Shuchun n,65 but byZhongguo an efficient algorithm. The C k, Reprint engzhai’s Mathematics]. et al., kexue jishu dianji tonghui

687

65 66

67

68

From a combinatorial point of view, the C kn corresponds to the possible outcomes of drawing k objects out of a set of n objects. The indicated algorithm corresponds in modern mathematical terms to a recursive procedure: successively one doubles the ‘root,’ that is, the preceding result, and adds one unity. Given a set of n objects, and starting off with S1 = 1 Wang prescribes n–1 iterations of the following operations for k = 2,….n: Sk = 2 • Sk – 1 + 1. The corresponding figure 18.6 depicts for n = 10 the n – 1 iterations of the algorithm. Showing from the bottom to the top of the page Sn for 1 ≤ n ≤ 10 as a horizontal bar, each bar is successively doubled in length and extended by a unitary element. One thus obtains S10 = 1023. For a complete translation and a detailed discussion of Wang Lai’s text and modes of argumentation, see Bréard, “Inducing the universal from the particular.” Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

521

As an application of Wang Lai’s procedures to calculate the total Sn and the partial C kn, only one related mathematical problem is stated in his text. It stemsReflections on Mantic from the earliest witness of combinatorial practices, divination with hexaReflections on Mantic Arts grams. In Wang’s example, a diviner performing yarrow stalks divination lines (liu yao 六爻). Wang is interested in the total num Reflections on Mantic Arts (shigua 筮卦) produces a hexagram, thus a configuration made up of six lines is interested in(liu the total possible transformations of the onenumber to six lines, that one can produce from a given hexag 六爻). of Wang is interested in the total of possible transformayao number ng is interested tions in the total number of possible transformations of the one of the one to six lines, that one can produce from a given hexagram. produce from a given hexagram. Mathematically, this corresponds to finding the sum of possible mutations of k lines for k = Mathematically, this correspondsthis to finding the sum of possible mutations of k n produce from a given hexagram. Mathematically, corresponds to He calculates result, not by summing up t e mutations of klines linesfor for kk==1,1,…6: calculateshishis result, … 6: ∑���� ��� = ��� + ��� + ��� + ��� + ��� + ���.. He � � � � � � ∑the , but by using the recursive method introduced in by summing up ble mutations ofnot k lines for k = 1,…6: � = � + � + � + � + � � � � ��� � result, not by summing up the ��� , but by using the recursive method introduced in the beginning of his essay to calc the beginning of his essay to calculate the ‘total number of sequential combiis result, not by summing up the ��� , but by using the recursive method nations’: ning of his essay to calculate the ‘total number of sequential combinations’:

nning of his essay to calculate the ‘total number of sequential

An example: example: Let us suppose that a shaman is divining aAnhexagram. Each hexagram has six lines. From muting one line up to all the mutations of six lines, one asks in total, how many mutations of hexagramsLetthere are?69 And how us suppose that a shaman is divining a hexagram. E many mutations there are for the configurations of all the different numup to all the mutations of six lines, one asks in total, ho shaman is divining a hexagram. hexagram The has sixmethod lines. Fromismuting one line bers Each of lines?70 to take the six lines, subtract the number how many mutations there arethe for the configurations of 69 one one. This gives five as the number of times one will have to ‘double a shaman is divining a hexagram. Each hexagram has six lines. From muting line s of six lines, one asks in total, how many mutations of hexagrams there are? And base.’ Thus, one takes one as the [first] base. One doubles for the first time to take the six lines, subtract the number one. This gi ons sixfor lines, one asks in total, how mutations of of hexagrams there are?69isAnd method hereofare the configurations of all themany different numbers lines?70 The and adds one. One obtains three. One doubles this for the second time 70 ‘double the base.’ Thus, one takes one as the [first] base Thehave method is ns there are the configurations of all theasdifferent numbers of lines? subtract thefor number one. and This gives five the number of times one will to adds one. One obtains seven. One doubles this for the third time and obtains three. One doubles this for the second time and s, subtract one. This gives five asobtains the number of times one will have adds one. One doubles us, one takesthe onenumber as the [first] base. One doubles for the firstfifteen. time and One adds one. One to this for the fourth time and adds one. One obtains thirty-one. One doubles this for the fifthadds time the third time and one. and One obtains fifteen. One d Thus, as thetime [first] for the first One time doubles and adds one. ubles one this takes for theone second andbase. addsOne one.doubles One obtains seven. this forOne adds one. One obtains sixty-three. The total number of mutations of conobtains thirty-one. One doubles this for the fifth time doubles this obtains for the second addsthis one.for One One doubles this for ds one. One fifteen. time One and doubles theobtains fourth seven. time and adds one. One figurations is sixty-three configurations.71

adds one. One Oneand doubles fourth sixty-three. time and adds ne doubles thisobtains for thefifteen. fifth time adds this one. for Onetheobtains Theone. totalOne

number of mutations of configurations is sixty-three con

can beconfigurations. seenandfrom above quotation, One doubles thisisAs for the fifth time adds71the one. One obtains sixty-three. Wang The totalLai proceeds by doubling sucof configurations sixty-three

cessively the minimum number of lines in a configuration of one six quotation, lines Wang Lai pro As can be seen from the to above and then adding the unit. Wang Lai remarks that five72 iterations give the total minimum number of lines in a configuration of one to s ove quotation, Wang Lai of proceeds by doubling successively the number possible configurations:

71 w of to configurations quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? (Andrea Bréard) ns is sixty-three configurations.

above quotation, Wang Lai proceeds by doubling successively the n a configuration of one to six lines and then adding the unit. Wang � �

∑��� �� = 63. = 63.

Lai remarks that five72 iterations give the total number o

s in a give configuration of one to lines and then adding the unit. Wang ations the total number ofsix possible configurations:

lates the result:

69 Wang is interested in the total number of possible transform erations give the total number of possible configurations: 69 Wang is interested in the total number of possible transformations to� six �lines,� � � + �one finding the sum of ��� of � + �� + �� + �� + �� , what he called 6 6 6 6 6 6 sequential combinations,’ here for n = 6. which corresponds to finding the sum of C  + C  + C  + C  + C  + C  , what he called in the 1 2 to 703 4 5 6 al number of possible transformations of one to six lines, which corresponds Here, Wang asks for the ‘partial numbers of sequential combinat 2 called • part 1 + in 1of= 3first � � � � his textpart theof‘total number of sequential he the his text the ‘total number of 71combinations,’ here for n = 6. � + �� + �� + �� , what first Translated from Wang Lai, Dijian Shuli vol. 4, 10B–11A (reprin total of possibleHere, transformations onethe to ‘partial six lines,numbers which corresponds or n =number 6. 72to combinations’ for n = 6: C 6, C 6, C 6, Wang asksoffor of� sequential That is, the maximum number of lines 1 2 that 3 one wants to obtain m � 70 � � � � � � � � +al�numbers + � + � + � , what he called in the first part of his text the ‘total number of combinations’ 26 • 36 + 1 =for � � of �sequential � 67 n = 6: �� , �� , �� , �� , �� and �� . C  , C  , and C  . ejian for Shuli n = 6.vol. 4, 10B–11A 4(reprint 1514). 5  6 � � of lines that one wants obtain minusfrom one.forWang rtial numbers of sequential combinations’ n = 6:Lai, ��� , � ��� , ���vol. and4,���10B–11A . 71 to Translated Dijian (reprint 1514). � , �� , Shuli 689 2 • 7 + 1 = 15 Dijian Shuli vol. 4, 10B–11A (reprint 1514). 72 That is, the maximum number of lines that one wants to obtain minus one. ber of lines that one wants to obtain minus one. 689 2 • 15 + 1 = 31

689

2 • 31 + 1 = 63

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

522

Bréard

In five steps, he calculates the result: 2•1+1=3 2•3+1=7 2 • 7 + 1 = 15 2 • 15 + 1 = 31 2 • 31 + 1 = 63 Wang Lai also determines the possibilities to mute one to six lines of a given hexagram, which mathematically corresponds to finding the ‘partial numbers’ C 6k.73 Altogether, it seems, that knowledge and practices related to the sixtyfour hexagrams, in particular considerations of mutations of lines, were the paradigmatic model for ‘early’ combinatorial algorithms in China. 5

Conclusion: The Numerological Turn

The term chou 籌 used in the Xuanhe manual74 for the material devices that record the attributed number of points for obtaining certain combinations, is identical to the word designating counting rods for arithmetical calculations in the Chinese mathematical tradition, there also sometimes called suan 算. But this similarity of material devices does not necessarily mean that mathematical calculations were performed, or that more specifically combinatorial theories were applied to quantify the chances in gambling and divination schemes with dominoes. If we want to argue that practices were shared or transmitted between different bodies of knowledge, mathematics and divination, which a priori seem to be two separate fields, we need more traces of a shared culture. Paratexts to domino manuals and the popular and scholarly mathematical literature abound in narratives on the relationship between numbers and their symbolic significance, and I have tried to uncover in the previous sections the multitude of structural and epistemological affinities between domino divination and Yijing numerology, as well as between the hexagrams and mathematical combinatorics.

73

74

This corresponds to finding the sums of higher order series. For the mathematically interested reader, one can find an extensive discussion of the strands of this tradition in China, considering piles of discrete objects in different geometric shapes as figurate numbers, in Bréard, Re-Kreation eines mathematischen Konzeptes im chinesischen Diskurs. In later gambling and divination manuals with dominoes, one also finds zhu 注 and kai 開.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

523

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Table 18.1 Combinations in the Xuanhe deck rewarded with ten counters

Name

Example of domino combinations

Possibilities

天不同 地不同 八黑不紅

[1 6][2 6][3 6][4 6][5 6][6 6] 5200 [1 1][1 2][1 3][1 4][1 5][1 6] 5200 [6 6][5 6][5 5][2 6][2 2][6 6][3 6][3 3] 6435

Probability 0.000494 0.000494 0.000612

Looking at these affinities historically, it seems, at least for my specific case study, that numerological considerations became more and more important during the late imperial period, and that number mysticism somewhat superseded a more rational, mathematical approach to the quantification of chances in aleatory mechanisms. Since we have no explicit sources on the heuristic devices applied to the construction of divination techniques, my hypothesis can easily be tested by reconstructing mathematically if—at least qualitatively—the value of a domino combination corresponds in inverse proportion to the likelihood of its appearance. That means, if we want to know whether theoretical considerations were to a certain extent at play in devising winning schemes, we need to check whether, the rarer a combination was, the more counters it was granted. We have to test distributions of points of certain combinations against their mathematical probability, and see, if the scheme is fair, that is if—not precisely but at least to a certain degree—less likely outcomes were more highly honored. For the Xuanhe deck, the number of counters rewarded in gambling, corresponds qualitatively and in inverse proportion to the likelihood with which the combinations would appear in a hand of eight dominoes. From table 1, one can see that for example all combinations deserving ten counters, appear with a qualitatively equivalent probability, when drawing eight dominoes out of thirty-two.75 The combination ‘Heaven with all distinct’ (tian bu tong 天不同) refers to six different tiles, all of them bearing a six on them. Similarily, ‘Earth with all distinct’ (di bu tong 地不同) refers to six different tiles, all of them bearing a one on them. If one wants to devise a fair game, it is quite obvious that both categories should deserve the same amount of counters, whereas the fact that the combination ‘All black no red’ (ba hei bu hong 八黑不紅), a combination of eight tiles, thus the entire hand, with all pips black, should belong to the same group, is not entirely intuitive. 75

It would go far beyond the scope of this paper to detail my mathematical reconstruction of all the corresponding probabilities. These results will be published elsewhere in a separate article.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

524

Bréard

That the numbers of possible combinations for these three categories of combinations were found by complete enumeration, or that the relative frequency of each combination was observed empirically is also fairly unlikely. This would have required a large amount of aleatory experiments and an important machinery to record and analyze the subsequent results. The combinations ‘ 天不同’ and ‘ 地不同’ for example are expected to appear only about fifty times in a hundred thousand draws. In the extended set of 56 or 64 dominoes, the numerological significance of numbers becomes predominant. Pairs of double aces for example are rewarded more counters than pairs of other numbers, although their probability to show up in combination in a random draw or throw is the same. It is thus possible that winning schemes in the game of ‘ivory tiles’ were originally based on combinatorial considerations, but there is certainly no evidence of the existence of a concept of mathematical probability. For the later divination manuals which were using the 32-tile Xuanhe deck, it seems that combinatorics again played a certain role. At least this is a hypothesis one might make on the basis of a mathematical reconstruction of the stable inverse proportions between the number of counters awarded and the number of favorable combinations. The situation is actually more complicated and one might suspect that the combinatorial situation was understood, if not from a mathematical, at least from an empirical point of view. If we look at the three categories ‘unlike’ 不同, ‘five spots’ 五子 and ‘reciprocally divided’ 分相, and consider both, the simple number of possibilities, and also the frequencies with which each of them might show up in a random throw of the tiles in a row, we realize that the number of counters indeed corresponds inversely to the number of possibilities, that I listed and weighted in figure 18.7. Table 18.2 reveals that the ratios between the awarded counters c and the weighted possibilities p1 are, if not precisely, so at least qualitatively, in inverse proportion. It is not the simple counting of the number of unweighted possibili­ties p2, that would result in a fair distribution of points, but an enumeration of possibilities p1 that takes into account, that certain tiles are double in the deck and the possibility containing it, is thus twice as likely. Table 18.2 Counters awarded to certain types of combinations in divination with the 32-tile Xuanhe deck

Counters awarded c Possibilities p1 Unweighted p2

不同

五子

分相

 6 32 15

 5 40 30

 3 80 15

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

Figure 18.7

525

Three types of combinations, where tiles that are double in the Xuanhe deck are shaded and weighed double if they appear only once in the combination

In conclusion of my research on one particular technique of divination, divination with dominoes, I claim that there was, what I call a numerological turn in the rationality underlying the earlier gambling techniques with dominoes. That is, mathematical theory lost its influence upon schemes of rewarding certain combinations with counters. This shift in rationality from a mathematical to a numerological one, by bringing the dominoes closer to the esoteric interpretations of the Yijing, not only allowed the evolution of the deck of dominoes from a gambling to a divination device, but probably also contributed to their great popularity during the late Qing and early Republican period.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

526

Bréard

Works Cited

Anonymous (Ming dynasty, Zhengtong reign 1435–1449). Xuanhe paipu 宣和牌譜 [Register of Dominoes from Xuanhe Era]. In Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 [Con­ tinuation to the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries], edited by Gu Tinglong 顧 廷龍 et al., volume Zi bu 子部 [Philosophers], Yishulei 藝術類 [Art] vol. 1106, pp. 453– 544. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002. Anonymous [Ming – Jiajing era]. Yan Ruoxi xiansheng paipu 顏箬谿先生牌譜 [Records of Tiles from Sir Yan Ruoxi]. In Xinshang xubian shi zhong 欣賞續編十種 [Continuation to the Xin Shang (Enjoyment [Literature])], edited by Mao Yixiang 茅一相, pp. 217– 232. Beijing tushuguan guji zhenben congkan 北京圖書館古籍珍本叢刊 [Collection of Rare Ancient Books from Beijing Library] vol. 78. Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1998. Anonymous. Yapai lingshu ba zhong 牙牌靈數八種 [Eight Kinds of Number [Manuals] for Dominoes] (Original cover title: Jinqian shengua 金錢神卦 [Divine Trigrams worthy of Gold], Wen Wang yigua 文王易卦 [King Wen’s Trigrams from the Changes], Baihe shenshu 白鶴神數 [White Cranes Divine Numbers], Yapai shenshu quanshu 牙牌神數 全書 [Complete Book of Divine Numbers for Dominoes]). n.p.: Guangyi shuju, n.d. Anonymous (Qing dynasty 1644–1911). Yapai shu 牙牌數 [The Numbers of Ivory Tiles]. n.p.: Zixiaxian guan, n.d. Bréard, Andrea. Re-Kreation eines mathematischen Konzeptes im chinesischen Diskurs: Reihen vom 1. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Volume 42 of Boethius. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1999. Bréard, Andrea. “Pratiques et mathématiques combinatoires en Chine: le début d’un nouveau domaine.” CNRS: Images des Mathématiques. May 15, 2009. (accessed October 13, 2017). Bréard, Andrea. “Knowledge and Practice of Mathematics in Late Ming Daily Life Encyclopedias.” In Looking at it from Asia: The Processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science, edited by Florence Bretelle-Establet, pp. 305–330. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science vol. 265. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Bréard, Andrea. “Usages et destins des savoirs mathématiques dans les Encyclopédies aux dix mille trésors des Ming.” In Pratiques lettrées au Japon et en Chine. XVIIe-XIXe siècles, volume 5 of Études Japonaises, edited by Annick Horiuchi and Daniel Struve, pp. 103–123. Paris: Indes savantes, 2010. Bréard, Andrea. “Inductive Arguments in the Midst of Smoke. ‘Proving’ Rhetorically and Visually that Algorithms Work.” In Standards of Validity in Late Imperial Chinese Dis­ courses, edited by Martin Hofmann, Joachim Kurtz, and Ari Levine. Forth­coming. Bréard, Andrea. “China.” In Combinatorics: Ancient and Modern, edited by Robin J. Wilson and John J. Watkins, pp. 64–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

527

Chen Houyao 陳厚耀 (Late 17th cent). Cuozong fayi 錯綜法義 [The Meaning of Methods for Alternation and Combination]. Reprint in Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui: Shuxue juan 中國科學技術典籍通彙: 數學卷 [Compendium of China’s Classics of Science and Technology: Mathematical Volumes], edited by Guo Shuchun 郭書春 et al., vol. 4, pp. 685–688. Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993. Chen Juyuan 陈居渊. Jiao Xun ruxue sixiang yu yixue yanjiu 焦循儒學思想與易學研究 [Jiao Xun’s Thought on Confucian Learning and his Research in Yi-Studies]. Qi Lu shushe, 2000. Chen Yuanlong 陳元龍. Gezhi jingyuan 格致鏡原 [Mirror Origins of Investigating Things and Extending Knowledge]. China: n.n., 1735. Culin, Stewart. “Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes.” In Annual Report of the U.S. National Museum, edited by United States National Museum, pp. 491–537. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1893. Daston, Lorraine J. Classical Probability in the Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Farley, Helen. A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Guo Shuchun 郭書春 et al., eds. Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui: Shuxue juan 中國 科學技術典籍通彙 : 數學卷 [Compendium of China’s Classics of Science and Technology: Mathematical Volumes]. 5 vols. Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993. Heshang Yuren 河上漁人 (From Langwei 琅槐 county). Zhongding Xuanhe pu yapai huiji 重訂宣和譜牙牌彙集 [Reprint of the Collection of Domino Pattern Sheets from Xuanhe Reign]. 2 vols. n.p.: n.n., 1888. Horng Wann-Sheng 洪萬生. “Qingdai shuxuejia Wang Lai de lishi dingwei 清代數學家 汪萊的歷史定位 [The Place of Wang Lai in the History of Chinese Mathematics].” Xin Shixue 新史學 [New History] 11, no. 4 (2000): 1–16. Jiao Xun 焦循. Jiajian chengchu shi 加減乘除釋 [Explanation of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division]. Jiangdu: Jiaoshi li tang, 1799. Jiao Xun. Litang xuesuan ji 里堂學算記 [Collection on Mathematical Learning from the Hall of Li]. Jiangdu: Jiaoshi, 1799. Jin Xingyuan 金杏園 (fl. 1757) and Yun An 云庵, eds. Chongding Xuanhe pu yapai huiji 重訂宣和譜牙牌彙集 [Newly Collated Treatises on Dominoes from Xuanhe Era]. 2 scrolls. In Siku weishou shu jikan 四庫未收書輯刊 [Siku Banned Titles Series], edited by Siku weishou shu jikan bianzuan weiyuanhui 四庫未收書輯刊編纂委員會 [Siku Banned Titles Series Editorial Board], vol. 10, pp. 411–456. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1998. Legge, James, trans. The “Yî King”. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. 16. Oxford: Clarendon, 1882.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

528

Bréard

Lewis, Mark Edward. “Dicing and Divination in Early China.” Sino-Platonic Papers 121 (2002). Li Ling 李零. Zhongguo fangshu xukao 中國方術續考 [Further Studies on the Chinese Methods and Arts]. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2000. Liu Zunlu 劉遵陸. Yapai canchan tupu 牙牌參禪圖譜 [Illustrated Records of Ivory Tiles for Meditation]. In Guanzi dezhai congshu 觀自得齋叢書 [Encyclopedia from the Hall for Observing Contentment], edited by Xu Shikai 徐士愷, vol. 24. China: 1892. Lo, Andrew. “The Game of Leaves: An Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Playing Cards.” SOAS Bulletin 63 (2000): 389–406. Miaojin wanbao quanshu 妙錦萬寶全書 [Complete Book of a Myriad Treasures, Mag­ nificently Embroidered] (Complete title: Xinban quanbu tianxia bianyong wenlin shajin wanbao quanshu 新板全補天下便用文林紗錦萬寶全書 [Complete Book of a Myriad Treasures, Magnificently Embroidered, Newly Printed and Entirely Completed for the Convenient Use as a Writer’s Resort]. Jianyang: n.n., 1612. Reprint in Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸 et al., eds. Chūgoku nichiyō ruisho shūsei 中国日用類書集成 [Com­pen­dium of Chinese Daily Life Encyclopedias] vols. 12–14. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1999–2004. Needham, Joseph et al. Physics: Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 4,1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Owen, Stephen. The Poetry of the Early T’ang. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Qin Shen’an 秦慎安, ed. Yapai shenshu 牙牌神數 [The Marvelous Numbers of Ivory Tiles]. Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1925. Qu You 瞿祐 (1341–1427). Xuanhe paipu 宣和牌譜 [Register of Dominoes from Xuanhe Era]. In Shuofu san zhong 說郛三種 [The Environs of Fiction], edited by Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀, vol. xu 續 46, pp. 1790–1799. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988. Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸 et al., eds. Chūgoku nichiyō ruisho shūsei 中国日用類書集 成 [Compendium of Chinese Daily Life Encyclopedias]. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1999–2004. Smith, Richard J. Fortune-tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society. Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1991. Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀, ed. Shuofu san zhong 說郛三種 [The Environs of Fiction]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988. Wang Lai 汪萊. Dijian shuli 遞兼數理 [Mathematical Principles of Sequential Com­ binations]. In Hengzhai suanxue 衡齋算學 [Hengzhai’s Mathematical Learning], edited by Wang Lai 汪萊, vol. 4, pp. 6b–12b. China: Jiashutang, 1854. Reprint in Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui: Shuxue juan 中國科學技術典籍通彙: 數學卷 [Compendium of China’s Classics of Science and Technology: Mathematical Volumes], edited by Guo Shuchun 郭書春 et al., vol. 4, pp. 1512–1516. Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

How to Quantify the Value of Domino Combinations?

529

Xingxiang yanjiushe 星相研究社 [Xingxiang Research Society], ed. Yapai shenshu ba zhong 牙牌神數八種 [Eight Kinds of Writings on the Wondrous Numbers for Dominoes]. Shanghai: Chunming shudian, 1947. Yang Hui 楊輝. Xiangjie “jiu zhang suanfa” 詳解九章算法 [Detailed explanations of “The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Methods”]. First published in 1261. Yi Maoke 伊懋可 (Mark Elvin). “Geren de yunqi—Weishenme qianjindai Zhongguo keneng mei you fazhan gailüsixiang 個人的運氣— 為什麼前近代中國可能沒有發 展概率思想 [Personal Luck—Why Premodern China—Probably—Did not Develop Probabilistic Thinking].” In Zhongguo kexue yu kexue geming: Li Yuese nanti ji qi xiangguan wenti yanjiu lunzhu xuan 中國科學与科學革命: 李約瑟難題及其相關問題研 究論著選 [A Selection of Research Papers on Chinese Science and the Scientific Revolution: Needham’s Puzzle and Related Problems], edited by Liu Dun 劉鈍 and Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, pp. 426–496. Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002. Yu Xiangdou 余象斗, ed. Santai wanyong zhengzong 三台萬用正宗 [Santai’s orthodox instructions for myriad uses] (Complete title: Xinke tianxia simin bianlan Santai wanyong zhengzong 新刻天下四民便覽三台萬用正宗 [Santai’s Orthodox Instructions for Myriad Uses for the Convenient Perusal of all the People in the World, Newly Engraved]). Jianyang: Yu Xiangdou, 1599. Reprint in Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸 et al., eds. Chūgoku nichiyō ruisho shūsei 中国日用類書集成 [Compendium of Chinese Daily Life Encyclopedias], vols. 3–5. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1999–2004. Zang Maoxun 臧懋循. Liu bo suijin 劉博碎金 [Brief Literary Masterpieces based on the Six Scholars [Game]]. 8 scrolls. n.p.: Diaochongguan, 1573–1620. Reprint in Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 [Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries: Continued and Revised], edited by Gu Tinglong 顧廷龍 et al., volume Zi bu 子部 [Masters], Yishulei 藝術類 [Arts and Techniques Category] vol. 1106, pp. 453–544. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002. Zang Yaochu 臧耀初, and Nan Jizhao 男繼昭. Yapai tongpu 牙牌通譜 [Common Manual for Ivory Tiles]. 3 scrolls. n.p.: n.n., Guangxu [1881–1908]. Zhongli Xiyunzi 鍾離栖筠子. Paitong fuyu 牌統孚玉 [The Whole of Dominoes, Enjoying the Confidence of Jade]. 4 scrolls. In Siku weishou shu jikan 四庫未收書輯刊 [Siku Banned Titles Series], edited by Siku weishou shu jikan bianzuan weiyuanhui 四庫 未收書輯刊編纂委員會 [Siku Banned Titles Series Editorial Board], vol. 13, pp. 393– 472. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2000.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

530

Hayek

Chapter 19

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Variables in Early Modern Japanese “Chronomancy” Techniques Matthias Hayek 1

Introduction: Different Types of Divination

In discussing the nearly universal phenomenon of divination, it may be useful to distinguish two major mantic functions or approaches: one that refers to the past (or present), which I would call ‘diagnosis,’ and one that is directed toward the future, that is, ‘prognosis.’ We may also distinguish two different mantic types: one, an ‘inspired’ form of divination, in which the diviner uses his inner capacities to access supra-human knowledge, and the other, a systemized form, in which the diviner uses acquired abilities and knowledge to interpret signs. This does not mean that inspired divination is devoid of procedures or rituals: diviners may resort to codified means to enhance their perception or reach a particular state. Yet, there is not necessarily an organic and systematic relation between such codes and the question the diviner has to deal with or the answer he will give. These relations, however, are mandatory in the case of systemized divination, and most techniques belonging to this category revolve around the diviner’s ability to properly associate symbols with the data extracted from the question (and the questioner), before deducing an answer from these associations. Still, systemized divination comes in various forms, and such a general definition does not exclude structural and operative differences among the techniques. As a matter of fact, when looking at these numerous techniques, usually named with a term joining the main object of divination to the suffixes -mancy or -logy one cannot but be overwhelmed by the number of particular cases. Should we then give up on any functional distinction or classification of these techniques and focus only on their respective characteristics? Doing so would mean to deny any common traits to divinatory practices and may even lead to misunderstanding their role in their context of use. I would rather argue that it is possible to define at least three operative categories, based on two key elements: the ‘variables’ used in the techniques and how they are inferred. What I call variables are the symbols or signs that serve as a core

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_021

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

531

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

element for divination. To be more specific, I consider two types of variables: independent and linked—depending on the existence or not of direct relation between the raw data and the signs. In the case of independent variables, the diviner will use a set of instruments (sticks, coins, cards, dirt, etc.) to randomly obtain a codified sign (a figure, a layout, etc.) without using contextual data (birthdate, date, sex, numbers, colors, forms, and the like), although these elements may be taken into account during the interpretative phase. In the case of linked variables, the sign is precisely inferred from such data, often through some kind of calculation. Numerous techniques belonging to this last category involving ‘linked’ variables can be observed in East Asia through history. Most, if not all of them, have their roots in China, but some developed differently in Japan, Korea, and other countries within China’s cultural sphere of influence. Insofar as they revolve around different types of time cycles grounded on calendars, these techniques are usually classified either as “hemerology” or as “calendar astrology.”1 But I prefer the term “chronomancy,” suggested to me by Michael Lackner, to designate a broader category encompassing all the techniques taking temporal data of some sort as their primary variables. Far from being a mere perfunctory addition to an already crowded list of mantic categories, this distinction is based on two simple observations. First, the local terms used to refer to techniques related to calendars are not necessarily the same. For instance, we find a different terminology in China and Japan, even though both countries share the same written characters. Hemerology ‘proper,’ that is to say prescriptive techniques used to determine auspicious and inauspicious days, is commonly known in China as zeri 擇日 or xuanri 選日, whereas such methods are rather collectively referred to as rekisen 暦占 in Japan, at least since the seventeenth century. Secondly, there are other techniques that, while belonging to other categories, make a similar use of temporal data. Thus, by employing the concept of “chronomancy,” it becomes possible to regroup methods sharing a structural and procedural likeness, even though they may not be considered locally as belonging to the same category. What is more, when considering these techniques on a structural level, said likenesses might be extended to other cultural contexts and thus help to shed light on similarities between methods from the East and the West. Adopting this point of view also raises an important question: is there an organic relation between the nature of the variable and the structure of the techniques? In other words, does using temporal elements to perform a divination imply a particular framework reflected in the techniques themselves? In 1 On the definition of hemerology, see Kalinowski, Divination et société, 213–214.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

532

Hayek

this paper, I would like to give some keys for answering these questions by looking at three different techniques used in Early Modern Japan that fit the aforementioned definition of “chronomancy”: divination by the eight trigrams (hakke uranai 八卦占い); “Plum-blossom changes in the mind” (Baika shin’eki, Ch. Meihua xinyi 梅花心易); and a “fate-calculation” technique (sanmei or kanmei, Ch. suanming, kanming 算命, 看命) based on twelve “stars” or “lodges.” In the forms I will consider here, these techniques were in use in Japan between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were made accessible to a specialized public through printed manuals. In that regard, the first technique mentioned above, hakke uranai, occupies a special place, for its roots go back to Tang China and it was already put into practice, in its most basic form, in Heian Japan (794–1185). However, it acquired new features during the late Middle Ages (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries), and by the beginning of the Edo period it had evolved into a more complex method, which was among the first to be disclosed through printed manuals. The development of the other two techniques owes much to the works of Baba Nobutake 馬場信武 (?–1715), a Kyōto physician and eclectic ‘vulgarizer’ of numerous Chinese works on divination and other subjects such as poetry, astronomy, and literature. It should be noted that Baba also devised two manuals dealing with hakke uranai. Although these techniques belong to different categories, they all use temporal elements as their primary variables and involve similar algorithmic operations that are essentially based on modular arithmetic. They also share another characteristic: these techniques have made extensive use of what Marta Hanson calls “hand mnemonics.”2 To be more specific, the three ­meth­ods offer similar ways to project tables and circular diagrams onto the prac­titioner’s left phalanx bones or joints and thus turn the hand into a kind of computing device. By looking at both the similarities and the differences between these techniques, my goal here is to shed light on the operative processes involved and to try to understand the nature of relations between data, variables, signs, and results. Since all the methods under scrutiny here use temporal data, I shall first clarify what kinds of variables are involved. I will then briefly introduce each technique, before taking a closer look at how they work. By way of conclusion, I will give some clues regarding the existence of an organic relationship between the types of primary data, the way they are processed, and the signs obtained from them.

2 See Hanson, “Hand Mnemonics.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

2

533

What Temporal Variables?

The temporal variables made use of in divinatory calculations in Japan and China pertain to a broad correlative system based on two key notions: the yin/ yang duality (cold/warm; dark/luminous; high/deep; male/female; dry/moist, etc.) and the five phases (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). In this system, numerous elements, such as spatial and temporal markers, but also body parts, colors, tastes, notes, planets, stars, numbers, etc. are correlated with the five phases and share common symbolic attributes. Temporal and, to some extent, spatial markers involve two sets of symbols: the twelve “earthly” branches (Jp. jūnishi 十二支) and the ten “heavenly” stems (Jp. jikkan 十干). As a whole, the branches and the stems form a yin/yang pair,3 but there are also yin/yang distinctions within each group at different levels. The twelve branches and the ten stems are usually expressed by a single set of Chinese characters: 子丑寅卯辰巳午未 申酉戊亥 for the branches and 甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸 for the stems. In Chinese, the pronunciation of these characters bears no relation to their symbolic meaning. In Japanese, however, the characters for the branches are read according to the animal associated with them, and those for the stems are read in a fashion expressing their association with the five phases and their yin (to, or younger brother) or yang (e, or older brother) nature. Thus, the branches are called ne (rat), ushi (ox), tora (tiger), u (rabbit), tatsu (dragon), mi (snake), muma (horse), hitsuji (sheep), saru (monkey), tori (rooster), inu (dog), and i (boar); and the stems are kinoe (wood-yang), kinoto (wood-yin), hinoe (fireyang), hinoto (fire-yin), tsuchinoe (earth-yang), tsuchinoto (earth-yin), kanoe (metal-yang), kanoto (metal-yin), mizunoe (water-yang), mizunoto (water-yin). The sixty pairs resulting from the combinatory between the two groups are used as annual markers for a sexagenary cycle. Individually, the branches are used to designate daily hours and directions. The stems can also serve to express directions and days, although they are mostly used in combination with the branches and other elements. In the context of “chronomancy,” temporal elements used as basic data commonly take the form of a date and hour. The year and hour are expressed with branches, while the month and day are rather given with numerals. The date in question can either be the birth date of the consultant, or the date of the consultation. The hour taken into account may vary according to the nature of the question. Since branches and stems also have numeral counterparts (their rank within the group, or symbolic numbers) it is thus possible to 3 The stems being yang and the branches yin, hence their alternative name of heavenly stems and earthly branches, since heaven is yang and earth yin.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

534

Hayek

fully integrate temporal data in a calculation process. The numeral result is then converted back into a symbol, which in turn leads to a concrete diagnosis or prognosis. In other words, the core process of the chronomantic techniques I will discuss here consists of three sequences: the encoding of ‘concrete’ data into a numeral and symbolic system, followed by a calculation and a decoding sequence. It is precisely in these core sequences that the essence of systemized divination resides: the encoding of the surrounding world into ‘processable’ data. 3

A Large Array of Techniques

In order to exemplify how such a process is put into use, I would like to consider three different techniques pertaining to different categories: horoscopy, numerology, and a mix of both. When thinking of “chronomancy,” horoscopy seems an obvious choice, but as we will see, temporal variables also play an important role in numerology. I will first roughly introduce the techniques and shed some light on their historical backgrounds, before taking a closer look at their uses of temporal elements. Hakke Uranai 3.1 The first technique I chose as an example is known as “Eight trigrams divination,” or hakke uranai 八卦占い. It was mainly used in Japan roughly from the early sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, and was still known and used at least until the early twentieth century, although more discretely. As its name implies, it revolves around the eight trigrams, which are core elements of the Yijing 易經 or Zhouyi 周易. However, at least in its most basic form, hakke uranai bears only little direct relation to the Classic of Changes. Rather, it is derived from an ancient horoscopy method already attested in the Wuxing dayi 五行大 義 [Compendium of the Five Phases], a sixth-century cosmological treatise by Xiao Ji 蕭吉. This method, also present in Dunhuang manuscripts (ninth to tenth century), is called Bagua younian fa 八卦遊年法 (the annual transfer on the eight trigrams).4 Originally, it is a quite simple technique used to determine, for a given individual, the yearly position of a main mantic function called “annual transfer” among the eight trigrams. The position changes each year depending on the sex and age of the person in question, and other mantic 4 Kalinowski, Divination et société, 233–234, 254, 269.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

535

functions, either auspicious or inauspicious, are also positioned relatively to the main one. The directions for obtaining the younian position provided by the Wuxing dayi are as follows: For a man, count one year on Li. Go through the eight trigrams to the left. In other words, two is on Kun, three on Dui, four on Qian, five on Kan, six on Gen, seven on Zhen, eight on Xun, yet Xun cannot take eight, thus proceed to Li and count eight, nine on Kun, ten on Dui, and so on. When it comes to Kun, since Kun cannot take one, turn back to Li […]. For a woman, count one year on Kan, etc.5 As we can see, this original method presupposes a circular and oriented representation of the eight trigrams, although no such diagram is included in the Wuxing dayi itself. What is more, its use of temporal data (age) appears quite limited and involves only numerical values. From the position of the annual transfer, Xiao Ji’s text only infers two ‘bad’ other functions, and one auspicious one. In most Dunhuang manuscripts, the method resembles Xiao Ji’s presentation, with only little alterations. Still, two manuscripts should be noted for their differences: SP6 and S6164. The former introduces a total of eight functions, including younian, and the latter adds a new layer to the process of obtaining the younian position. To be more specific, S6164, which is also the only manuscript to show a circular arrangement of the trigrams, distinguishes six different cases regarding the starting point of the trigram counting (fig. 19.1). These cases proceed from an expansion of the sexagenary cycle theory to a 180 years cycle repeating itself from a single point placed at the origin of the world. Needless to say, this “great year” is composed of three sexagenary cycles. In this system, each cycle is called “monad” (yuan 元) and is given a rank (superior, middle, inferior). The starting trigram now depends not only on the sex, but also on the rank of the cycle containing the birth year. In Ancient Japan (Nara and Heian periods, eighth to twelfth centuries), official diviners used this technique to calculate individual directional restrictions called “trigram taboo” (hakke imi 八卦忌). Whether they used the basic system or the one with monades is not clear, but in any case, this hakke imi was never more than a singular prescription, without any application outside its original purpose. During Japanese medieval times (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries), 5 Author’s translation from Nakamura Shōchachi, “Gogyō Taigi” kōchū, 204; for a French translation, see Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination, 426–428.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

536

Figure 19.1

Hayek

Circular diagram of the eight trigrams in Dunhuang manuscript S6164

this technique developt further and eventually became an important part of court diviners’ activities. From the early fifteenth century, yearly prognostications based on this eight trigram horoscopy were delivered to courtiers along with annotated calendars. Only few such documents survive, but it seems they were shaped similarly as the calendars, that is, as folded books (orihon 折り本) with diagrams showing the positions of the mantic functions. By the late sixteenth century, the basic technique had been expanded into a full-fledged method, allowing for diagnosis and prognosis, by incorporating numerological procedures and re-integrating, to some extent, the Yijing hexagrams. It also absorbed other horoscopic techniques such as the “nine luminous stars” of Indian origin (kuyōshō 九翟星, that is the seven planets along with the two lunar nodes), or the “twelve conducts” (jūni’un 十二運), a kind of horoscope based on the monthly circulation of the five phases).6 In its final form, hakke uranai not only provided detailed monthly prognostics for a given individual,

6 On the conducts and the luminous stars and their relation to hakke uranai, see Hayek, “The Eight Trigrams”; for these elements in Dunhuang manuscripts, see Kalinowski, Divination et société, 103–104, 238–240.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

537

but could also be used, for instance, to find lost things, enquire into the fate of a traveler, or determine the cause of an illness.7 3.2 Shin’eki/Xin yi Numerology Compared to the eight trigrams method, the shin’eki numerology is a relatively new technique as far as its introduction in Japan is concerned. This numerical method is attributed to Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077), a famous Confucian thinker of the Song dynasty and philosophical opponent of the Cheng-Zhu school (Cheng Zhu lixue 程朱理學). Shao Yong made important contributions to the study of the Classic of Changes, most noticeably by revitalizing the “image and number” (xiangshu 象數) approach to this text. Inspired by the works of Han Confucian thinkers such as Jing Fang 京房 (78–37 BCE), who was among the first to build on the correlative properties of the trigrams and hexagrams, Shao emphasized the role of numbers8 and attempted to devise a cosmological system in which all the phenomena and universal cycles could be apprehended through numerical processes.9 Despite being most likely apocryphal, the Meihua xinyi 梅花心易 (Plum-blossom Changes in the mind) or Meihua yishu 梅花易数 (Plum-blossom reckonings on the Changes) technique does have some theoretical likeness with Shao Yong views, in so far as its main postulate is that it is possible to obtain hexagrams just by manipulating numbers extracted from contextual data, that is, without resorting to any instrument such as stalks or coins.10 The precise date of its introduction in Japan is unclear; official diviners seem not to have used it until the late medieval/early modern period. The oldest manuscript presenting this technique, the Kaden shōkōsetsu sensei shin’eki kesū 家伝邵康節先生心易卦数 [Master Shao Kangjie’s Reckonings on the Hexa­grams of the Changes in the Mind Passed Down in My Family], dates from 1587. Although it looks like it was copied from a Chinese (Ming period) book, no extant copies of an original text have hitherto been confirmed. Printed versions in Chinese were published in Japan since 1643, while some elements of the technique were introduced in handbooks devoted to the eight trigrams technique. Despite the publication of an early guide in 1680, shin’eki did not make a major breakthrough before Baba Nobutake’s handbook in Japanese, Baika shin’eki shōchū shinan 梅花心易 掌中指南 [A Guide to Plum-blossom Changes in the Mind in One Hand], was 7

For a more detailed overview of the history of this technique in Japan, see Hayek, “The Eight Trigrams” and “Les manuels de divination japonais.” 8 Suzuki Yoshijirō, Kan’eki Kenkyū, 29–36. 9 On Shao Yong, see Arrault, Shao Yong; Birdwhistell, Transition to Neo-Confucianism. 10 Smith, Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers, 111–112.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

538

Hayek

published in 1695.11 It then became one of the most important divinatory techniques among diviners, overshadowing the obsolescent hakke uranai, before losing ground to new Yijing-based methods devised by Japanese practitioners during the second part of the eighteenth century.12 3.3 Isshōkin/Yizhang Jin horoscopy This last method is probably the most difficult to introduce since there are still numerous open questions regarding its origin. Judging from the documents presently available, it first appeared in Japan at the end of the seventeenth century, in a Japanese edition of a Ming text called Kanming yizhang jin 看命 一掌金 [Treasure of the Fate Auscultation in One Hand]. It was again Baba Nobutake who produced a Japanese translation in 1705: Shinkoku kanmei isshō kin wage 新刻看命一掌金和解 [New Japanese Translation of the Treasure of the Fate Auscultation in One Hand], also based on a Ming version. This book is attributed to the famous Yi Xing 一行, a Chinese monk of the Tang period, known, among many other things, for his astronomical and calendrical knowledge. It is not rare to see his name linked to divinatory texts in Japan or in Korea, although there is little to no evidence of his actual involvement with these texts.13 The Kanming yizhang jin, however, was included in the Great Japan Additional Buddhist Canon (Jp. Dainippon zokuzōkyō 大日本續藏経), published in 1912. Its alternative Chinese title, Damo yizhangjing 達磨一掌經, further reinforces the Buddhist coloration of the text since it puts it under the patronage of Bodhidharma, the Indian father of Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen Buddhism. As we will see, the technique described by this text is based on the complete birth date of the ‘target,’ that is, the person seeking the advice of the diviner. In this regard, one could think it has some connection with the horoscopy techniques that grew and prospered during the Song period (tenth to thirteenth centuries), mostly thanks to Xu Juyi 徐居易, better known as Xu Ziping 徐子平 (907–960), a famous diviner of his time. To create a new divination technique, Xu Ziping allegedly built on a text attributed to the Tang dynasty diviner Li Xuzhong 李虚中 (762–813) and to the legendary master Guiguzi 鬼谷子, a Daoist immortal. This text, called Li Xuzhong mingshu 李虚中命書 [Li Xuzhong’s Book of Fate Calculation], included in the Siki quanshu collection 四 庫全書, does describe a horoscopy technique based on the birth date of the

11 12 13

Hayek, “Correcting the Old.” Naraba Masaru, Kinsei ekigaku kenkyū, 32–34. Osabe Kazuo, Ichigyō zenshi no kenkyū, 13–14.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

539

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

target, but with little to no emphasis on the hour or on the five phases.14 Xu Ziping’s technique, in contrast, focuses on the “four pillars” (sizhu 四柱) or “eight characters” (bazi 八字)—that is, the complete birth date expressed by the branch-stem combinations of the year, month, day, and hour—as well as on the five phases. And yet, aside from the very basic premises (the birth date), the method presented in the Kanming yizhang jin has no other common traits with Xu Ziping’s renowned technique. The importance of this horoscopy method in Edo Japan is difficult to evaluate. We do have testimonies that it was used in religious circles after the publication of Baba’s manual, which went through several reprints over time.15 However, there was no other book published on this subject, a fact which indicates a low reception level compared to other divination methods. After a “new translation” published in 1907 by Ikeda Tenryūshi 池田天竜子,16 the text seemingly fell into oblivion. Yet, it should be noted that what is nowadays known in Japan as Sanmeigaku 算命学 (science of fate calculation) bears some terminological and procedural similarities with our text. Interestingly enough, the situation is radically different in Korea, where the Damo yizhangjing served as a basis for one of the most popular fate-calculation techniques and for an illustrated book, based on that technique, called Tang saju 唐四柱 [The Four Pillars of China], or simply “saju.” While this name could lead to a confusion with Xu Ziping’s method, the terminology and process presented in Tang saju are mostly congruent with the contents of Kanming yizhang jin.17 4

Using Temporal Variables: Correlative Thinking, Hand Computation and Modular Arithmetic

Let us now take a closer look at how these three techniques use temporal variables in their calculations and at what role the hand plays in the process.

14 15 16 17

Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 154–156. Hayek, “Divinatory Practices”; Hayashi Makoto 林淳, “Kinsei onmyōji no katsudō to soshiki,” 208. This version is available through the National Diet Library of Japan’s ‘Digital Library from the Meiji Era’ via . On Korean Tang saju, see Chōsen sōtokufu, Chōsen no senboku to yogen, 452–461; Kim Si-dŏk, “Tōshichū shiron.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

540

Hayek

4.1 Hakke Uranai As mentioned earlier, hakke uranai, as a horoscopy technique, fully qualifies as a form of “chronomancy.” In the form commonly used since the seventeenth century, it has two main applications: annual prognosis and circumstantial answer/prediction to a specific query. These two facets follow similar steps when it comes to the procedure through which results are obtained. Starting with the ‘horoscopic’ aspect, there are at least four main steps: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Determining the “monad” in which the target was born Determining his or her personal trigram and star Determining his or her “induced sound” (inner phase of the birth year) (natchin, Ch. nayin 納音) Consulting the diagram which shows the positions of the eight mantic functions, and deriving the monthly prognosis or monthly horoscope

For step 1, the diviner needs to know the birth year of the target, or at least his or her age so he can retrieve the year and its branch-stem combination. Early Modern folded books and printed handbooks provided tools such as lists of the monads to help diviners with this first step. For the second step, the diviner would consult two circular diagrams, allowing him to count the years over the trigrams and the nine luminous stars (fig. 19.2). As we can see in the picture, at the bottom of the diagrams there were indications on how to count. For a man born in a first monad, the counting starts from Ri ☲; for one born in a second monad, it starts from Son ☴; for one born in a third monad, in starts from Da ☱. For a woman, it starts either from Kan ☵, Ken ☰, or Shin ☳. The counting order varies according to the sex and to the branch and stem of the birth year. For a Yang-man, for example, a man born under a yang-yang branch-stem combination, the trigrams are counted clockwise; for a Yin-man (yin-yin branch-stem combination) counter-clockwise. For women, the counting order is exactly reversed. What is more, the counting should not be done straightforward, for there are restrictions imposed by some numbers, reminiscent of the aforementioned indications given by the Wuxing dayi. Thus, upon counting eight, forty-eight and eighty-eight on a trigram one should instead skip to the next one, while upon reaching forty-one, eighty-one, and a hundred and one, the same trigram should be counted twice. The luminous star is obtained in a similar fashion, although without any restrictions. Thus, both of these last steps involve computations over circular diagrams, and the first one at least follows a precise algorithm. The computation involved can be conducted as described above—but according to seventeenth-century

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

Figure 19.2

541

Circular diagrams in a 1708 edition of Hakke-bon [Book of Trigrams] (held at the Bibliothèque de l’Institut des hautes études japonaises du Collège de France, Paris)

manuals, it can also be done without the diagrams on paper, by projecting the circle on one’s left hand. This use of the hand was fully disclosed in 1698 by Baba Nobutake in his “Shūeki” hakke zōhon-shō 周易八卦蔵本鈔 [A Selection From My Books on the Eight Trigrams of the “Zhouyi”] and its augmented reprint of 1703, Tsūhen hakke shōchū-shinan 通変八卦掌中指南 [A Guide to the Con­ tinuous Changes of the Eight Trigrams on One Hand], but the technique had been mentioned earlier in other materials, such as manuscript manuals (figs. 19.3 and 19.4). As for the third step, it is achieved with the help of a table, often a circular one, showing the inner phases associated with the branch-stems combinations. There are thirty of them (one for a pair of two combinations), with names expressing multiple variations of the basic five phases. For example, Fire comes in six different types, such as “Fire up in Heaven” (tenjō no hi 天上 火), “Fire under the mountain” (sanka no hi 山下火), etc. These inner phases, or

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

542

Hayek

Figure 19.3 The eight trigrams projected on a left hand, in Shingon himitsu hakke kuden 真言秘密八卦口伝 [Shingon Secret Transmission on the Eight Trigrams] (1693; held at the Bibliothèque de l’Institut des hautes études japonaises du Collège de France, Paris)

Figure 19.4 The eight trigrams projected on a left hand, in Baba Nobutake, Tsūhen hakke shōchū-shinan 通変八卦掌 中指南 [A Guide to the Continuous Changes of the Eight Trigrams in One Hand] (1703; private collection)

“induced sounds,” play a key role, for they give the phase of the individual target herself, which will eventually come under consideration when determining the results of the divination. This natchin table could in turn be projected onto one’s left hand, as can be seen in Terajima Ryōan’s 寺島良安 famous encyclopedia, Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 [ Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Three Powers] (c. 1715).18 Although no early modern special18

See Terajima Ryōan, Wakan sansai zue, vol. 5, f° 13r. In this case, the natchin are reduced to fifteen characters standing for a pair of ‘sounds,’ and thus for four branch-stem combinations. These fifteen items, and therefore the method itself, were already mentioned in a medieval treatise on hemerology, Sangoku sōden onmyō kankatsu hoki naiden kin’u gyokutoshū 三國相傳陰陽輨轄簠簋内伝金烏玉兎集 [The Book of the Gold Crow and

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

543

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

ized manual describes this method, we can see it in actual use in a Kyōgen 狂 言 (farce) play, Igui, where a diviner using the eight trigrams technique resorts to what he calls “hand divination” (teura 手占).19 In the play, the diviner ‘counts’

with his left thumb over the other fingers, while enunciating the names of the natchin. The last step involves a set of square diagrams (ban 盤) showing the eight trigrams arranged within nine cells, the position of the mantic functions as well as other directional, temporal, and numeral elements (fig. 19.5). In early handbooks, these diagrams are followed by monthly predictions, from the first to the twelfth month, which apply to the target depending on his or her personal trigram. In other books, we instead find refined horoscopes for each birth month.

Fortune Fortune 5 wind 5 wind dragon 33 snakesnake dragon 4 4

Birth house Birth house 4 wood4 wood 22rabbit rabbit

Disaster Disaster 7 mountain 7 mountain tiger 1 ox 12 tiger 1 ox 12 Figure 19.5

Annualtransfer transfer Annual 3 fire3 fire 5 5 horse horse

Seishi (Ri) Seishi (Ri) fire fire

Collapsing body Collapsing 6 water body rat 611 water rat 11

Soultransfer transfer Soul earth 8 8earth sheep sheep 6 6monkey monkey7 7

Heavenly doctor Heavenly doctor 2 2metal metal 8 8 rooster rooster

Collapsing destiny Collapsing 1 heavendestiny 1 heaven boar 10 dog 9 boar 10 dog 9

Square diagram with Ri as the central trigram

Here again, the hand may serve as a mnemonic or computing device: according to the Wakan sansai zue, the word teura actually refers to a way of deter­mining the respective position of the trigrams, and hence of reconstructing

19

the Jade Hare, Secret and Exposed, of the Round Vessel and the Square Vessel, the Wheel and the Wedge, the Yin and the Yang, Transmitted Through the Three Countries], probably compiled during the fourteenth century. On the diviner in this play, see Hayek, “San’oki kō.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

544

Hayek

fiGURE 19.6 Teura in Terajima Ryōan’s Wakan sansai zue (c. 1715, held at the ­Bibliothèque de l’Institut des hautes études japonaises du Collège de France, Paris)

the square diagrams, by counting in a very specific fashion, successively folding and unfolding fingers of the left hand (fig. 19.6).20 Thus, all the primary steps of this technique can be performed either with tables and diagrams on paper or within the left hand of the diviner. These two fashions may not have been self-exclusive, for diagrams and tables were not only tools for the diviner, but also items to be shown to the client.21 In any case, from these four steps, we can see that hakke uranai relies heavily on the correlative properties of one basic temporal variable: the birth year of the target. In other words, the numeral and symbolic data extracted for this single source serve as primary value to ‘encode’ the target in a divinatory language, before processing the encoded data in order to obtain results. In the second facet of hakke uranai, temporal data play an even greater role. This other aspect of eight trigrams divination consists of a technique that aims to find an answer to a specific query. In its simplest form, called “double entry list calculation” (nimokuroku san 二目録算), queries are classed in ten types, usually “things seen,” “things heard,” “things obtained,” “expected persons” 20 21

Terajima Ryōan, Wakan sansai zue, vol. 5, f° 27v. Hayek, “San’oki kō.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

545

(usually expanded to children yet to be born), “weird phenomena,” “things lost” (expanded to ‘fugitives’), “wishes,” “travels” (expanded to business), “lawsuits,” “dreams,” and sometimes “illness.” Each type of query, except for “illness,” has an associated numeral: 3, 8, 2, 1, 6, 7, 4, 5, 2, 2. These numerals are to be added to another value given by the temporal context of the event. The procedure follows three steps: 1. 2. 3.

Determining the personal trigram of the target and consulting the corresponding diagram Adding the numerical values from the query and from the branch of the day/hour: if the total exceeds eight, subtract eight as many times as possible Identifying the mantic function designated by the previous result, and consulting the list of results, while making adjustments through other correlative means if needed

In the case of illness, the date is taken as primary value and is not subject to a calculation. Rather, the branch of the day when the symptoms appeared (or the month, if the day is not known) is used to reach a trigram through the associations presented in the square diagram. Thus, be it through their numerical values or correlated symbolism, temporal data serve here as primary variable to integrate both the target and his or her query into the divinatory system. That is to say, by using data of the same nature (temporal data expressed by numbers), it becomes possible to encode the target and his or her query in a common, ‘processable’ and interpretable language, in order to later decode their symbolic link and to obtain an appropriate answer derived from the same logic. What is more, the processing of the data is done in a very specific manner: by adding significant values (temporal and symbolic) and subtracting eight to get a remainder, which in turn leads to the result. This operation corre­ sponds to what is known as chu (Jp. jo) 除 in Chinese and Japanese mathe­matics, which can be expressed as a Euclidean division, here by eight.22 What is important here though is the remainder, rather than the result of the division. In arithmetics, finding the remainder of such a division is called a modulo operation, and as such we can say this divination technique is based on modular arithmetic. In other words, if we call a this symbolic value associated to each 22

In the documents I have examined, the Japanese verb harafu 拂ふ (to expel) is used instead of this mathematical term, but the operation is the same. On the chu operation, see Cullen, Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China; Chemla & Guo, Les neuf chapitres.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

546

Hayek

query, and b the value attributed to the time of the day, the operation involved here would be: r = (a+b) mod 8 Far from being coincidental, I would rather argue that this operation is in fact organically linked to the nature of the data and symbols considered. As a matter of fact, in China and Japan the measurement of time is conducted on a modular basis at every degree, from the year to the days. Moreover, the layout of the trigrams on a circular diagram can be said to emphasize their cyclical (or modular) properties, echoing those of time itself. In this regard, the remainder represents the quintessential result of the integration of temporal/personal data into the divination system; it characterizes the specific case put under the diviner’s scrutiny. As we will see, the other two techniques involve a similar process and push the congruency between the cycle of time and individual destinies even further. In the case of hakke uranai, it should be noted that besides the birth year, other temporal data are not used for their rank value, but mostly for their symbolic numeral value, defined a priori by the system. 4.2 Shin’eki Numerology In the case of “Plum-blossom” numerology, temporal variables of different types are involved in various fashions. As already mentioned, this technique revolves around obtaining numerical values in order to arrive at full hexagrams, which then may be interpreted. These values can be obtained in several manners, but the easiest and most fundamental way is to use contextual temporal data. In Baba Nobutake’s handbook, the very first method for determining a hexagram to be presented is this very technique of integrating dates and hours. After discussing the properties of the five phases, Baba explains the division of the day into twelve hours, and how these hours are associated with the twelve branches. He continues with a method for associating the ten stems with the twelve months and, next, with a “secret transmission” on how to know the branch that designates a given hour based on the course of the day. Finally, he provides a way to know the stems associated with a given hour, depending on the stem of the day. Baba also gives a ‘hand mnemonic’ version of these tables, allowing the user to calculate these elements by picturing the table’s multiple entries on his left hand. He presents us with a similar method for the basic way to obtain a hexagram, in a total of five steps:

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

547

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Inputting the year Inputting the month Inputting the day to determine the upper trigram Inputting the hour to determine the lower trigram Re-inputting all the data to determine the “mutating” lines

For the first four steps, the eight trigrams (symbolized by an element) are distributed among the bases and tips of the four fingers, leaving the thumb free (fig. 19.7). For the last one, the table is reduced to three fingers only (fig. 19.8). Baba gives a concrete example of the procedure for a specific date (Year of the Dragon, seventeenth day of the twelfth month, hour of the monkey), which can be summarized as follows: Starting from the tip of the small finger, associated with the element “heaven,” one counts counter-clockwise from the first branch (ne) until reaching the branch of the year (tatsu=5) at the base of the index finger (wind). Then one starts from the next point and count 12 for the month, reaching the tip of the small finger (heaven), and, starting again from the next point, counts 17 for the day, and arrives on “marsh.” This will be the upper part of the hexagram, that is, Da (Ch. Dui) ☱. From the next position, one counts again from the first hour (ne) to the hour of the monkey (saru=9) and reaches the tip of the middle finger (fire), that is, Ri (Ch. Li) ☲, which is the lower part of the hexagram. Thus the full hexagram is Marsh-Fire-Skinning (Kaku/Ge 革) ䷰. In order to determine the mutating line, the whole process is repeated using only the small finger, ring finger, and middle finger (one finger part stands for one line). Starting with the first (lowest) line on the tip of the small finger, one counts 5 to the base of the ring finger, 12 to the same place, 17 to the base of the middle finger, and 9 to the tip of the small finger. This means the first line is mutating. Since in Kaku it is a yang line, it will become a yin line and form the hexagram Marsh-Mountain-Reciprocity (Kan/Xian 咸) ䷞. As this example demonstrates, in contrast to the eight trigrams divination, the core temporal data here is the date of the day of divination, and not the birthday of the target. What is more, year and hour markers (branches) are used for their rank value, and not for a symbolic one. It should be noted, however, that the counting technique is very similar to that of hakke uranai, that is, counting in a circular motion on a table. At first glance, this numerology, despite its name, seems devoid of operation, but in fact the process described above can be converted into a simple calculation by adding the three first values and subtracting eight as many times as possible. The remaining number, 2, gives the upper trigram Da. Doing the same calculation after adding 9 for the hour results in 3, which points to the lower trigram Ri. A similar process replacing eight by six provides the mutating line.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

548

Hayek

FigURES 19.7 The eight trigrams on one hand. Baba Nobutake, Baika shin’eki shōchū shinan (1695; private collection)

FigURES 19.8 The six lines on one hand. Baba Nobutake, Baika shin’eki shōchū shinan (1695; private collection)

In other words, we are again facing a modulo operation, or rather three successive ones. If a is the value of the branch of the year, b the branch value of the month, c the branch value of the day, and d the branch value of the hour, then the operations to find the remainders r1, r2 and r3 are as follows: r1=(a+b+c) mod 8 r2= (a+b+c+d) mod 8 r3= (a+b+c+d) mod 6 Like in the list calculation of hakke uranai, the modulus is the number of trigrams (8) for the two first operations (intended to find trigrams) and the number of lines within a hexagram (6) for the last one. However, unlike in hakke uranai, all the values (a, b, c, d) are themselves pre-encoded in the same fashion, that is, modular 12, so they can be said to be all on the same level. This is not the only way to attain a hexagram in shin’eki numerology: other methods make use of a numerical encoding of some sort by establishing direct symbolic associations between a trigram and creatures, phenomena, directions, etc. For example, one can count birds in the sky, look at what direction they come from, or even write down the word he or the target heard and count

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

549

the strokes of the characters. Yet, in most cases, temporal data still play a role at some point. For instance, it is usually possible to integrate the values extracted from the date in order to get the lower part of the hexagram, even though its upper part was obtained by other means. What is more, in his handbook, Baba shares a discussion he supposedly had with someone about how to extract the numbers from the date, the main question being how to deal with intercalary months. It should also be noted that although this technique aims at extracting numbers or inferring trigrams from virtually any kind of observable or perceptible source, the paradigmatic example giving its name to the technique, that is, “Plum-blossom divination,” uses only temporal data as a basis. Finally, temporality comes into play again in the interpretative process: once the main hexagram is obtained, other figures are inferred from it, namely the mutating hexagram (from the mutating line) and the corresponding hexagram (from a recombination of the lines). In this process, the diviner has to determine which parts of the hexagrams should be retained as “essential” (tai 體) and “contextual” (yō 用) and reflect upon the relation between the two. This relation follows the fundamental correspondences between the five phases (generative or dominant), which can in turn be influenced by circumstantial elements such as their season cycles. Thus, in shin’eki numerology, temporal data are not only the starting point of divination, but also a core interpretative element. Not unlike in hakke uranai, the main process consists of an encoding of reality into ‘processable’ values. However, shin’eki, being in that regard faithful to its Yijing-based background, does not encode the target (client) itself, but focuses on the contextual elements at the time of the consultation. Yet, it fundamentally differs from the other Yijing-based techniques in so far that, in contrast to, for example, coin tossing or stalks drawing, it uses linked variables instead of independent ones. In other words, whoever devised this method transformed the original aim of the Yijing-based cleromancy by replacing the coincidental way of obtaining numbers, supposed to capture and mirror the cosmic dynamics at the time of the consultation, with a circumstantial one which allows to interrogate directly a sort of ‘cosmic clock’ to get an almost instantaneous overview of symbolic correlations at a given time. Isshōkin Horoscopy 4.3 The main technique described in Baba’s translation of the Kanming yizhang jin is quite straightforward compared to the previous two. As its Korean name, saju or “Four pillars,” indicates, the core value is the full birth date of the target,

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

550

Hayek

including the hour.23 By processing this value, the diviner determines which “stars” or “palaces,” among a set of twelve corresponding to the twelve branches, rules the target’s character and life. These stars are in turn distributed among a modified version of the “six paths of existence,” (Jp. rokudō 六道), a crucial notion in Buddhist doctrine. Namely, we have here the path of the buddhas (butsudō 仏道), the path of the (hungry) ghosts (kidō 鬼道—replacing the path of Hell), the path of man (nindō 人道), the path of animals (chiku(shō)dō 畜生 道), the path of the Asuras (shura(dō) 修羅道), and the path of the Immortals (sendō 仙道), standing for the path of the Deva (tendō 天道). This aspect, along with the presence in the text of a technique to be used when choosing a novice, may explain its pervasiveness in the Buddhist canon, as well as its use by Buddhist-affiliated practitioners in Early Modern Japan. The twelve palaces or stars are the following: Heavenly nobility (tenki 天貴), Heavenly calamity (tenyaku 天厄), Heavenly authority (tenken 天権), Heavenly destruction (tenha 天破), Heavenly wickedness (tenkan 天奸), Heavenly letter (tenfun 天文), Heavenly good fortune (tenfuku 天福), Heavenly station (ten’eki 天驛), Heavenly loneliness (tenko 天孤), Heavenly blade (tenjin 天刃), Heavenly art (tenkei 天藝), and Heavenly longevity (tenju 天寿). The repartition of the stars within the paths and their association with the branches can be summarized as in table 19.1. Table 19.1 The twelve stars, six paths, and corresponding branches

丑 寅 卯 辰 巳 午 未 申 酉 戌 亥 Branch 子 彿道 鬼道 人道 畜道 修羅 仙道 彿道 鬼道 人道 畜道 修羅 仙道 Path 天貴 天厄 天権 天破 天奸 天文 天福 天驛 天孤 天刃 天藝 天寿 Star

Each star bears specific properties that will guide the prognostic. As their names imply, there are good and bad palaces with different types of influence on the target’s destiny. Even though it thus uses only a limited number of variables and functions, this horoscopy is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. When calculating a fate by means of this technique, the diviner does not need to determine only one star, but actually four, one for each “pillar.” Thus, there are in fact 20,736 (124) different possible combinations, with precise rules regarding cases where the same star is present twice, or when one

23

Baba, in his translation, also presents the four variables as the ‘four pillars,’ shichū.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

551

fIGURE 19.9 Circular diagram of the twelve stars and six paths. Baba Nobutake, Shinkoku kanmei isshōkin wage, f° 9 v. (1705; private collection)

given star and another are present. For instance, the combination of ten’eki and tenki is inauspicious and implies poor health and harsh times for the target. What is more, the combination is not obtained simply by checking the stars corresponding to the branches of the year, month, day, and hour. Rather, like with the other techniques, in order to obtain the stars, the diviner has to compute over a circular diagram disposed like a clock, or else project the same diagram onto his left hand (figs. 19.9 and 19.10). The specificity of the operation here is that there are two layers: one fixed, with the diagram bearing the stars and the branches, and one ‘moving,’ bearing only the branches to be counted. The computing process starts with the branch year, which directly reveals the first star. Then, whatever the actual branch is, it is considered to be the first one in the cycle, namely “rat.” The diviner proceeds from this “rat” branch to the branch of the month, while counting on the fixed diagram or his hand. The process is then repeated twice, for the day and the hour. For men, the counting should be done clockwise, and for women counter-clockwise. Baba, however, gives a slightly different process with the case of a man born at the hour of the sheep on the nineteenth day (tiger) of the second month (rabbit) of a year of the tiger. The starting point will be the base of the index finger, bearing the tiger branch and the tenken star, but it is the next branch (rabbit) that is then taken as the first branch (rat) and we need to count clockwise until reaching the rabbit branch, which will fall at the top of the middle finger, on “horse”/tenfuku, the second star. The next branch (sheep, on the top of the ring finger) is again considered as “rat,” and we count to reach the tiger branch, which falls on the middle phalanx of the small finger, home to the rooster branch/tenjin, the third star. We then repeat the process for the branch

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

552

Hayek

fIGURE 19.10 The twelve stars and six paths on the hand. Baba Nobutake, Shinkoku kanmei isshōkin wage, f° 10 r (1705; private collection).

of the day, starting from the next point (dog) and counting up to “sheep,” which falls on the top of the index finger, bearing “serpent”/tenbun. Since most of the stars in this example are auspicious ones, the horoscope is overall positive: it characterizes a man of great intelligence who will be healthy and in good shape even in his late years. However, the presence of a bad star (tennin) clouds the prognosis somewhat, hinting at ill-witted decisions guided by greed. Depending on the circumstances or the nature of the inquiry, the same method can also be used with other dates than the date of birth, for example, the current date. Kanmei horoscopy thus shares common points with the method of the eight trigrams and shin’eki numerology, while also featuring conspicuous differences. Like in hakke uranai, the way of counting varies according to the target’s sex. However, the core variables are the “four pillars,” like in shin’eki, and not only the birth year. Also, although it does not appear clearly in the text of the Kanming yizhang jin, the branches are used for their positional values (counting the branches in order is the same as counting their rank number), like in shin’eki and in hakke uranai. Contrary to the other two methods, Isshōkin horoscopy integrates the values progressively within four modular additions, since it needs all the intermediary remainders to reach the final, four-termed figure. For a man, if a is the branch number of the year, b the branch number of the month, c the branch number of the day, and d the branch number of the hour, then we can express the procedure to get the final result R formed by r1, r2, r3, and r4, as follows:

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

r1 = a mod 12 r2 = (a+b–1) mod 12 or, for Baba’s version: r3 = (a+b+c–2) mod 12 r4 = (a+b+c+d–3) mod 12

553 r1 = a mod 12 r2 = (a+b) mod 12 r3 = (a+b+c) mod 12 r4 = (a+b+c+d) mod 12

For a woman, since the counting goes in ‘reverse,’ the operations are instead modular subtractions: (a–b+1) mod 12 or (a–b) mod 12 etc.24 The fixed diagram thus stands as a kind of dial, on which the diviner successively inputs temporal values to encode the target in symbolic terms. 5 Conclusion As we have seen, temporal data expressed in a unified system (branches and their numeral equivalents), whether used for their numerical or symbolic value, play an essential role as the main variables in different types of techniques pertaining to different type. From the way these data are processed in the three techniques introduced, we can say that whatever their differences, they rely on a similar logic and belong to the broader category of “chronomancy.” Besides their primary variables, these techniques have at least three other common points: they all resort to symbolically coded circular diagrams, they all involve modular operations, or at least are based on the modular proprieties of time measurement, and they can all be performed by turning the left hand into a ‘computing’ device used to ‘dial’ the values to arrive at symbols. The role played by the hand here is that of a mnemonic support, which helps the diviner memorize the multiple algorithmic tables involved in these techniques. It should be stressed, however, that it is not a passive process: by circulating around the tables projected on the hand, the diviner can progressively assimilate the arithmetic processes. In that regard, the tabular properties of this particular body part allow it to stand as a direct line to the cosmos, shaped in the form of a universal table. In other words, the hand appears as a tool ‘naturally designed’ to reflect cosmic principles and macrocosmic order, or even as a concrete expression of the identity of macrocosm and microcosm (tenjin sōō 天人相応). As such, and although the variables are far fewer in numbers, these horoscopy and numerology methods are reminiscent of older and more complex 24

In that case, negative results can be converted into positive ones by symmetry: –12 is the same as 2 (丑), –6 is the same as 8 (未) etc. Since there is no zero, 子 counts as 1 for men and –1 for women.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

554

Hayek

techniques involving divination boards (Jp. shiki, Ch. shi 式), which are known at least since early Han China and were used by Japanese court diviners until the late Middle Age.25 These boards were composed of two parts, a square one and a hemispherical one, each bearing inscriptions of symbolic and temporal meaning. In order to obtain a result, the diviner would rotate the round part according to temporal values (time of consultation, etc.). Following this parallel between ancient divination boards and the diagrams of our Early Modern “chronomancy” techniques, or their hand-projected versions, it would not be much of a stretch to consider the latter as forms of “cosmographs”—or distant expressions of ancient Chinese “modular cosmography,” as Marc Kalinowski calls the device “calendar astrology” is based on.26 In this regard, the operation of counting one trigram or branch after another over the diagrams, which could seem a rather bothersome process at first glance, may appear in a different light. Although in most cases it would be sufficient to apply a formula directly to get to the results faster, I would argue that there is in fact a ritual and ‘performative’ meaning to the process of counting itself. Likewise, in board divination, the successive manipulations of the shi/ shiki are not merely technical steps, but also have a ritual dimension. As a matter of fact, we know of rituals in Chinese Daoist and Buddhist contexts where the participants actually recreate cosmographs similar to divination boards by their actions and movements.27 As for Japan, ritual uses of shikiban in Buddhist circles are attested at least from the Kamakura period (late twelfth to early fourteenth centuries).28 What is more, court divination performed with a shikiban played an important role within an imperial ceremony called konrō no miura 軒廊御卜, conducted on special occasions, such as when natural

25

26 27

28

On the “three models” (sanshi 三式) of board divination, see Kalinowski, Divination et société, 226–228; and Ho, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 36–82. On the Liuren 六壬 method, which was extensively used in China and Japan, see Kalinowski, “Les instruments,” 309–419; and, again, Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology, 113–138. On shikiban 式盤 in Heian Japan, see Kosaka Shinji 小坂眞二, “Kodai, chūsei no uranai“ and Abe no Seimei-sen Senji ryakketsu to onmyōdō. Kalinowski, “Astrologie calendaire,” 71. See, for instance, Kalinowski’s presentation of the ritual application of the “nine palaces”, a cosmograph linked to board divination and divination by the eight trigrams; see Kalinowski, “La Transmission.” For the place of cosmograms in Daoist tradition, see also Steavu-Balint, “The Three Sovereigns Tradition,” 263–264. On Buddhist practices linked to cosmographs in Medieval Japan, see Nishioka Yoshifumi, “Shikiban o matsuru shuhō,” 11–21, and “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals.”; see also Trenson, “Shingon Divination Board Rituals and Rainmaking.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

555

disasters or anomalies of great importance occurred.29 The inputting/dialing of the values within the device, be it a board or immaterial diagrams projected on the hand, can thus be seen as echoing such ritual procedures. By counting or computing carefully, the diviner concretely enacts the encoding of the individual data into the correlative system, and this ritual action allows for the integration of the target itself within the cosmological framework.30 Temporal data, then, appear as the ultimate key to integrate beings and events into a broad and complex correlative system of signs and symbols, that is, to encode microcosmic elements in a macrocosmic language, which can be submitted to a systematized interpretative framework. Regardless of the complexity of the symbolic relations the diviner has to master, the core data consist of temporal elements of the most mundane sort (year, month, day, hour), accessible to and knowable by virtually anybody. Conversely, the knowledge of such data is thus mandatory for someone willing to understand his or her place within the microcosm-macrocosm continuum. To some extent, we may even say that, as far as such divination techniques are concerned, the cosmic dynamics can be apprehended through very simple calculations precisely because they have been encoded beforehand into symbolically charged temporal data. Thus, in Early Modern Japan, the divisions of time were not only practical conventions. They were also a key to access a greater understanding of reality, and one’s place and fate within it.

Works Cited



Primary Sources

Baba Nobutake 馬場信武. Baika shineki shōchu shinan 梅花心易掌中指南 [A Guide to Plum-blossom Changes in the Mind in One Hand]. Kyoto: Uesaka Kanbē; Nagata Chōbē, 1697. Baba Nobutake. “Shūeki” hakke zōhon-shō 周易八卦蔵本鈔 [A Selection from my Books on the Eight Trigrams of the “Zhouyi”]. Kyoto: Kyōraishi, 1698. Baba Nobutake. Tsūhen hakke shōchū shinan 通変八卦掌中指南 [A Guide to the Con­ tinuous Changes of the Eight Trigrams in One Hand]. 1703. Baba Nobutake. Shinkoku kanmei isshōkin wage 新刻看命一掌金和解 [New Japanese Translation of the Treasure of the Fate Auscultation in One Hand]. Osaka: Kashiharaya Kyōuemon, et al., 1705. 29 30

Nishioka Yoshifumi, “Rikujin shikisen to konrō no miura,” 79–103. For a very detailed reconstruction of a Japanese case of board divination, see Hosoi Hiroshi, “Rikujin senpō no ichi tejun ni kansuru oboegaki.”

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

556

Hayek

Higashi Rintō 東隣唐. Shingon himitsu hakke kuden 真言秘密八卦口伝 [Shingon Secret Transmission on the Eight Trigrams]. 1693. Kalinowski, Marc. Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne: Le compendium des cinq agents, Wuxing dayi, VIe siècle. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1991. Nakamura Shōchachi 中村璋八, ed. “Gogyō taigi” kōchū 五行大義校註 [Annotated Edition of the “Compendium of the Five Phases”]. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1984. Terajima Ryōan 寺島良安. Wakan sansai zue 和漢三才図会 [Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Three Realms of China and Japan]. Osaka: Iekda-ya (Okada Saburōemon 岡田三 郎右衛門), c. 1712.



Secondary Sources

Arrault, Alain. Shao Yong (1012–1077): poète et cosmologue. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des hautes études chinoises, 2002. Birdwhistell, Anne D. Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung on Knowledge and Symbols of Reality. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. Chemla, Karine, and Guo Shuchun. Les neuf chapitres: Le classique mathématique de la Chine ancienne and ses commentaires. Paris: Dunod, 2004, Chōsen sōtokufu 朝鮮総督府 [Governor-General of Korea]. Chōsen no senboku to yogen 朝鮮の占卜と預言 [Divination and Prediction in Korea]. Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1972. Cullen, Christopher. Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The “Zhou Bi Suan Jing”. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hanson, Marta. “Hand Mnemonics in Classical Chinese Medicine: Texts, Earliest Images, and Arts of Memory.” Asia Major, 3rd series, 21, no. 1 (2008): 325–357. Hayashi Makoto 林淳. “Kinsei Onmyōji No Katsudō to Soshiki: Wakasugi-ke Kyūzō No Ichishiryō No Shōkai 近世陰陽師の活動と組織―— 若杉家舊藏の一史料の紹介 [Practice and Organization of Onmyōji in the Edo Period: An Presentation of the Wakasugi Family Documents Collection].” Aichi Gakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyō 愛 知學院大學文學部紀要 [Bulletin of the Faculty of Literature of Aichi Gakuin University] 17 (1988): 211–293. Hayek, Matthias. “San’oki kō: chūsei kara kinsei shoki made no uranaishi no jittai o sagutte 算置考– 中世から近世初期までの占い師の実態を探って [A Study of Diviners known as San’oki: An Investigation into the Condition of Fortune-Tellers from Medieval to Edo-Period Japan].” Kyōto Minzoku 京都民俗 [Kyōto Folklore] 27 (2010): 1–26. Hayek, Matthias. “The Eight Trigrams and Their Changes: An Inquiry into Japanese Early Modern Divination.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 38, no. 2 (2011): 329–368. Hayek, Matthias. “Correcting the Old, Adapting the New Baba Nobutake and the (Relative) Rejuvenation of Divination in the Seventeenth Century.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 40, no. 1 (2013): 139–156.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Correlating Time Within One’s Hand

557

Hayek, Matthias. “Les manuels de divination japonais au début de l’époque d’Edo (xviie siècle): décloisonnement, compilation, et vulgarisation.” Extrême-Orient ExtrêmeOccident 35 (2013): 83–112. Hayek, Matthias. “Divinatory Practices and Knowledge in Early Modern Japan: Redefining Onmyōdō from the Inside.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 21 (2014): 255–274. Ho, Peng Yoke. Chinese Mathematical Astrology: Reaching Out to the Stars. London: Routledge-Curzon, 2003. Hosoi Hiroshi 細井浩志. “Rikujin senpō no ichi tejun ni kansuru oboegaki: ‘honchō seiki’ ninpei gannen (1151) rokugatsu nijūshichinichi-jō no isejingū kai’i senmon ni tsuite 六壬占法の一手順に関する覚書 : 『本朝世紀』仁平元年（1151 ）6 月27 日条の伊 勢神宮怪異占文について [Note on a Procedure of the Rikujin Divinatory Method: About Divination Reports on Anomalies Which Occurred in Ise-Shrine as can be seen in ‘Honchō seiki’ Ninpei 1 (1151)/6/27 article].” Kassui ronbunshū 活水論文集 [Kassui Collected Papers] 46 (March 31, 2003): 147–160. Kalinowski, Marc. “Les instruments astro-calendériques des Han et la méthode liu-ren.” Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 72 (1983): 309–419. Kalinowski, Marc. “La Transmission du dispositif des neuf palais sous les six dynasties.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R.A. Stein, edited by Michael Strickmann, vol. 3, pp. 773–811. Bruxelles: Institut belge des hautes études chinoises, 1985. Kalinowski, Marc. “Astrologie calendaire et calcul de position dans la Chine ancienne: les mutations de l’hémérologie sexagésimale entre le IVe et le IIe siècles avant notre ère.” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 18, no. 18 (1996): 71–113. Kalinowski, Marc, ed. Divination et société dans la Chine médiévale: Étude des manuscrits de Dunhuang de la bibliothèque nationale de France et de la British Library. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2003. Kim Si-dŏk 金時徳. “Tōshichū shiron: Chūgoku, Nihon no bunken to no shoshigakuteki na hikaku ni yotte 『唐四柱』試論ー中国・日本の文献との書誌学的な比較に依 ってー [Essay on “The Four Pillars of China”: By Means of a Bibliographical Com­ parison of Chinese and Japanese Documents].” In Shinpojiumu e-iri uranaibon no kokusaiteki hikaku kenkyū hōkokusho 『シンポジウム「絵入り占本の国際的比較 研究」報告書』 [Collected papers of the “International Comparative Research of Illustrated Divinatory Books” Symposium], edited by Ishikawa Tōru 石川透, pp. 28–40. Tokyo: Keiō gijuku daigaku, 2012. Kosaka Shinji 小坂眞二. “Kodai, chūsei no uranai 古代・中世の占い [Ancient and Medieval Divination].” In Onmyōdō sōsho 陰陽道叢書 [Collected Works on the Way of yin-yang], edited by Murayama Shūichi 村山修一 et al., vol. 4, pp. 19–75. Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1993. Kosaka Shinji. Abe no seimei sen senji ryakketsu to onmyōdō 安倍晴明撰占事略決と陰 陽道 [The Abridged Guide to Divination by Abe no Seimei and the Way of yin-yang]. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 2004.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

558

Hayek

Naraba Masaru 奈良場勝. Kinsei ekigaku kenkyū: Edo jidai no eki’sen 近世易学研究― 江 戸時代の易占 [Research on Yijing Studies in the Early Modern Times: Yijing Divination in the Edo Period]. Tokyo: Ōfū, 2010. Nishioka, Yoshifumi 西岡芳文. “Aspects of Shikiban-Based Mikkyō Rituals.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 21 (2014): 137–162. Nishioka, Yoshifumi. “Rikujin shikisen to konrō no miura 六壬式占と軒廊御卜 [Liuren­ shi Divination and the Imperial Ceremony konrō no miura].” In Ōken to jingi 王権と 神祇 [The Royal Power and the Gods], pp. 79–103. Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 2002. Nishioka, Yoshifumi. “Shikiban o matsuru shuhō: shōten shikihō, tonjō shitjihō, dakinihō 式盤をまつる修法– 聖天式法・頓成悉地法・ダキニ法 [Rituals for Placating Divination Boards: ‘shōten shiki’ method, ‘tonjō shitji’ method, ‘dakini’ method].” Kanazawa bunko kenkyū 金沢文庫研究 [Kanazawa Bunko Research] 318 (2007): 11–21. Osabe Kazuo 長部和雄. Ichigyō zenshi no kenkyū 一行禅師の研究 [Research on the Buddhist Master Yi Xing]. Tokyo: Hokushindō, 1990. Smith, Richard J. Fortune-Tellers and Philosophers. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. Steavu-Balint, Dominic Emanuel. “The Three Sovereigns Tradition: Talismans, Elixirs, and Meditation in Early Medieval China.” Ph.D. thesis. Stanford University, 2010. Suzuki Yoshijirō 鈴木由次郎. Kan’eki kenkyū 漢易研究 [Research on the “Yijing” scholarship of the Han period]. Tokyo: Meitoku shuppan-sha, 1963. Trenson, Steven. “Shingon Divination Board Rituals and Rainmaking.” Cahiers d’ExtrêmeAsie 21 (2014): 107–134.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

559

Chapter 20

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea Sanghak Oh 1 Introduction The traditional sciences that still play a role in Korea today deal with the Three Powers (i.e., heaven, earth, and man; sancai 三才). Ranked in ascending order by the degree of their remaining effects on society: 1. astrology deals with the sky (or time), 2. fengshui (geomancy) deals with the earth, and 3. (traditional) medicine deals with human beings. Of the three East Asian countries of Korea, China, and Japan, the traditional technique of fengshui has exercised the greatest influence in Korea. Designed to prevent ominous fortunes while promoting auspicious ones, fengshui helps to select ideal sites for houses and graves by means of probing the life energy (K: gi; Ch: qi 氣) particular places provide. Fengshui 風水 (K: Pungsu), as the characters of this term reflect, means “wind and water.” In the agrarian societies of the past, it was most important for humans to sustain their lives by preventing harm caused, not least, by these two natural powers. Fengshui, then, is a product of the wisdom man has earned in the course of many centuries of living with nature. In ancient China, it was originally developed to solve basic problems of life, but it became an elaborate system, based on the theory of yin-yang and the five phases as well as the natural philosophy of the Classic of Changes 周易 (K: Juyeok; Ch: Zhouyi). Traditional fengshui can be classified into two different theories: form theory 形勢論 (K: hyeongseron; Ch: xingshi lun) and compass theory 理氣論 (K: igiron; Ch: liqi lun). Form theory is also called the method of shape 形法 (K: hyeongbeop; Ch: xingfa) because it mainly deals with features of the geographical environment such as mountain formation 砂 (K: sa; Ch: sha) and water courses 水 (K: su; Ch: shui). Form theory is also called Jiangxi 江西 fengshui after the hometown of Tang period fengshui master Yang Yunsong 楊 筠松 (834–900). Compass theory, on the other hand, is associated with directions and times. It deals chiefly with auspicious and ominous fortunes by examining the functions of yin-yang and the five phases. Wang Qian 王乾 (960–1127) of the Northern Song period is the representative scholar of compass theory, which is also called Fujian 福建 fengshui.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_022

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

560

Oh

Physical shape theory 物形論 (K: mulhyeongron; Ch: wuxing lun), which is also dubbed topographical form theory 形局論 (K: hyeonggukron; Ch: xingju lun) or landform theory 喝形論 (K: galhyeongron; Ch: hexing lun), is a technique that merges elements of form and compass theories and compares places with the shapes of “things” (a man, a beast, a bird, a reptile, etc.). According to this theory, everything has its unique qi which represents itself in the physical shape of the thing (K: mulhyeong; Ch: wuxing 物形) and makes it different from other things. If the shape of a specific area resembles that of a specific thing, it is judged that the area has the nature of the thing. For instance, if a mountain is shaped like a general, the mountain is regarded as having the vigor of a general. Based on such analogies, ideal sites are chosen, or a man’s fortune or misfortune is divined. Physical shape theory, then, basically argues that a place has the same attributes as the specific thing it resembles. The theory seldom appears in the formal theoretical system of fengshui. This is because making comparisons with the shapes of things leaves too much room for geomancers to exercise their subjective opinions. Thus, it is usually considered merely a method for easily describing the shape of propitious sites and not a genuine fengshui theory in its own right. Nevertheless, physical shape theory plays a considerable role in many fengshui books written in Korea during the Joseon dynasty. In fact, most fengshui books that were written locally and were not imported from China describe and interprete propitious sites according to physical shape theory. This theory still constitutes the main pillar in the fengshui discourses of contemporary rural Korea, where each village has chosen a certain physical shape as its symbol. Physical shape theory is thus frequently cited as an important feature of Korean fengshui; sometimes it is even perceived as the original Korean form of geomancy. This article delves into the origin of physical shape theory as practiced in Korean society. After examining the logical structure and theoretical features of physical shape theory, the article reviews the specific characteristics of the theory during Joseon dynasty through fengshui books. 2

Physical Shape Theory Explained

The Origin of Physical Shape Theory 2.1 In essence, physical shape theory serves to identify an ideal fengshui spot (xue 穴) and to divine auspicious and ominous fortunes by comparing the shape of selected terrain with various things. The notion of drawing such analogies is an ancient one. Already in prehistoric agrarian cultures it was a common practice

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

561

to interpret natural phenomena based on their likenesses to objects: if an area looked like a specific thing, people tended to ascribe the features of that thing to the area. Later, physical shape theory was fused with the theory of yin-yang and the five phases. But where did it originate? Is physical shape theory really a unique Korean form of geomancy, as some scholars claim? Or, was it developed in China and later transmitted to Korea? The answer, I suggest, can be found by examining traditional fengshui books. Fengshui, which gained its theoretical base in China during the Tang dynasty, soon divided into two distinct strands: form theory, which emphasized forms, and compass theory, which stressed directions. As many fengshui classics confirm, physical shape theory, usually called hexing lun in China, also evolved during the Tang era as part of form theory. Its (textual) origin lies in the Zangshu 葬書 [Book of Burials], which was allegedly authored by Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324). This text presents instances of auspicious and ominous fortunes based on comparisons with specific shapes. “A cow represents wealth and a phoenix nobility” or “a creeping snake represents evil and danger” are typical examples.1 It can be surmised that thinking oriented by physical shape theory was already widespread when the Book of Burials was written. Fundamental principles of physical shape theory were introduced in Bu Yingtian’s 卜應天 Xuexin fu 雪心賦 [Ode of Purifying Mind], which was also written during the Tang dynasty. This text is often considered to be the classic of the form theory of fengshui. The book expresses the basic wisdom of physical shape theory as follows: “Things can be divined through similarities and the xue is determined by outward shape.” Emphasizing the importance of judging physical shapes, it points out the need of accurately distinguishing even the smallest differences.2 An important feature of the Ode of Purifying Mind is its accommodation of physical shape theory under the scheme of the five phases. In this text, physical shapes are classified by means of the five stars (wuxing 五星), and the reader is instructed on how to find the parts that are taken as xue. Thus, the wood and fire stars (muxing 木星, huoxing 火星) are said to correspond mainly with the shape of a man, the metal star (jinxing 金星) with that of birds, the earth star (tuxing 土星) with that of creeping animals, and the water star (shuixing 水星) with that of a dragon or snake. The xue can be found in: 1. the parts that correspond to the heart, navel, and genitals of a man; 2. the wing,

1 Guo Pu, Zangshu, 94: 牛富鳳貴，騰蛇凶危 2 Bu Yingtian, Xuexin Fu Zhengjie, 4:45–46: 物以類推，穴由形取。虎與獅猊相似，雁與 鳳凰不殊。一或少差，指鹿爲馬，渾然無別，認蚓爲蛇。

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

562

Oh

nest, and crest of a bird; and 3. the noses, brows, ears, bellies, heads, and tails of a dragon or snake.3 Another fengshui classic, the Mingshan lun 明山論 [Theory of Clarifying Mountains], compiled by Cai Chengyu 蔡成禹 before the Yuan era, was written entirely from the standpoint of form theory. This text also contains quite a few passages related to physical shape theory. For instance, a section titled “The Mountain Shape of Auspicious and Ominous Fortune” (jixiong shaxing 吉凶砂 形) deals with the relationships between the shapes of mountains and auspicious and ominous fortunes. A typical entry says: A land that will produce an immortal (shenxian 神仙) resembles a place where clouds are overlapped; a land producing a general or prime minster has a mountain looking like a precious stone; a land fated to enjoy wealth and rank has a mountain looking like a warehouse; and a land fated to produce commoners resembles a swarm of ants. 神仙之地，山如疊雲，將相之地，山如圭璧。富貴之地，山如倉廩， 市井之地，山如聚蟻，不一而定。4

The book also contains the following sentences, which mention physical shapes very directly: If the terrain is in the shape of a dropped bird or a fallen horse, the place presages some people being struck by a thunderbolt or crushed by a falling tree. If a terrain resembles in shape a snake running away or a rat lying flat on its belly, some people are fated to become thieves or other wicked persons. If a terrain looks like an overturned rain hat or a ball of medicine, it foretells that some people will be hurt by water plants or be poisoned. If the terrain is similar in shape to the head of a goose or the flank of a cow, it foreshadows some people killing themselves by hanging or the place becoming a site of executions. There will be many variations on such occurrences. 如鳥墜馬落，則爲雷傷樹打。如蛇竄鼠伏，則爲盜賊姦偸。如覆笠藥 丸，則菰傷藥毒。如鵝頭牛脇，則爲自縊法場。事非一揆。5 3 Bu Yingtian, Xuexin Fu Zhengjie, 4:46 has: 如木火二星，多結人形，其穴取心臍陰。金 星多結禽形，其穴取翼窩冠。土星多結獸形，水星多結龍蛇形，其穴取鼻顙耳腹 頭尾之類。 4 Cai Chengyu, Mingshan lun, 21. 5 Cai Chengyu, Mingshan lun, 22.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

563

Physical shape theory thus gradually gained a theoretical system as specific shapes of things were linked to corresponding auspicious and ominous fortunes. Systematization of Physical Shape Theory 2.2 Physical shape theory appears to have been established by the time of the Song dynasty. Its completion is found in the Hexing qulei 喝形取類 [Understanding Forms and Analogy], a text included in the Dili tianji huiyuan 地理天機會元 [A collection of Profound Secrets in Fengshui], a book compiled by Xu Shike 徐 試可 during the Ming dynasty. Xu’s book contains material featured in earlier fengshui classics like Liao Yu’s 廖瑀 Hexing mingmu 喝形名目 [Appellation of Physical Shape] and Zhang Ziwei’s 張子薇 Hexing tuge 喝形圖格 [Map of Physical Shape]. An example, is this geomantic map from the latter work (see figure 20.1).6 In the table of contents to the Dili tianji huiyuan, Xu Shike stresses the importance of physical shape theory but also warns of its dangers. “Geomancers,” he writes, “should be aware of shapes, but they will commit errors once they are involved in them excessively (形者亦山家之表，不可不 知，若太泥之則謬。).”7 At the beginning of the Hexing qulei, Xu again expresses his rather skeptical view of physical shape theory: The outward shape of a mountain represents only its surface, which is not the appropriate area where the delicate and exacting technique of identifying xue should be applied. Vulgar geomancers who do not know the dragon, the stars (xing 星), and the channels (mai 脈) come to a mountain in a state of total ignorance and fail to distinguish the top from the bottom and the slant from the straight. They do not know what they are doing. They will then point confusedly to various features of the mountain and facilely proclaim that a certain spot must be determined to be a xue and a certain other place must be used as a table mountain (anshan 案山). They only talk about trivialities, disregarding the essence. There are so few people who really know what a true xue is. 徐試可曰，形象者，山之表。點穴玄微，原不在此。但俗師不識龍， 不識星，又不識脈，臨山茫無定見。上下偏正，莫知所措，無以掩飾 鄙陋。於是亂指形象，便云某形當扦某穴，某形當用某案，棄本原而 專論末節，其能識眞穴者鮮矣。8 6 Zhang Ziwei refers to Zhang Dongxuan 張洞玄, who served as a national leader in the Song dynasty and authored Yusui Zhenjing 玉髓眞經 [An Authentic Book of Valuable Essence]. 7 Xu Shike, Dili tianji huiyuan, 13. 8 Ibid., 917.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

564

Oh

Figure 20.1 A baby dragon looking at mother dragon zilong gumu xing 子龍 顧母形 (Hexing tuge)

Harm done by unwise practitioners of physical shape theory were pointed out as well by Xu Shike, a renowned fengshui master who lived during the reign of the Wanli 萬曆 emperor in the late Ming dynasty. From this evidence, we can surmise that at that time many popular geomancers chose xue based on shapes only. Long before the Ming dynasty, Tang period scholar Liao Yu had stressed the need of identifying xue by means of the nine stars (jiuxing 九星), namely the seven stars of the Great Bear and two nearby stars, which were believed to control the universe. In the Hexing mingmu, already mentioned above, Liao interprets a total of 287 shape types attributed to 97 items to be found in the natural world. By category, the sky has 17 shapes, human beings have 74, animals 145 (85 of them beasts, 40 birds, 15 fish, and 5 insects), plants 8, and tangible objects 43. Beasts, then, have the largest number of shapes, followed by human beings. Within the beast category, the dragon has the largest number of shapes (19) because mountains were often found to resemble dragons in fengshui. Table 20.1 shows the frequency of shapes by category: Another fengshui classic, Zhang Ziwei’s Song period Hexing tuge, is regarded as a turning point in the history of physical shape theory due to its combination of shapes with geomantic maps (shantu 山圖). Identifying the xue of

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

565

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea Table 20.1 Frequency and percentage of physical shapes listed in the Hexing mingmu

Category

Items (number of shapes in brackets)

Sky

Sun (3), Moon (6), Cloud (3), Star (4), Rainbow (1) Legendary Immortals (21), Nobleman (11), Beauty (11), General (1), Fisherman (4), Female weaver (2), King (3), Maitreya Buddha (2), Merchant (2), Buddha disciple (1), Servant (1), Monk (1), Others (11) Lion (4), Turtle (4), Dragon (19), Dog (2), Cow (10), Horse (9), Tiger (5), Snake (11), Rabbit (1), Elephant (6), Deer (2), Camel (3), Male sheep (1), Monkey (3), Mouse (2), Cat (1), Terrapin (1), Unicorn-lion (1) Phoenix (15), Chicken (9), Crane (2), Luandiao (a sacred bird) (1), Goose (2), Pigeon (1), Wild Goose (2), Crow (3), Hawk (2), Sparrow (1), Swan (1), White Heron (1) Fish (3), Crab (3), Loach (1), Shrimp (3), Clam (2), Turban Shell (3) Centipede (4), Cocoon (1) Lotus (3), Chinese Apricot (1), Orchid (1), Cucumber (1), Pine Nut (1), Sunflower (1) Vessel (3), Hairpin (3), Ship (2), Knife (2), Flag (2), Folded screen (2), Chinese harp with six strings (1), Belt (1), Pillow (1), Hat (2), Oven (1), Flute (1), Glass beads (1), Mirror (2), Cosmetics (1), Bow (1), Chinese mandolin (1), Sickle (1), Others (16)

Human beings

Beasts

Birds

Fish Insects Plants Tangible objects

Total

97 items (81 listed here + “Others”)

Number of shapes in category

%

17

6

71

25

85

30

40

14

15

5

5 8

2 3

44

15

285

100

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

566

Oh

propitious sites and their surrounding terrain is essential to this form of fengshui, and maps, by visualizing features and physical shapes instead of just describing them, increase the practitioner’s understanding of the terrain. Thus, following the example of the Hexing tuge, descriptions of the physical shapes of places were usually combined with images. In its first part, Zhang Ziwei’s book contains seventy-six geomantic maps depicting the physical shapes of certain sites. These maps are rather rough sketches and give the names of the shapes only, without any further explanations. Next, we find drawings of another thirty physical shapes, accompanied by their names and by geomantic maps with detailed descriptions. The last part of the Hexing tuge features the biggest number of shapes, 192; again, these include geomantic maps as well as descriptions that exemplify physical shape theory. The Hexing tuge differs from the Hexing mingmu not only because it uses geomantic maps as a means of visualization, but also in its textual descriptions of physical shapes: Whereas the earlier book makes no mention whatsoever of the shapes’ potential auspicious and ominous fortunes, such comments are central to the Hexing tuge. An example would be the text accompanying figure 20.2 below: “If the physical shape resembles a tiger appearing out of woods (menghu chulin xing 猛虎出林形), the xue is located on the forehead of the tiger. If there appears a table mountain anshan 案山 corresponding to a heap of meat, the family will get rich. (英雄猛虎出林形，點穴還尋額上針。獅子伏 降堆肉案，令人家富斗量金。)”9 Physical shape theory also plays an important part in what is generally considered Zhang Ziwei’s most representative work, the Yusui zhenjing 玉髓眞經 [Authentic Book of the Valuable Essence], which presents a comprehensive survey of the form theory of fengshui. In this text Zhang writes: “Where there is a shape (xing 形), there also is an image (xiang 象). And there exists a star corresponding to them. The xue must be sought by examining the original shape and image. (有象有形有應星，却就本形尋穴所。)”10 The Yusui zhenjing records a total of 203 shapes, accompanied by corresponding geomantic maps of existing localities to help the reader understand the topographic features of a particular terrain. It also identifies the location of xue in each of the shapes it presents. Thus, in an animal the xue is said to be located where the creature’s spirit concentrates; for instance, “energetic qi resides in the brain of a fighting bull, and therefore the xue appears in front of

9 10

Zhang Ziwei, Hexing tuge, 935. Ibid., 159.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

567

Figure 20.2 A tiger coming out of woods menghu chulin xing 猛虎出林形 (Hexing tuge)

the bull’s horn and brow. (鬪牛之力氣在腦，穴在角前額前現。)”11 With regard to the shape called “a buffalo entering into water” (xiniu rushui xing 犀 牛入水形) (figure 20.3), Zhang comments, “The qi concentrates in its horn. Thus we take a xue at the root of a horn. (角根穴，以入水沒形，氣萃於角取 之。)”12 The Structure of Physical Shape Theory 2.3 In general, works by adherents of physical shape theory comprise the names and characteristics of physical shapes, the xue and its corresponding table mountains, and auspicious and ominous configurations. Next to textual descriptions of these elements, these works usually include geomantic maps (shantu) showing locations of specific physical shapes. The shapes are broadly classified into two categories depending on the partic­ular topographical features of the areas concerned: singular types and composite types. A singular type is determined by what is symbolized by the specific form of each individual element within the terrain, such as a moun­tain, alluvial formations, the mingtang 明堂 (propitious place), a body of water, and so on. Typical examples of such symbols include a golden belt, a garrison, a lying cow, a lying tiger, a camel, or a bowl. A composite type, on the other 11 12

Ibid., 163. Ibid., 204.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

568

Figure 20.3

Oh

A buffalo entering water xiniu rushui xing 犀牛入水形 (Yusui Zhenjing)

hand, refers to what is symbolized by the combined features of the area concerned; this could be done either microscopically (the immediate vicinity of the xue) or macroscopically (the entire terrain). A composite type is named according to what the whole terrain resembles in outward appearance. There is a large variety of such names because there are so many possibilities of different topographical characteristics. In general, a composite physical shape’s name features the designation of the key symbolic object, such as a human being, an animal or a thing, plus the description of its situation. A physical shape called “a golden hen sitting on eggs” (jinji baoluan xing 金鷄抱卵形), for example, was created by adding “sitting on eggs” (situation) to the symbolic shape of a golden hen. The rules for naming a place according to its resemblance to a specific physical shape call for an examination, first of all, of the shape of the table mountain (dui’an 對案), then of the shape of the guest mountain (chaoshan 朝山), and lastly of the form of the surrounding land. Because it is believed that the spirit and energy inherent in the specific physical shape are concentrated in this place, the natural features of the area surrounding the xue must be able to correspond to the innate spirit of the place. In other words, if a particular shape is to be established, there must exist a table mountain or a guest mountain that

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

Figure 20.4

569

A flying phoenix feifeng xing 飛鳳形 (Zhuoyu fu)

resembles the thing symbolized by that shape. In the case of “a tiger coming out of woods” (see figure 20.2 above), there must be a something that causes the tiger to come out. Namely, the table mountain must look like a “dozing dog” (miangou an 眠狗案); only then, the argument goes, would a tiger come out of the woods in the first place in order to capture and eat the dog. Thus, if there is no mountain resembling a dog, the place cannot be ascribed the shape of “a tiger coming out of woods.” If the topographical features of a terrain are identified with a specific physical shape, its nucleus is determined to be the ideal fengshui spot, the xue. The way to identify a xue is by finding the heaviest concentration of the essence and fine qi of the physical shape. In the case of the shape of a lying cow, for example, the xue resides where the cow’s mouth and tail would be. A place that has dissipated and lost its qi cannot be a xue. In the structure of physical shape theory, the topographical features of a place are explained by comparing them to physical shapes and a corresponding table mountains and xue sites are identified; following this information, judgments about auspicious and ominous configurations (jixiong 吉凶), or good and bad fortunes (huofu 禍福) are eventually added. Realistic Confu­cian scholars criticized such mantic practices as being too mystical. Also, auspi-

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

570

Oh

Table 20.2 Auspicious and ominous configurations according to physical shape theory

Physical shape Auspicious and ominous configurations Dragon

As it ascends to the sky with a precious jade in the mouth, the family is fated to produce high-ranking officials. Apricot As an apricot is a divine flower, the family will have prosperous offspring. Lion The family will produce high-ranking officials, enjoy riches and honors, and be prosperous in everything. Hen As a hen, once it sits on eggs, hatches many chicks, the family is fated to have many offspring. Cow As a cow eats lying, the family will gain wealth. As it bears one calf at a time, however, the family’s offspring will not prosper. Precious sword As a man rules the world with a precious sword, the family is fated to produce great men. Phoenix As a phoenix is a divine bird, the family will produce superior men and sages. Dog As a dog bears many puppies, the family is fated to have many offspring. Lotus As a lotus is an amicable flower, having both blossoms and fruits, the offspring of the family will be amicable. Tortoise As a tortoise has a lot of the vigor of yin-yang, the family will enjoy wealth and honors. Ornamental As an ornamental hairpin attracts people’s attention by producing a hairpin metal sound when dropped on the ground, the family will produce men of fame. Rat As a rat bears many litters, the family will produce many offspring.

cious configurations would generally predict that a family involved with a particular place would become rich, enjoy glory, produce an outstanding person, and so on. Some examples of auspicious and ominous configurations as predicted by adherents of physical shape theory are given above (see table 20.2). Finally, since physical shape theory attaches such importance to external appearances, it makes much use of geomantic maps or drawings. Liao Yu’s Hexing mingmu does not have geomantic maps, but most books on the topic produced thereafter do provide aids to interpretation of physical shapes by means of such maps. While those in the Hexing tuge are simple, those in Zhuoyu fu 琢玉斧 [A Jade-trimming Axe] are more elaborate (see figure 20.4):

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

3

571

Physical Shape Theory during the Joseon Dynasty

Fengshui books written in Korea during the Joseon dynasty were either verbatim transcriptions or at least contained generous extracts from Chinese books on the subject. The great influence Chinese fengshui books had on Korean society is evident from the fact that four such books—the Qingwu jing 靑烏經 [Classic of the Master Qingwu], the Jinnang jing 錦囊經 [Silk Pouch Classic], the Dili xinfa 地理新法 [New Methods of Fengshui], and the Mingshan lun 明山論 [Theory of Clarifying Mountains]—were texts tested in civil service examinations related to fengshui.13 Some important fengshui books were written in Korea independently, though. Typical among these are the books collectively called the Dapsan gi 踏 山記 [Record of Field Surveys], which recorded auspicious and ominous configurations divined based on an exploration of mountains and rivers. Included among this category are the Doseon bigyeol 道詵秘訣 [Doseon’s Book of Secrets], Oknyongja yusannok 玉龍子遊山錄 [Oknyongja’s Excursions to the Mountains], Myeongsan do 名山圖 [Charts of Famous Mountains], and the Songam myogyeol 巽坎妙訣 [Secret Guide to Fengshui]. These Joseon books record geomantic interpretations, which were based on actual surveys and usually built on physical shape theory. It is unclear when physical shape theory gained popularity in Korea. It seems to have been practiced widely since the eighteenth century, judging from the fact that Wi Baek-kyu 魏伯珪 (1727–1798), who was generally skeptical of geomancy, mentioned and criticized it publicly. But the theory had been established in China as early as the Tang dynasty. The claim, occasionally brought forward by Korean scholars, that it originated in Joseon surely cannot be verified. Instead, it was introduced from China and merely revised to fit Korean circumstances. The features characteristic of Korean fengshui books written during the Joseon dynasty are exemplified in the Songam myogyeol. This work records various surveys on auspicious sites throughout the country and, judging from its contents, was probably written in the latter half of the nineteenth century. After showing the location of a propitious site on a geomantic map (see figure 20.5 for an example), the Songam myogyeol describes in detail the topographic forms and shapes that surround the site in question as well as the configurations of fortunes. The part of the book titled “Secret Records” (gyeollok 訣錄)

13

Choi Hang (ed.), Gyeongguk daejeon, 182.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

572

Oh

Figure 20.5 A crab vomiting foam pangxie tumo xing 螃蟹吐沫形 (Songam myogyeol)

contains a number of directions, judged by compass; Such inclusions indicate that the book also reflects the compass theory of fengshui.14 The Songam myogyeol features a total of 218 propitious sites and the same number of geomantic maps. For 140 of the sites, the corresponding physical shapes are provided as well. Among the 32 different items, the dragon has the largest number of shapes (25), followed by the general (14), the legendary immortal (10), the turtle (9), and the phoenix (7). Details are shown in table 20.3. In comparison to the Chinese Hexing mingmu the frequency of animal shapes has increased from thirty to forty percent in the Songam myogyeol, while the frequency of shapes symbolizing tangible objects has declined from fifteen to ten percent. The percentage of the other categories is similar in the Chinese geomancy book and its Korean counterpart. In terms of specific items, in the latter the jade woman and the jade emperor are introduced as types of physical shapes; these two items are rarely seen in China. In the beast category, the tortoise appears noticeably more frequently in Korea than it does in China; this may be because the tortoise, one of the ten animals and plants enjoying great longevity (sip jangsaeng 十長生), was thought to symbolize a Taoist immortal. In the plant category, the peony, ­perceived as a flower of wealth and rank, seems to have been given more importance than other flowers in Korea. Finally, in the category of tangible objects, the Chinese book lists a far greater variety of items than does the 14

Ko Je-Hui, Songam myogyeol, 15.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

573

Table 20.3 Frequency and percentage of physical shapes used in the Songam myogyeol

Category Items (number of shapes in brackets) Sky

Number of shapes in % category

Moon (4) Jade woman (6), General (14), Monk (2), LeHuman gendary Immortal (10), Jade emperor (Sangje Beings 上帝) (3) Lion (1), Turtle (9), Dragon (25), Dog (1), Cow Beasts (6), Horse (6), Tiger (3), Snake (4), Rabbit (1) Birds Phoenix (7), Chicken (5), Crane (1) Fishes Fish (2), Crab (1), Shrimp (1) Insects Centipede (3) Plants Peony (5), Lotus (3), Grape (1) Tangible Golden Bowl (5), Hairpin (1), Ship (6), Bell (1), Objects Chinese Harp (1), Satin (1) Total

31 items

4

3

35

25

56

41

13 4 3 9

9 3 2 6

15

11

139

100

Figure 20.6 A yellow dragon coming out of the clouds huanglong chuyun xing 黃 龍出雲形 (Takokjeong dosik)

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

574

Figure 20.7

Oh

A corresponding shape on Jeju Island

Songam myogyeol, which mainly features shapes corresponding to the ship (6) and the bowl (5). The figures above show an example from Jeju Island, located to the South of the Korean mainland. The geomantic map (figure 20.6) illustrates the physical shape of a yellow dragon coming out of the clouds 黃龍出雲形 (K: Takokjeong dosik; Ch: huanglong chuyun xing); the photograph (figure 20.7) shows its reallife correspondence, a mountain shaped like a dragon. 4 Conclusion The physical shape theory of fengshui explains topographical features of a terrain by comparing them with the shape of specific things. It was established during the Tang and Song Dynasties in China, when scholars began to accommodate it into the form theory of fengshui and first introduced it in books on the subject. Typical examples are Liao Yu’s Hexing mingmu and Zhang Ziwei’s Hexing tuge. Korean fengshui practitioners much later adopted the theory; it is still championed in rural Korea today, despite the fact that it has relatively low theoretical precision. A comparison of the topographical features of an area with specific things may result in quite different interpretations; for instance, where one geomancer sees the shape of a tiger, another may see that of a lion. Accordingly, several scholars have warned against an excessive reliance on this form of geomancy.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea

575

It is difficult to use physical shape theory to identify elements like the shape of a mountain, the flow of water, and the location of xue with any exactness. Nevertheless, it does allow the practitioner to observe and understand topographical features as a whole and thereby grasp the nature of a place; this is because physical shape theory uses geomantic maps for the sake of illustrating its principles instead of relying solely on difficult descriptive terms and directions. Discourses on physical shape theory have contributed considerably to the popularization of fengshui in Korea. Since the latter half of the Joseon period, most fengshui books giving geomantic explanations via surveys of distinguished propitious sites have been based on it.

Works Cited

Bu Yingtian 卜應天. Xuexinfu Zhengjie 雪心賦正解 [Essence Ode of Purifying Mind]. China: Saoyeshanfang, 1680. Cai Chengyu 蔡成禹. Mingshan lun 明山論 [On Clarifying Mountains]. Manuscript of Kyujanggak Archives. GK 奎 3953. Choi Hang 崔恒, ed. Gyeongguk daejeon 經國大典 [National Code]. Seoul: Joseon Government, 1469. Guo Pu 郭璞. Zangshu 葬書 [Book of Burials]. In Yingyin wenyuange siku quanshu 景印 文淵閣四庫全書 [Siku quanshu, Wenyuange Edition], vol. 808. Taipei: Taipei shangwu yinshuguan, 1983. Ko Je-hui 高濟熙. Songam myogyeol 巽坎妙訣 [Secret Guide to Fengshui]. Seoul: Dansan Books, 2008. Liao Yu 廖瑀. Hexing mingmu 喝形名目 [Appellation of Physical Shape]. In Dili tianji huiyuan 地理天機會元 [A Collection of Profound Secrets in Fengshui]. Taipei: Wuling Publishing Co., 2001. Takokjeong 琢玉亭. Takokjeong dosik 琢玉亭圖式 [Takokjeong’s Maps with Explanations]. Korea: Manuscript from Joseon period. Xu Shike 徐試可. Dili tianji huiyuan 地理天機會元 [A Collection of Profound Secrets in Fengshui]. Taipei: Wuling Publishing Co., 2001. Xu Shike. Zhuoyu fu 琢玉斧 [A Jade-trimming Axe]. Zhang Ziwei 張子薇. Yusui zhenjing 玉髓眞經 [Authentic Book of the Valuable Essence]. In Xuxiu Siku Quanshu 續修四庫全書 [The Continuation of the Emperor’s Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995. Zhang Ziwei 張子薇. Hexing tuge 喝形圖格 [Map of Physical Shape]. In Dili tianji huiyuan 地理天機會元 [A Collection of Profound Secrets in Fengshui]. Taipei: Wuling Publishing Co., 2001.

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

576

Oh

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Index Index

577

Index Abhidharmakosha 246 A History of Politics 454 Albert the Great, Saint 5, 6 alchemy 121, 478 Aleni, Giulio 437, 438 algorithm 500, 514-522, 532, 540, 553 almanacs 265-270, 423, 439-446, 489. See also daybooks Ambaṭṭha-Sutta 154, 159, 171 Amoghavajra 214n43, 420-423 Amozhou jing 154, 159 translation of 193 Analects. See Lunyu Andele 435 Annals of Mr. Lü. See Lüshi chunqiu Apocrypha 24, 47-91, 100-102, 109, 117, 130n10, 211, 537 arithmetical 224, 522 Asita (seer) 176 astrology 202-203, 268, 409-428, 486-495 astronomy 102, 179, 426, 433-440, 486-494 bureaucracy of astronomy 102, 113, 206, 289-296, 409-410, 439-446 A System of Logic 454 Baba Nobutake 532, 537-542, 546, 548, 551-552 Babylon. See Mesopotamia Bagua younian fa 534 Baihu tong 51-52, 54, 58, 94, 111 Baijiaxing 376 Baika shin’eki shōchū shinan 537 Bak Ji-won 487 bamboo texts 257, 262-265 Ban Gu 51 Baopuzi 172, 202 Baptandier, Brigitte 138 Barmé, Geremie 385 Benjamin, Walter 197 Bian Que 121, 134 Bian zhong bei 48 Bingjian 461, 477 Bing Shangbai 25 bla (life-vitality) 234, 239-240, 245 Blackford, Katherine 478, 479

bLo rig 246 Bodhisattva precepts. See Fanwang jing Bolou 306 Book of Change. See Classic of Changes Book of Documents. See Classic of Documents Book of Odes. See Classic of Poetry Book of Rites. See Liji Book of State Rites. See uigwe Book of the Han. See Hanshu Book of the Later Han. See Hou Hanshu Brahmajāla-Sūtra (BJS) 151-160, 166 Buddha 134, 248, 327, 337, 419. See also Gautama Siddhartha Buddhaghoṣa 172, 176 Buddhasmṛti (Buddhānusmṛti). See Zhu Fonian Buddhayaśas 155, 157, 174 Buddhism 103, 109, 437, 438, 538, 550, 554 astrology 412, 417-425, 495 Buddhist Canon 151-195, 434-435 Mahābhūta 235, 412-413 shi board 212-219 Tibet (see Tibet) Budeyi bian 440 Bukong. See Amoghavajra Burke, Peter 481 Bu Shu 23-41 Bu Yingtian 561 Cai, Lord 28-29, 34 Cai Chengyu 562 calendar calculations 54, 59-60, 63-70. See also almanacs; daybooks “Calendar of a Quarter Remainder.” See Sifen li “Calendar of the Grand Beginning.” See Tai chu li “Calendar of Three Concordances.” See San tong li Campany, Robert 143 Cao Cao 127, 130-131 Cardano, Girolamo 409, 486-487, 494-495 Cato the Younger 466 Changfeng zazhi 476 Chemla, Karine 7

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004356788_023

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

578 Chen Duxiu 1, 464 Chen Fuzheng 126-127 cheng. See sincerity Cheng, King of Zhou 36 Cheng Yi 337 Chen Houyao 514-516 Chen Jiesheng 480 Chen Lin 111 Chen Meidong 490 Chen Pan 58 Chen Shaoxuan 25 chenwei. See Apocrypha Chen Zi’ang 100 Cheoljong, King 487 chess 300, 503, 511, 515 Chongwen zongmu 57 Chŏng Yak-chŏn 352 Chŏng Yak-yong 345-364 Chubo sokhae 487-488 Chunqiu. See Springs and Autumns Annals Chu Shaosun 24 Chuxue ji 104, 109-112 Chuyŏk sajŏn 354-359 Classic of Changes 2, 4, 24, 27, 32, 34, 39, 44, 47-60, 64-68, 72-73, 79-83, 107-111, 129, 133-134, 138, 233, 255, 261-267, 270, 286-287, 301, 345, 367, 393, 442, 451, 454, 456, 461-464, 467, 479- 482, 541, 500, 512, 516-555 “Shuogua” 54, 77n110, 93, 357 “Tuan” 53, 107n30 “Xici” 53, 63-68, 87, 93, 107, 211, 262, 355 Classic of Documents 31-32, 58, 261, 272-285, 363, 456 “Da gao” 279-281 “Da Yu mo” 275-276 divination in 273-283 “Hong Fan” 31, 111, 278, 282, 510 “Gaozong rongri” 273 “Jin teng” 273, 278-280, 283 “Jun Shi” 281 “Luo gao” 281-282 “Pan Geng” 276 “Shao gao” 281, 282 “Tai shi” 275, 277, 282 “Xi bo kan Li” 276-277, 282-283 Classic of Poetry 58, 109, 134, 196, 197, 261, 276-277, 416, 456

Index Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries. See Siku quanshu Confucian classics 47, 50-51, 58, 261, 273, 302, 304, 307, 311, 452, 459, 460 divination in 312-324 Confucius 40, 47, 49, 55-56, 87, 90, 111-112, 128-130, 133-134, 142, 196, 261, 323, 329, 358, 410-411, 447, 470, 474, 476 cosmic board. See shi board cosmograph. See shi board Cullen, Christopher 199 Cultural Revolution 1, 374, 383-385 Cuozong fayi 514 cycles 47-92, 130, 210, 225, 416, 504, 531, 549 Concordances Cycle 62 Epoch Cycle 62, 64, 70-72, 91, 92 Era Cycle 62, 69-72, 87, 90, 92 Obscuration Cycle 62, 69-71, 73, 90, 92 Rule Cycle 62, 64 sexagenary cycle 268, 413, 515, 533, 535 sexagesimal cycle 60, 92, 211n38 da Costa, Inácio 435, 438 Da ke wen 437 Dangdai Zhongguo de suanmingre 366, 368, 372, 377 Dao’an 173 Daoism 128, 143, 201-212, 308, 312, 337, 339, 361, 375, 423, 434-438, 446, 451, 461, 538, 554 “Da shi zhen” 105-107 Da Tang yue jian tu 422-423 “Daxue guicheng” 459 “Daxue ling” 459 daybooks 11, 172, 265-274 Day Rules 69 De Fato 5 Deng Guangjian 329 Deng Ping 61 Deng Xiaoping 384 Dharmaratna. See Zhu Tanwulan Dīghanikāya (DN) 152-155, 158, 171, 174, 181-190 Ding Fubao 4 Dipper 119, 136-139, 202, 204, 209-212, 215, 217, 228 Dīrghāgama (DA) 154-159, 171, 173-177

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

579

Index divination accuracy of 13, 50, 323-324, 335-336, 373, 375, 377, 395-404, 410, 426 bureaucracy of 113-116, 201n12, 265 techniques and methods of 534-539 Chinese character analysis 319 chronomancy 103n12, 470, 531-534, 540, 553, 554 dreams 127, 133, 164-167, 178, 277, 309n54, 471 dominoes 500-525 dunjia 117, 201n13, 202 five plantes 410-414, 421, 424-427 four pillars 410, 413, 417, 426-427, 539, 549, 552, 377, 393-404 liuren 117, 200-226, 444 (see also shi board) milfoil 29, 31, 103-112, 115-116, 178, 278, 281, 470, 472, 475, 476 numerology 50, 54, 56, 59-60, 63-67, 70, 90-91, 103, 270, 428, 454, 457-460, 490, 499, 500-525, 537-538, 546-549 oracle bones 23-41, 105, 114, 117-118, 120, 164, 173, 256-259, 282 palmistry 367-377, 532, 542-552 physiognomy 2, 127, 130-131, 163-165, 167, 173, 176, 178, 265, 315, 345, 367, 377, 417, 438, 444, 461, 463, 470, 472, 476, 478-482 plum-blossom 549 yarrow stalk 24, 100, 104, 108n34, 521 Yijing divination 107, 111-112, 138, 346-364, 534-555 Ziwei doushu 201, 414, 426 topics of: burial 202, 289, 292, 294-296, 308-317, 333-334 calamities 164, 167, 423 career 36n55, 305, 316, 367, 373, 392, 398, 400 harvest 33n36, 164, 274, 410 health 29, 36, 164 hemerology 133, 172, 198-211, 217-226, 265, 267, 289-292, 363, 470, 531 (see also daybooks) life and death 120, 308, 326-329 geomancy 290-292, 308-317, 330-337, 559-575

weather 238-249, 294, 397, 488 divination board. See shi board Dharmaraksa 417-418 Dijian shuli 519, 520 Di Yi 58 Dobson, W.A.C.H. 53 Dong Kang 475, 480 Dong Youcheng 72-73, 78 DNA test 401-402, 404 Doctrine of the Mean. See Zhongyong Dong Zhongshu 132 Duke of Zhou. See Zhougong Duli yusi jing 413-414 Dull, Jack 57-58, 60 Dunhuang 99, 117, 133, 270, 271, 418, 423, 534-536 Eberhard, Wolfram 54 Erasmus 409, 411, 412 Evolution and Ethics 454 exorcism 32, 134, 138-140, 142, 143, 261, 469 Exorcism and the Enlightenment 1 Fandong jing 154, 159, 171 fangshi 49, 50, 263 Fan Qin 55 Fanwang jing 160, 173, 177, 178, 180 Fan Ye 53, 57 Fan Ying 50 fate 2, 121, 127-131, 137-144, 304, 306, 309, 312-336, 414-415, 451-482, 532 Fa yan 59 Fei Shu 28, 32 Feng Guifen 461 Fengpingsheng 479, 480 fengshui 291, 295, 296, 314, 331, 334, 342, 345, 367, 369, 437, 440, 442, 445-446, 490, 559-575 fengshui books 560-561, 575 five phases 6, 56, 73, 202, 267, 270, 274, 360, 362, 410, 412-413, 424-427, 458, 462, 474, 477, 533-536, 539, 541, 546, 549, 559, 561 Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing 151, 155-156, 159, 164, 171 translation of 160-163 topics of 164 Fotuoyeshe. See Buddhayaśas

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

580 Four Treasures. See Siku quanshu Freiberger, Oliver 153 Freud, Sigmund 377 Fung Yu-lan 77, 79, 85 Fu Xi 105, 128, 130 Galilei 121, 478 Gan De 322 Gao Heng 387 Gautama Siddhartha 101-102, 176 Ge Hong 172, 417-418, 420 Genette, Gérard 473 Gezhi guwei 467 Gezhi jinghua lu 467 Gong Yinshan 473 Graham, A.C. 52 Groot, J. J. M. de 2 Guan Yu 320 Gui cang 111, 262, 277 Gui ce liezhuan 24-31 Guiguzi 128, 538 Gu jing jie hui han 55 guoxue 2, 471-472 Guoyu 275, 277 Gu shi kao 105 Guo Pu 105, 109, 561 Guxiang xue 479 Gyujae yugo 487 Haegyeong sechohae 487 hakke uranai 532-555 Hammerstrom, Erik J. 466 Hanson, Marta 532 Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1 Han Kangbo 111 Hanshu 51, 60, 63-64, 74, 77-78, 174, 201, 262-264, 274, 417, 457 “Yiwenzhi” 77, 262, 417, 457 Harper, Donald 199, 262 Heaven 90, 100, 132, 268, 273-282, 304-339, 346-352, 410, 479. See also Mandate of Heaven heavenly principle 327, 351 Heonjong, King 487 Hetu 50, 130, 225, 358, 479 hexagrams 53, 56, 59, 64-69, 71-92, 100, 106-108, 111-112, 349, 358-359, 370, 377, 394, 461, 470, 515-522, 536-537, 546-549 Hexing mingmu 563-566, 570, 572, 574

Index Hexing qulei 563 Hexing tuge 563-564, 566-567, 570, 574 Hirata Tōsuke 468 History of the Han. See Hanshu History of the Later Han. See Hou Hanshu Hobson, Benjamin 412 Hoehoe ryeokbeop 487 Hongsha 141 Hongwu, Emperor 411, 442 horoscopy. See divination techniques: four pillars Hou Hanshu 50-53, 57-62, 67, 69, 91, 116 Huainanzi 40n66, 76n107, 86n140, 264, 268-272 Huangdi longshou jing 202, 206 Huang Shi 55 Huanxitian shifa 214-219 Hui Dong 75- 77 Hu Jian 302-303 Hung, William 51-52, 58 Hu Tianyou 305 Huxley, Thomas H. 454 Hyojong, King 295 Ikeda Tenryūshi 539 Injo, King 294-295 Introduction to Astrology 411 Inyeol, Queen 295 Isho shūsei 55 Janelli, Dawnhee Yim 402-404 Jenks, Edward 454 Jeongjo, King 290, 292-293, 295-296 Jeongseong, Queen 295 Jeongsun, Queen 296 Jesuits 409-413, 433-447, 486, 495 Jian Jia Lou Shi 464 Jiajian chengchu shi 518-519 jianghu 379-381 Jiang Wanli 338 Jiao Xun 518-519 Jiao Yanshou 51 Jia Sidao 315 Ji lan tu 49, 74, 77, 81-88, 92 Jing Fang 51, 537 Jingjing 414 Jin Juzha 424 Jinian lu 338 Jingyou dunjia fuying jing 206, 226

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

581

Index Jiu Tangshu 56 Ji Yun 3-4, 54-55, 458 Ji Zeng 28, 34 Jizhiguo jing 157, 159, 169 Journey to the West 129, 134, 142 Jung, Carl G. 428, 481 Kaden shōkōsetsu sensei shin’eki kesū 537 Kālacakra Tantra 235-240 Kalinowski, Marc 7, 99, 117, 199, 206, 261, 554 Kang Senghui 156 Kangxi, Emperor 410, 440 Kang Youwei 470 Kanming yizhang jin 538, 539, 549, 552 “Kaoshi” 453 Karashima, Seishi 156, 157 karma 234, 236, 240-241, 246-247 Kendall, Laurel 395, 396 Kepler, Johannes 478 Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche 233-234, 237, 239-240, 242, 244, 247, 249 Kim, David 393, 403, 404 Kittsteiner, Heinz D. 468 Knoblock, John 268 Kongzi jiayu 111, 112 Kouduo richao 437 Kūkai 421 Kukjo-oyreui 291 Kun ling tu 48 Kusyar Ibn Labban 411, 486, 491, 494 Lackner 467, 472, 480 Lagerwey, John 207-208 Lai Yanyuan 58 Lam Rim Chen Mo 241 Laozi 120, 136 Laozi zhongjing 207-212, 217, 219, 221, 224-225 Lee E-Wha 403 leishu 103, 104, 501 Liang Qichao 448, 453-454, 468 Liang Shuming 4, 463 Liang Yuandi. See Xiao Yi Lianyi Tang 126 Liao Mingchun 78 Liao Yu 563-564, 570, 574 Li Bingying 475 Lie Yukou 52

Liezi 51-52 Li Ganchen 469 Li Hongzhang 467 Liji 35, 104, 111, 268-271, 351, 456 Li Ling 23, 25 Li Miqian 414, 423 Lin Gengbai 476-477 lingqi 503 Lin Zhipeng 25 Lishi mingyuan 442 literati 3, 5, 140, 300-339, 379, 434, 438, 445-446, 502 Liu An 264 Liu Bang 127-128 Liu Bei 127 liu bo 503-504 Liu bo suijin 504, 510 Liu Dajun 377 liumang 383-388 liuren. See shi board Liu Shipei 51, 454, 471 Liushisi gua zhen chen tu 81 Liu Xiang 52, 54, 61, 456 Liu Xin 54, 61, 456 Liu Yuangang 305 Liu Zhao 53 Li Xuzhong 538 Li Xuzhong mingshu 538 Li Yishan 310-311 Loewe, Michael 103 Lokakṣema 156, 171 Lü Kai 58 Lü li zhi 52-53 Lunation Rule 63, 69-70 Lunyu 3, 47, 108, 111, 134, 148, 196-197, 212, 222, 226, 341, 350, 456, 476 Luoshu 50, 130, 225, 479 Luoxia Hong 61, 121 Luo Zhenyi 25 Lüshi chunqiu 76, 267-271 Lu Zhaolin 117-121 Lu Zongli 101 Madkhal 486-487, 491, 494-495 Mahāvaipuyamahā-samnipāta Sūtra 419-420 Maham 494

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

582 Mandate of Heaven 56, 305-306, 312, 321-322, 346-353, 356, 468 Mansvelt Beck, B.J. 60 mantra 238, 242-248 Ma Rong 57 Mātangī Sūtra 417 May Fourth Movement 434, 464, 477 Meihua xinyi 532, 537 Meisig, Konrad 153, 157-159 Meng Xi 51 Menzies, Allan 477 Mesopotamia 178-180 Midelfort, H.C. Erik 1 Mill, John Stuart 454 Miller, Daniel 223 ming. See fate Mingli tanyuan 470-475 Mingpu. See Register of Fates Mingshan lun 562, 571 Mingli shangque 480 mingxue 451, 452, 456-465, 470-475 Mingyi tianwenshu 490 Ministry of Rites 201, 289-295 minjian 389, 469 Minli puzhu jiehuo 439 mixin 1, 4, 5, 361, 363, 369-378, 396, 434-438, 446, 464-469, 472-477 mnemonics 532, 543, 546, 553 von Moerbeke, Wilhelm 5 Monier-Williams, Monier 175 “Monthly Ordinances” 269-270 Mule mingxue 454 Müller, Rolf 54 Mu Ouchu 4 Mu tianzi zhuan 105 Nagarjuna 206, 237, 238 Nakamura Shōhachi 55 Nakayama Shigeru 212 Nam Byeong-cheol 486-490, 495 Narendrayasas 419, 422 Nattier, Jan 156, 172 Nedostup, Rebecca 1, 466 Needham, Joseph 199 Nestorian Church 414 New Culture Movement 463-464, 469 new text 49-50, 57, 275 Newton, Isaac 478

Index Nie Yuntai 473-474 Ni Ronggui 426, 486, 490-491, 495 Norman, K.R. 153 old text 57, 275 On Human Fate 409-412, 494 Ouyang Shoudao 303-304, 309-311, 319-323, 339 Ouyang Xiu 304 Qun xue yi yan 454 Qu You 501, 508 Paitong fuyu 504, 510, 512 Pao Xi 105 Patrul Rinpoche 241 Peach Blossom Girl 126, 129, 132-145 Peng Shuying 311, 319-323, 338 Pingree, David 178, 179, 419 Pipa 508 pitch-pipes 52, 60, 62-68, 71-72, 74, 76-77, 91 plastromancy. See divination techniques: oracle bones pochu mixin quanshu 469 Poksŏ ch’ong’ŭi 351 Poksŏ t’ong’ŭi 353 Prakash, Gyan 482 prāṇa 234, 245, 246 psychology 377, 395, 396, 398-402, 428, 454, 476, 478, 503 Ptolemy, Claudius 409, 414, 423-426, 487, 494-495 Purbujok 246 qi 66, 76, 245, 350, 410, 412, 417, 418, 559. See also bla (life-vitality) Qian Kun zuo du 48 Qian Mu 4, 463n21 Qian Shubao 55 Qian Xizuo 412, 426 Qian Xuantong 477 Qian yuan xu zhi ji 48 Qian zuo du 47-93 Qiao Zhou 105 qilin 53, 90-91 Qi lüe 456-457 Qinding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng 459 Qiu Yuexiu 126-127, 145 Qiyao rangzai jue 423-424

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

Index Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen 105 Quanti xinlun 412 Quanxuepian 467 Qu Wanli 60 “Qu xuexiao ji bi yi xing ren cai lun” 453 “Qu Yuan fu zhi shu” 457 Qu Yuan 117, 447, 457 Ramers, Peter 153, 168-170 Record of Rites. See Liji Register of Fates 470, 481 Renjian 476-477 Rhys Davids, Thomas 152, 158-159, 167, 174, 176, 183-185, 188 Ricci, Matteo 409, 436, 437 rishu. See daybooks Rites of Zhou 76, 133-134, 251, 264, 265, 277, 278, 351 River Chart. See Hetu Robinet, Isabelle 220 Roetz, Heiner 2 Romance of the Three Kingdoms 128, 212 sacrifices 32, 58, 114-115, 137, 167-168, 170, 176, 185, 196-197, 259, 268, 292, 300, 328, 363, 422 Sado, Prince 290-294 saju. See divination techniques: four pillars Sāmaññyaphala Sutta 152-154 Sanft, Charles 271 Saṅghabhedavastu 157-158 Sanguo yanyi. See Romance of the Three Kingdoms Sanguo zhi 116 sanming 323 San tong li 54, 61-63, 66-70, 72, 91-92 Schak, David 383 Schafer, Edward 103 Schall von Bell, Johann Adam 409, 433, 436, 439-445 Schuesser, Axel 27 Seasonal Rules 268-270 Seidel, Anna 49 Sengyou 156 Senmyō Calendar 423 Seongyo 486-492, 495 Seo Yu-gu 487

583 shamans 105, 108n36, 115, 118-120, 240, 312, 394-397, 399, 402, 404, 521 Shangshu. See Classic of Documents Shang shu zhong hou 58 Shao Tuo 28 Shao Yong 131, 318-319, 537 Shao Weihua 377 Shehui tongquan 454 Shengshi weiyan 453, 461 Shen Gua 212n39, 515 Shen Jie 434 Shennong 130 shi board 103, 109, 114, 116-121, 198-222, 225-226, 554 “Shigui lun” 105 Shiji 24, 29, 35, 44, 105, 109, 201, 227, 416-417, 430 Shijing. See Classic of Poetry “Shi ji wen” 117-118 Shi lei mou 49 Shin Hwe 295 Shinkoku kanmei isshō kin wage 538, 551-552 Shi Shen 322 Shixian Calendar 409, 488n3 Shu bushi xingxiangxue 470, 472, 474-475, 480 Shūeki hakke zōhon-shō 541 Shujing. See Classic of Documents Shun 130, 276 Shunzhi, Emperor 433, 440-441 shushu 3, 174, 199, 458, 467 Sifen li 54, 61-62, 66, 67n84, 70-72, 91-92 Siku quanshu 378, 424 Siku quanshu zongmu 3, 457-459 Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 47, 54-55 Sīlakkhandhavagga 153-154, 158 Sima Biao 53 Sima Jizhu 416-417 Sima Qian 24 Simen jing 414 sincerity 196-197, 346, 348-349, 379 Sivin, Nathan 61, 90 Smith, Richard J. 138, 402 Smogulecki, Nikolas 409, 411, 486, 490-495 Soṇadaṇḍa-Sutta 154 Songam myogyeol 571-574 Song Hongjuan 464, 468 Song Jun 57-59

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

584 Song Zhiwen 508 Song Zhong 59 Spencer, Herbert 454 spells (zhou) 163-175 Springs and Autumns Annals 90, 261, 451, 456 Śrāmaṇyaphala-Sūtra (SPS) 152-155, 157-159, 168-170, 176, 189, 193 Standaert, Nicolas 409, 490, 492, 494 Sui shu: jing ji zhi 457 Sun Quan 127 Sun Simiao 121 Sun Wukong 129, 142 Sun Yatsen 476 Sun Yirang 51 superstition. See mixin Sūtra of Mansions and Planets 419-423 Sūtra on the 62 ( false) views of the Net of Brahmā as told by the Buddha. See Foshuo fanwang liushi’er jian jing Sutton, Donald 196 taegil 289-290, 292-294, 345, 363. See also divination techniques: hemerology taegji 289-292 Tai chu li 54, 61 Taiping guangji 116 Taiping yulan 116 Tai xuan jing 59 Taiyi 117, 119-120, 207-209, 212 Takashima ekidan 481 Takashima Kaemon 481 Tang Jicang 471 Tang Kaiyuan zhan jing 101 Tang liu dian 102, 113-119 Tang Yongtong 4, 463n21 tanqi 503 tantra 234-240, 249, 421 Taussig, Michael 225 Terajima Ryōan 542, 544 Tetrabiblos 409, 414, 427, 487, 494-495 The Study of Sociology 454 Thomas Aquinas, Saint 5 tian. See Heaven Tianbu zhenyuan 409-412, 486, 490-495 tian li. See heavenly principle tian ming. See Mandate of Heaven Tianwen xiangzong 486, 491, 494-495

Index tianxiang 410 Tianxue huitong 490, 492 Tianxue shiyong 490 Tian yan lun 454 Tibet 233-250, 273, 468 Tieshu ji 128-129 Tjan Tjoe Som 47-48, 51-52, 58-59, 90 T’ojŏng pigyŏl 403 Tong gua yan 49 Tong zhi 55 trigrams 56, 77, 79-83, 103, 111, 128-129, 134, 137-139, 347, 369, 377, 464, 516-517, 532-537, 540, 542-552, 554 dui 82-84, 517, 535, 540, 543 547 gen 517, 535, 543 kan 82, 517, 535, 540, 543 kun 512, 517, 535, 543 li 82, 517, 535, 540, 543, 547 qian 512, 517, 535, 540, 543 xun 517, 535, 540, 543 zhen 82, 517, 535, 540, 543 Tshangs pa’i sgra ba’i mdo 158-159 Tsūhen hakke shōchū-shinan 541-542 turtle-shell divination. See divination techniques: oracle bones Uigi jipseol 487 uigwe books 289-296 Hyeonryungwon-Wonsodogam-uigwe 290 Jeongjo-Geonneung-Sannengdogam-uigwe 290 Yeongjo-Wonneung-Sanneungdogam-uigwe 290 Vajrabodhi 213 Vasubhandhu 246 Verbiest, Ferdinand 410, 436, 440-447 Vernant, Jean-Pierre 7 Vettius Valens 5 Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra. See Weimojie jing vital forces. See qi Wakan sansai zue 542-544 Wang Anshi 313 Wang Chong 2 Wang Lai 69n95, 519-522 Wang Mang 48, 93, 272-273, 279 Wang Qingmu 473

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

585

Index Wang Renjun 467 Wang Shuo 384-388 Wang Tao 453 Wangtuijixiong bian 441, 443-444 Wang Yaochen 57 Wangze bian 441-443 Wangzhan bian 441, 443 Water Margin 380 Watson, James L. 196-197, 230, 231 Weimojie jing 156 Wei Qianli 469 Weishu. See apocrypha Wei Zhao 78 Weller, Friedrich 158-160, 166 Wen (Emperor of Sui) 48 Wen Tianxiang 299-339 Wen, King 128-130, 133, 142, 354, 358 Wen xuan 59, 97, 101 Western learning 411, 445, 452-454, 459, 461-462, 465, 467, 472, 479 West, John G. 478 Wu, King 133, 274, 277-279, 282 Wu Mi 464, 465 Wu Mingxuan 443 Wuqiubei zhai Yijing jicheng 55 wuxing. See five phases Wuxing dayi 534-535, 540 Wuxing zhi 274 Wylie, Alexander 490-491, 493 Xiang Ji 320 xiangshu 4, 410, 537 xiaodao 3, 339, 358 Xiao Ji 534-535 Xiao jing 47 Xiao Tong (Prince of Liang) 101 Xiao Yi 105, 109 Xieji bianfang shu 426 Xie Jin 54 Xifa tianwen 494 Ximing 306-307, 326 Xingming zongkuo 424-425 Xingmi pian 435 Xin mingli tanyuan 470-471, 473, 475 Xin Tangshu 56 Xiong Shili 4 Xiong Yuezhi 4 Xiuyao jing 419, 495

Xixiang 508 Xiyou ji. See Journey to the West Xuan, Duke 34 Xuanhe paipu 501 Xuanji tanyuan 470 Xuanzeyi 441 Xuanzong, Emperor 101-102 109-110, 113, 115 xue 560-569, 575 Xue Fengzuo 409-412, 424, 426-427, 486, 490-495 Xuexin fu 561 Xu Guangqi 409 Xu Hanshu 53 Xu Lewu 469 Xunzi 108, 197, 222 Xu Qinting 78 Xu Shike 563 Xu Xun 128 Xu Ziping 538-539 Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 413 Yan Fu 4, 454, 461-467 Yang (Emperor of Sui) 48 Yang Dianfeng 317-319 Yang Guangxian 433, 436, 440-447 Yang Jingfeng 422-423 Yang Shiqi 303 Yang Weide 206, 226 Yang Xiong 59 Yan Hui 112 Yan Kejun 105 Yan Lingfeng 55 Yano Michio 414, 494 Yan Yanzhi 105-109 Yao 130 Yao chen tu 75 Yao Guangxiao 54 Yapai shu 526 Yapai tongpu 513 Yasui Kōzan 55 Yellow Emperor 130 Yellow River Chart. See Hetu Yelü Chun 425 Yeongjo, King 290, 295 Yi Chiham 403 Yi Deok-mu 487 Yi Donglin 105 Yi Ik 363

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access

586 Yijing. See Classic of Changes Yi Kang-hoe 353 Ying Mingpan 475 Yinyang douyi shuo chuanqi 126 Yi Ren 366 Yiwen leiju 104-105, 109-112 Yi Xing 212, 213, 538 Yixue da cidian 77-78 Yŏkhak sŏŏn 354, 356-360 Yŏk ron 347 Yongle dadian 54-55, 517n59 Young, Barbara 393, 395 Yu, the Great 128, 130, 276 Yuan Kaichang 470 Yuan, Lord 28-29 Yuan ming bao 53 Yuan Shao 58 Yuan Shushan 469-482 Yu Chan 105-107 Yue Fei 299 Yue jing 47 Yuewei caotang biji 3 Yusi zhoukan 477 Zangjing 333 Zangshu 561 zedi. See divination topics: geomancy Zeng Feng 302-303, 309-310, 339 Zeng Guofan 461, 473, 477 Zeng Jin 308 Zeng Jize 467 Zeng Jue 308 Zeng Zhusen. See Tjan Tjoe Som zeri. See hemerology zhan 102 Zhang Enshou 476 Zhang Hua 52 Zhang Huiyan 57, 66, 75-85, 88 Zhang Qicheng 83 Zhang Taiyan 454 Zhang Zai 306, 326 Zhang Zhan 52 Zhang Zhidong 459, 461, 467 Zhang Ziwei 563-564, 566, 574 Zhao Wen 303 Zheng Guanying 453-454, 461 Zheng Qiao 55

Index Zheng shi xing’an 414-415, 425 Zheng Xicheng 425-426 Zheng Xuan 38n61, 54, 56-59, 78 Zhenwu 136 Zhi Chen 156 Zhinan lu 325, 326 Zhi Qian 151, 156, 157, 171, 417-419 Zhong de jing. See Soṇadaṇḍa-Sutta Zhongguo lidai buren zhuan 470, 490 Zhongxi xiangren tanyuan 470, 475-476, 479-480 Zhong-Xi xing yao 486, 490-495 Zhongyong 196, 305, 346 Zhong Zhaopeng 57 Zhuo Deqing 306-307, 325 Zhougong 126-134, 140-144, 272-274, 278-282, 346, 354, 358 Zhouli. See Rites of Zhou Zhouli tu 112 Zhouyi. See Classic of Changes Zhouyi cidian 78 Zhouyi jiangshu 109 Zhou Zuoren 388 Zhuang Shuzu 51 Zhuangzi 106, 308n51, 388 Zhu Dounan 311, 323, 335-336 Zhu Fonian 155, 157, 175 Zhuge Liang 128, 212 Zhu Gui 4 Zhu Lüyan 417, 418 Zhusumi 435 Zhu Tanwulan 157 Zhu Xi 4, 6, 345, 355, 361-363, 475 Zhu Yuechuang. See Zhu Dounan Zhu Zhen 77-78 Zhu Zhenheng 412 Zhu Zongyuan 437-438 Zigong 112 Ziwei doushu 201, 414, 426 Zi Xia 3 Zizhang 111 Zou Yan 475 Zuesse, Evan 402 Zuozhuan 34, 36, 105, 109, 261, 276n57, 351, 353, 363 Zurchar Lodro Gyelpo 236

Michael Lackner - 978-90-04-35678-8 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 11:10:28AM via free access