The West as the other : a genealogy of Chinese Occidentalism 9789629968748, 9629968746

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THE WEST AS THE OTHER

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The West As the Other A Genealogy of Chinese Occidentalism

Mingming Wang

The Chinese University Press

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The West As the Other: A Genealogy of Chinese Occidentalism By Mingming Wang © The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN: 978-962-996-489-4 The Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong Fax: +852 2603 7355 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.chineseupress.com Printed in Hong Kong

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Contents

List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Transliteration and Bibliography

1 Introduction: Rethinking “the West”

VII IX XIII XVII

1

2 King Mu (Mu Tianzi) and the Journey to the West

27

3 “Illusionary” and “Realistic” Geographies

49

4 Easternizing the West, Westernizing the East

87

5 Chaos and the West

117

6 “Western Territories” (Xiyu), India, and

153

“South Sea” (Nanhai)

7 Beyond the Seas: Other Kingdoms and Other Materials

179

8 Islands, Intermediaries, and “Europeanization”

213

9 Conclusion: Towards Other Perspectives of the Other

253

Postscript

277

Notes

291

Glossary

331

Bibliography

347

Index

367

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List of Figures

1.1

Late Imperial Chinese Cartography of Scandinavian Kingdoms and the North Sea

3

1.2

Western Europe under Chinese Depiction

5

2.1

Map of the Great Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and the “Barbarians” in Yu Gong (Tributaries of Yu)

38

2.2 Xi Wangmu

43

3.1

Heaven and Earth Conflated in the Making of Time

71

5.1

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi

132

5.2 James Legge’s Sketch Map of Fa-hsien’s Travels

138

6.1

Map of the Kingdoms in the Western Territories

154

7.1

Colonialized Island Kingdoms in the “Southeastern Ocean”

187

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Preface

Though seemingly a humanities subject matter, this book is intended

to be a critique of the social sciences, targeting in particular the discipline of anthropology. It brings forth a sequence of the “old ways” of the other and self-other relations, especially those to do with cosmogeographic positionings of the West, so as to make a general proposition: systematic studies of non-Western perspectives of the other and self-other relations are urgently needed; yet, paradoxically, they have often been neglected by anthropologists, who have taken this task as their own responsibility or burden. To place these other conceptions of alterity in their historical settings, I consider the cosmo-geographic topographies and “ethnodirectionologies” as found in one of the related variations of Eurasian civilization. I draw from, and in turn bear on, Marcel Granet’s theory of “Chinese civilization” and extend a comparative cosmology to history. I apply the cosmology of “All under Heaven”—Tianxia, or a grouping of certain Chinese world conceptions, activities, and institutions—so as to both contextualize Chinese “counterparts” of Orientalism (Said, 1978) and compare and relate them with Indo-European perspectives. Deriving its key concepts from the character for “it” (ta), instead of the engendered “he” or “she,” a “sub-tradition” of Chinese cosmology defined speculations about the level beyond the planes of human ontology as philosophies superior to Confucian “sociologics.” This

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“sub-tradition,” immersed in the classical Chinese cosmo-geographies, left important imprints on pre-modern Chinese political ontologies of being “among the others”—in this case, other humans, other divinities, and other things. Conveying a different kind of universal understanding, it constitutes what may be called “organic materialism”—the “organic conception in which every phenomenon was connected with every other according to a hierarchical order” (Needham, 1981a, p. 14). Historians of science have attributed the reason Chinese advanced sciences earlier than Europeans and yet were later left behind by them to this kind of organic materialist “confusion,” and they have left us in an extensive space, imagining whether such a worldview, apart from making a “paradox” of the world, also produced different ontological and social formations from that of the “holy,” whose mytho-religious profoundness has been revealed by such great scholars as Émile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, and Georges Dumézil. The “native” concept of the other, together with the issue of organic materialism, has also left important imprints upon the present work. However, to contrast East and West is not to separate one from the other. With the genealogy of Chinese Occidentalism, I intend to reflect on the “art of war” kind of interpretation of inter-cultural politics, prevalent in a large part of anthropology in the past few decades, and to re-cherish and re-offer a certain romance of opening different worlds to each other. I relate history to a wide range of theoretical debates in anthropology, and I consider the ideas of a great number of modern anthropologists—to name just a few, Marcel Mauss, Franz Boas, Claude LéviStrauss, Clifford Geertz, Radcliffe-Brown, Edmund Leach, Louis Dumont, Mary Douglas, Marshall Sahlins, Eric Wolf, and Frederik Barth—who have produced works so fundamental to the discipline. I thus seem to confine myself to certain “structural analyses.” Presently, many colleagues in anthropology have come to believe that “structuralism” is no longer necessary. I have partly agreed with this reaction, but also thought about the issue differently. In my view, especially since we mostly live as “participant observers” of the “hot societies,” social scientists still need to take up the challenge “from afar”—even if it was an outcome of an “adventure romance”—while trying our best to prevent the potential danger of excluding the other

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from our common humanity. If the so-called structuralism is about anything, then, it is chiefly about the “dual attitudes” of anthropologists toward the other, which, I strongly felt, are relevant to our time. Meanwhile, regarding the “structural” anthropological perspectives to which I refer, I must explain that these comprise in fact a great range of different views, on the horizons of which I seek an altered expression. Roughly speaking, while I am critical of the “representations” of enclosed social or cultural systems in the works by such authors as Radcliffe-Brown and Clifford Geertz (whose theoretical “ancestries” could in turn be traced back to the writings of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber), I seek to draw new inspirations from the insights presented by Mauss and Boas as well as Lévi-Strauss on intersocietal and cross-cultural relatedness; by Leach and Douglas on process, cosmology, and worldview; by Sahlins on historicity; by Wolf on “world systems”; and by Barth on regional “sub-traditions.” If my inclusion of all the different anthropological theories has turned out to be quite restricted, then, I must admit that, sadly, it has stemmed either from the limits of my reading in Western anthropology or from my problematic “bias” toward the contemporary anthropological repetitions of culture/cultures of power.1 To bring an altered phenomenon of presence in the world into our consciousness, I have had to cover too broad a scope and too long a history. The scope is the hugely complex “civilization” of the Central Kingdom (Zhongguo), and the era is one that basically corresponds to the entire progress that has occurred since the invention of Chinese writing over three thousand years ago. Yet, I am not a historian but merely an anthropologist with a strong interest in history. In presenting this big picture of the Chinese world, of its patterns of cosmo-geography, philosophy, religiosity, trade, and so forth, I have tried to quote from primary sources, but I have ended up relying very heavily upon secondary sources. An excuse for my writing a book when the “originality of material” remains an issue has been that the data for such a history have been much used in the historiographies that I reconsider and revaluate. I depend heavily on certain “dialogues with the ancestors,” or re-interpretations and syntheses of different “native” and “foreign” interpretations of Chinese pasts. In particular, on the “native” side, I try to derive certain points of reference from a number of pioneers in

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Chinese history, ethnology, archaeology, geography, and philosophy: Wang Guowei, Li Ji, Fu Sinian, Gu Jiegang, Qian Mu, Tang Yongtong, Feng Chengjun, Zhang Xinglang, Wu Wenzao, and many others. These “ancestors” of Chinese academia were specialized in studying different historical phases (Wang, Li, and Fu in classical periods; Gu in the transition from the age of mythology to that of historiography; Tang in the “age of chaos” and Buddhism; Feng and Zhang in world history; Qian in history of political ideas; Wu in sociology and anthropology), developing different disciplines, defining different subjects of research. Belonging to different and even rival “schools” of thought, these works have greatly diverse perspectives. To put their works in one study requires some academic labor. Understanding their differences and commonalities, and on top of that, building our own theory out of our critical engagements with such earlier interpretations complicates our endeavor. Yet, precisely because this kind of labor is challenging and never ending, what is to be presented can only be described as an assortment of synopses with its own order, value, and simplifications.

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Acknowledgements

I planned to write this book in the late 1980s when I was studying

anthropology in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The anthropology faculty at SOAS, to whom I am still grateful, led me to many books in Western anthropology and social thought, including those of which I have come to be quite critical. A preliminary outline of what I try to convey here, with reference to the idea of Tianxia (All under Heaven), was presented at several academic institutions between 1998 and 2000, including Bologna University, University of Chicago, and Harvard University. I thank Professors Umberto Eco, Marshall Sahlins, and James Watson for their kind invitations and arrangements. Since the early 1990s, I have worked with senior colleagues, including Fei Xiaotong and Stephan Feuchtwang, whose encouragement has been invaluable. Over the past two decades, I have spent most of my time on “China Studies,” leaving little time for my “hobby”—Occidentalism. But with the stimuli of those from whom I learned, I felt compelled to find some time to write up this book. I lectured about some of the contents of the current book in 2007 in my course “Lectures on the Ethnography of Foreign Places” at Peking (Beijing) University. Knowing that what I call “China-ism,” or the conscious or unconscious tendency of the majority of my colleagues working in the humanities and social sciences in China to separate “the East” (China, in this case) from “the West,” has created nationalistic

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problems or/and cosmopolitanist pretensions, I proposed a decade ago to create this course for anthropology majors. I designed the course as an “ethnographic exhibition” of the “external scopes” of Tianxia. Anthropology claims to have a special advantage: its capability to learn from the other. But as an anthropologist, I have found difficulties in lecturing about “Chinese ethnographies of foreign places.” Undoubtedly, one difficulty has derived from the limits of my own reading; another has stemmed from the state of play in the social sciences. We are living in an era of “globalization” in which the spread or in fact diffusion—by which we have meant a kind of “one way traffic”—of social science models has created a large space for colonial modernity to play as a restrictive and nationlizing force. I must thank all my students who have understandingly allowed me to talk freely, so much so as to “de-science” the discipline and to “confuse” them. In writing this book, I feel ever more enthusiastic about the works of the pioneering Chinese historians, ethnologists, and mythologists. While I am deeply critical of the “nativistic complex” involved in the making of these legacies, I believe that, in them, a huge number of inspirations are waiting to be rediscovered. A much shorter version of this book was written as an extended essay in Chinese in 2006. Between then and 2009, I was assigned the task of creating a center for ethnological study in Beijing, and I took it as an opportunity to create an anthropological review journal (Chinese Review of Anthropology) and set up a lecture series. Professors Stephan Feuchtwang, Michael Rowlands, Frederick Damon, and Marshall Sahlins subsequently accepted our invitations and came and delivered in total eleven lectures on the anthropology of civilization, material culture, chaos theory and regional worlds, and “inter-cultural politics.” These lectures contained certain different but relatable ethnographic specificities and anthropological ideas. Had I written the book after these lectures, I would have “digested” more of these specificities and ideas. I regret not having postponed the publication of the Chinese version of the book. However, in re-writing it into an English edition, I now have the opportunity to consider some of the issues raised in the lectures, especially those concerning civilization (Feuchtwang and Rowlands), region, and “other” world systems (Sahlins and Damon), or what I have instead called “supra-societal systems.” I have kept the narrative structure and the arguments of the Chinese version, but I have

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added, in various places, quite a bit of material, including necessary theoretical and historical clarifications, footnotes, and analyses. In writing the first draft of the English version, I benefited greatly from the important assistance of Zhang Fan, who helped me locate most of the English translations of the classical Chinese texts; put the quotations from the Chinese translations of foreign works into their original languages; and found many English words for their Chinese counterparts. I also benefited from the important support of Professor Mayfair Yang of UC Berkeley, who kindly read the Chinese version of the book and encouraged me to publish it in English. Professor Yang also arranged for Lili Wong to polish the first draft of the book. Ms. Wong’s labor is highly appreciated. Two reviewers of the manuscript gave important suggestions for the revision of the second draft, most of which I have taken as great advice. I am also deeply grateful to Gan Qi, Director of The Chinese University Press, who rightly insisted that I do more work on the second draft. The manuscript was finalized in Osaka at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). At Minpaku, I served as a visiting professor for three months. I am grateful to Professor Hirochika Nakamaki for inviting and hosting me, as well as for making my stay so peaceful. In editing the book, Ellen McGill and Agnes Chan not only helped me put words and sentences more properly, but also generously offered important suggestions for making the presentation of some historical facts more precise. I am enormously grateful to them for their strenuous editing work and their contributions.

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Notes on Transliteration and Bibliography

The official Chinese pinyin system is followed throughout, except for a few widely accepted names such as “Confucius” and “Fa-hsien.” For convenience, most quotes taken from classical Chinese writings are cited from their English translations when available. In such cases, I directly refer to the translations. When necessary, I make slight adjustments of wording to make it consistent with the transliteration I adopt throughout and with my own comprehension of some minor parts of the paragraphs in the original texts. However, not all the books from which I quote have been translated into English. In many cases, I refer directly to their Chinese editions and translate the relevant paragraphs. In such cases, I do not indicate my role as the translator. I use many early twentieth-century Chinese academic works, especially those in mythology, history, and ethnology. Many of these texts have recently been reprinted. In many cases, I use the reprints or the new collections but not the first editions. This is simply because these are what I own personally, or to which I have easy access. When citing them, I have indicated both in the chapters and in the bibliographic references the years of the more recent editions I use and those of the originals. I have taken this trouble because these works are much less known in the Western languages than are classical Chinese writings.

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ONE

Introduction: Rethinking “the West”

On March 7, 1866 (the twenty-first year of the Tongzhi reign), Bin

Chun, a sixty-three year old deputy minister of foreign affairs, boarded a French ship called “Rabbo Deney.” Accompanied by his son Guang Ying and three students from the Tongwen Guan (School of Combined Learning and Translation), Bin Chun led the very first Qing embassy to the West. After two months of tumultuous travel, they finally landed at Marseilles in early May. Bin Chun’s embassy visited several European countries over a period of three and a half months. They reached the “far corners” of France, Britain, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Prussia, and Belgium. On the way, Bin Chun himself devoted a great deal of attention to foreign things and tongues. He had the opportunity to interpret European sites and voices by means of Chinese concepts. Throughout his journey, he deployed old methods of making encyclopedia-type accounts of foreign kingdoms, landscapes, domestic situations, produce, and customs. If it were not for Zhong Shuhe, a historian of the “world activities” (shijie huodong) of late imperial Chinese scholars, most of us would not know the role that Bin Chun played in “Chinese responses to Western impacts.” Zhong (2000) edited the records and poems of Bin Chun and included them in his book Going to the World, granting Bin Chun’s journey a special position in modern Chinese history. One particular moment, however, was given special attention by Zhong— the late Qing ambassador’s meeting with the “Tai Kun” (Supreme Female) of Sweden in Stockholm.

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After an exchange of courtesies and gifts, “Tai Kun” said: “Never before has there been a Chinese traveling in my country, so today, the whole court takes great delight to see you, my honorable Chinese guest.” Bin Chun responded: “Chinese officials seldom make the effort to travel these open seas. Your country is, moreover, located so far north, I wouldn’t have known about this wonderland unless I visited it in person.” He then improvised the following poem and dedicated it to the “Tai Kun”: The King’s Mother in the West (Xi Wangmu) stays in Yingzhou, Twelve Palaces made of pearls are allowed to travel, Yet one witnesses nothing except the fleeting clouds, That’s because the jade chamber is guarded by mountains and rivers. (Zhong, 2000, p. 67) Since the early twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals have adopted many modern European concepts. To compare the King’s Mother in the West—a mythological daughter of Tiandi (Heavenly Supremacy) and the older sister of the Son of Heaven (Tianzi)—with the Swedish queen would perhaps seem absurd to us. Zhong, apparently, had similar concerns, for he comments: “This poem is only a vulgar text, a display of a literary technique in order to create a relationship; to compare the Swedish queen with Xi Wangmu is ridiculous.” Living in a time so very different than ours, Bin Chun, nonetheless, had his own “culturologics” in doing just this. To Bin Chun’s eyes, Sweden was located in the far north but not to the west, just like the mountains where Xi Wangmu resided (Fig. 1.1). The amiable and majestic “Tai Kun” or “Supreme Female” also bore certain similarities to Xi Wangmu in terms of her appearance and position. Like Xi Wangmu, the queen was a non-Chinese lady. Moreover, in the 1860s a European queen could well seem as powerful as Xi Wangmu. For let us remember that Bin Chun went to Europe just six years after the Qing empire’s second defeat by the Western empires in the two Opium Wars (1839–1842, 1856–1860).

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INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING “THE WEST”

Figure .

3

Late Imperial Chinese Cartography of Scandinavian Kingdoms and the North Sea (source: Y. Wei, Haiguo Tuzhi, )

Could Bin Chun foresee that his old-style Chinese interpretation of the West would be seen as a silly joke by us, Chinese living a century later? No one knows. The passage of time makes it difficult for us to return to the past and make sense of Bin Chun’s “conservative” manner of cultural translation. In spite of all its tragic defeats, China in his time still perceived itself as Tianxia (All under Heaven),1 or a “Heavenly polity.” A century later, Chinese perceive their Central Kingdom (Zhongguo) as merely one of many states in Tianxia, whose center of respect has itself “migrated” to the West. Consequentially, we have stopped learning about the world in the way that Bin Chun did. People are more eager to speak about “how Western learning has spread to the East.” They are more inclined to accept the “realistic” processes of diffusion as a historic consequence of China’s defeated place under Tianxia, even perceiving it as an “outcome” of Chinese backwardness. To treat Western concepts as “universal concepts,” commemorating them and employing them to describe China, has become customary in our age. By contrast, Bin Chun still held the code of the “King’s Mother in the West” (Xi Wangmu) in mind, a code which now appears absurd to us. Nowadays, the King’s Mother is nothing but a mythological character discussed only by folklorists who write on the margins of the social sciences. Even though the myths and realities of monarchy and

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divine kingship still exist in a few developed countries both in the East and West, Chinese perspectives on the world have been alienated from Chinese people along with the decline of the archaic legend.

Diegesis of Alterity Later chapters will take inspiration from the myths and histories related with the icon of Xi Wangmu which Bin Chun adopted in describing a European queen; but I do not conceive the chapters to be an extended tribute to the late imperial ambassador’s perspective of the world. Rather, I conceive them as an exercise that allows us to depart from something entertaining to return to the past, where the tragic paradox of our own time can be compared. For me, what Zhong describes as “vulgar poetry” is disconcertingly challenging rather than simply amusing. In the beginning of what Mao Zedong called the “semi-colonial and semi-feudal period” (ban zhimindi ban fengjian shidai), Chinese scholar-officials like Bin Chun continued to feel confident in paying tribute to the other. After struggling for a century, we have become faithful to the progressive theory of history. For many of us, the “dark age” has passed and a “brighter era” has arrived. Paradoxically, in our process of regaining dignity and confidence, we have simultaneously fallen off the track of the “brighter era.” We mock Bin Chun and laugh at his analogy between Xi Wangmu and the Swedish queen, assuming that there is no need to look at the world through our own perspectives of the other. We believe that our knowledge has grown closer to the West in terms of its own “levels” (shuiping). As we enter the “brighter era,” the West, the source of our self-awareness in culture, ceases to be the West in its own imageries and in our own metaphors. Our future seems to be in our own hands only when we grasp the essence of the West and turn it into something that belongs only to us. The closer the West is, the further Chinese ideas fade away. We repeat Bin Chun’s journey to the West, but we make different interpretations of it. We, for instance, stop traveling with our own “heads”; we delude ourselves into thinking that only by cutting off our past can we develop “true knowledge.” The inversions of culture which have paradoxically facilitated the awakening of our own “ethnos” await reflection. Such a fact is

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5

particularly relevant to anthropology, a discipline that takes the inclusion of other concepts, metaphors, and worldviews as its responsibility. Coincidently, this discipline emerged around the same time of Bin Chun’s journey to the West. Perhaps we can even say that Bin Chun’s journey, with his descriptions of European kingdoms, landscapes, and “local things,” could be counted as an ethnographic activity. However, ethnographic activity has been strictly defined as a European invention, one which has little to do with the kind of imperial tributary diplomacy and episteme in which Bin Chun’s travels operated (Fig. 1.2). Figure .

Western Europe under Chinese Depiction (source: Y. Wei, Haiguo Tuzhi,

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A widely accepted critique of anthropology suggests that modern European colonialists assumed that conquering the world without a deep intellectual “penetration” into all “surviving” cultures and societies meant a failed victory. It was supposedly this consideration that deemed anthropology important after the mid-nineteenth century. Anthropology is thus seen as a science of “Man” understood in a special sense, namely the whole lot of cultures and societies of “the uncivilized peoples.” At the same time anthropology was advancing in the West, the Qing empire was sensing the existence of its rivals. After a series of frustrations, the Qing court finally realized that it was necessary to learn things about the expanding “ocean barbarians” (yangyi). The Qing empire in turn sent embassies such as Bin Chun’s to “field sites.” Even then, ambassadors like Bin Chun still kept their imperial pride, which now seems incompatible with the decline of the imperial “rule of rites” (lizhi) he was witnessing. In spite of all such efforts in investigating the West, the “degeneration” of the Qing heavenly polity continued. Consequentially, we have gradually substituted “native” ways of learning with foreign imperial ways of investigation in the hope that such a new “fortune of Heaven” can rescue the Central Kingdom from further weakening (Pusey, 1983). Some of us may take Bin Chun as one who pioneered modern Chinese mimetic practices which, a few decades after his journey to the West, were systematically developed and advocated as a “Westernization Movement” (Yangwu Yundong). But even if Bin Chun’s efforts were at times similar to mimesis, his practice was quite unlike the kind of mimesis that anthropologists have seen in “tribal contexts.” According to anthropologist Michael Taussig (1993), the Cuna Indians are a fine example of the culture of mimesis. In their magical crafts, the Cuna distorted images of white colonists in such a way that the whites are distanced as alterity.2 Certain elementary factors of mimesis obviously also existed in Bin Chun’s activities—he was imitating Western tongues and striving to learn about the mechanics and civilities invented in the West. However, Bin Chun should not be equated to any member of the Cuna. While the Cuna “imitated” distorted images of white colonialists in their magical figurines at home, Bin Chun was abroad. While the Cuna were waiting at home for “external images” to “flow in,” Bin Chun went overseas on his

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diplomatic expedition. If mimesis can be contrasted with diegesis— mimesis showing itself by means of directly represented action, while diegesis is the narration by a narrator who produces an assimilation of himself to another by the use of voice or gesture—then Bin Chun’s activities fall into an Oriental category of the latter. His diegesis, moreover, not only produced an assimilation of himself to another by way of imitating their voices, but also evoked a remote historical other—Xi Wangmu—with which he described the Swedish “Tai Kun.” The minor aspect of diegesis was his “language study” while the major part was his evocation of two alterities—Xi Wangmu in the remote past, and the Swedish “Tai Kun” in the remote place. The imperial Qing uncertainty as to whether the Europeans were civilized or barbaric prompted the diplomatic expedition. Bin Chun was in Europe to see whether it was as strong as it seemed in the Opium Wars. Bin Chun remained himself, not by way of the Cuna kind of refusal, but by way of his own kind of acceptance—he accepted the similarity between Xi Wangmu and a queen of a kingdom much smaller than Qing. As the memory of Bin Chun fades away, our tools for learning about ourselves and others are simplified. We “re-civilize” ourselves by assuming that there was no “local” history of civilization prior to the arrival of the modern, or that our own past was “alien” to the desirable future. We begin the kind of borrowing that is similar to the Cuna mimesis, and, because we perceive what has been borrowed as the only sound perspective, we become a radical sort of mimesis-practitioners.

The Critique of Orientalism In the late 1970s, Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) criticized the unreasonable hegemony of Western knowledge-power in the post-traditional world. Detailing the rising prominence of Orientalist discourse, Said showed how European powers deployed a complex technology of the self, beyond that of romanticism, to control the East. Said’s criticism has satisfied numerous “Orientals” and “Occidentals.” As noted in one of my earlier reviews (M. M. Wang, 2005a, pp. 122–138), Said’s work serves as a resourceful rethinking of the knowledge-power relationship between the East and the West. However, Said’s interest lies chiefly in showing the dialectical

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relationship between the subtle forms and contents of Orientalism and the less subtle realities of Occidental imperialism. Because of this, his conclusion does not fall into the category of what may be called “reciprocal understanding.” To Said, Orientalism is “a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture,” and as such, it “has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world.” As he explains: Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious “Western” imperialist plot to hold down the “Oriental” world. It is rather a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical and philosophical texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two equal halves, Orient and Occident) but also of a whole series of “interests” which by such means as scholarly discovery, philosophical reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and sociological description, it not only creates but also maintains; it is, rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what it is manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world; it is, above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various kinds of power…. (p. 12)

“Nowhere is the phenomenon of a pervasive Orientalism … more visible than in the history of the Chinese revolution” (X. M. Chen, 1992, p. 687). Living in the aftermath of this history,3 I accept part of what Said has said about the world. But I have also my own set of concerns. Is Orientalism not leading us into a certain sort of despair about ourselves? By savoring Orientalist discourse, Said underestimates his own plurality of identity, his own fusion of self and other. Born in Jerusalem, where three world religions co-exist, Said grew up as a child between worlds in both Cairo and Jerusalem. As a scholar deeply learned in English literature and critical theory, he lived most of his later life in the cosmopolitan city of New York. As a living fusion of civilizations, Said can be seen as what anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (1944) calls the “genius of the higher cultures” (pp. 7–16). As a person whose experiences transgressed boundaries between worlds, Said was

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presumably sensitive to the conditions of the East and the West, able to recognize the paradoxes of the world—the human conditions of schism and union. His most influential work, however, radicalizes one side against the other. It attributes all fusions to modern European empires which “integrated and fused things within it, and taken together it and other empires made the world one” (Said, 1978, p. 4). Distancing himself from the “cultural enterprise” of imperialism, Said positions himself as a stranger to empire, an individual who “cannot see or fully grasp the world.” Orientalism can be seen as “a discourse of discourses” by way of reacting subtly to Western expeditions into the East. Said ties a great variety of Western travelogues, academic works, literary texts, and political essays to his category of “Orientalism,” defined as the Western imperialist power-knowledge engine or as the Western “art of war” against the rest. In a word, Said’s work illuminates “Western illusions” of the world, tracing a history of imperial “intellectual adventures” advanced before and after imperial “physical travels” into the worlds of the other. Written as a reaction to the West from the East, Said did not, however, claim Orientalism to be the only story of the world. Hence, it would be unfair and irrelevant to argue that he lacked a consideration of the other side of the coin—Occidentalist discourses about nonOriental countries. However, I maintain critical reservations and begin this book with a critique of Orientalism. As a canonical work for postcolonial studies, it ironically carries on the same modern Western thought it critiques. While Said is critical of the expansive power of modern Western knowledge, his work paradoxically functions as if a spirit possesses us and presses us to treat the West as the only imaginative and perceptive subject.4 While recent critical engagements of Orientalism, which have paid more attention to the self-reforming aspects of imperium, are relevant to our discussions of pre-modern Chinese cosmo-geographies,5 my point of departure is not the same. For me, Orientalism renews a tendency to objectify the East and subjectify the West, or more precisely, to perceive the difference between the West and the East as the difference between the knowing and the represented. Put in anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’s (2000) words, it is one of the “too many narratives of Western domination” in which “the indigenous victims

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appear as neo-historyless peoples: their own agency disappears, more or less with their culture, the moment Europeans irrupt on the scene” (p. 502). In modern anthropological texts, the distinction between the author and the described other is the difference between the one who has the idea of the other and the other that does not. In such “gazettes of the foreigners” (zhufan zhi)—allow me to (ab-)use the classical Chinese expression—the other as the object should better just be placed “out there,” waiting for the observation and speculation of the anthropologist. In turn, the perceptive subject should better dexterously sever the pre-modern linkages between the other and its historical and contemporary others (including the anthropologist), for the sake of making a good example of integrated structure or producing a fantastic illustration of the ideal type. In ethnographic theories, the objects of study are subjects only in the sense that they have manifestations of “mentalities.” In the remote, there are few or no thinkers, more magicians and ritual specialists. Hence Mary Douglas (1966) says in her masterpiece Purity and Danger that those independent local thinkers whom another anthropologist (Vansina) affectionately recalls as those who differ from each other in terms of worldview and ontology “would not have been recorded in the ethnography if there were no practices attached to them” (p. 89). Orientalism can thus be seen as a product of a special age and a special paradox. At the time, Said was writing against the scholarly trend which assumed the West to be the only knowing agent of the other. Consequentially, a paradox similar to Orientalism was created. While the archaic origins of the anthropological “keyword” —other— can be dated quite early in the archaic Greek and Roman dichotomies of civilization and alterity, we require ourselves to insist that the same “keyword” only appeared in the age of earlier or later “modernity.”6 Let us take the great historian of anthropology George Stocking (1987) as an example. Concerning the archaic dichotomies of civilization and alterity, he says the following: The contrast implied in the idea of “civilization” is surely as old as civilization itself. And some of the words by which it has been expressed go back to Greece and Rome. “Barbarian” derives from the Greek contrast between those who spoke intelligibly and those beyond the pale of civil life whose language seemed simply reiterative mumbling—notably the

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Scythians, who for centuries were the archetype of the barbarian nomads of Eastern steppes. A second contrast term derives not from language but from habitat: “savages” (from the Latin “sylva”) were those who lived in the woods, rather than in the city.… (p. 10)

Having successfully dug up the deep historical roots of the “philological tree” of the other,7 Stocking somehow does not carry on examining it. After a couple of paragraphs, like that of the above, where it is mentioned in passing, he quickly re-orients his narrative time-space and goes on for long chapters about Victorian anthropology.8 Lately this kind of short-term history of anthropology has been quite popular among historians of anthropological disciplines.9 Such critical historians do not deny the obvious fact that historical others of contemporary Westerners—those living in the “foreign times” from ancient Greece and the Roman empire to the Renaissance and Enlightenment—obviously had their own series of alterity. However, they insist that such senses of the other did not make the foundations of anthropology. To them, anthropology was not born until the singular civilization—a knowledge-power system of the uniquely European sort—had become so ever more subtly aggressive that the other was received as the key issue. In other words, the study of anthropology was not possible until the “bourgeois’ good conscience became troubled and [became] self-conscious with regard to the non-European other” (McGrane, 1989, p. 129). Had that been the case, the difference between “now” and “then,” between anthropological concepts of the other and archaic European dichotomies, would have been so trivial as to be negligible. Nonetheless, for some reason historians insist that “now” is completely different from “then.” Anthropological self-criticisms have made great contributions to the post-imperial European scholarship of self-denunciation. But they have not altered the ideological and epistemological conditions under which the cultural self of the West has been portrayed—as the only thinker whose culture writes poetically other cultures into politics (while it has never been written by other cultures).10 Incidentally, when Said was writing his masterpiece and anthropologists were writing about their senses of the other, China was at the same time entering its reform age. In post-Mao China, the “Open Door Policy” has replaced the “Closed Door Policy,” but the practice of

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“counting out the other” has continued to be a custom. The “Open Door Policy” has noticeably contributed to the “internationalization” (guojihua) of China. Its implementation has also produced, for instance, the advancement of “the science of international relations” (guoji guanxixue). Ironically, discussions over “international relations” have frequently used the same fashionable pair of geo-political concepts— “China and the world” (Zhongguo yu shijie). The idea of “China and the world” has an “other-centric” connotation. “The world” bears a different connotation than “foreign countries” (waiguo)—a problematic concept of “other cultures” widely used in Mao’s time. Juxtaposing these two concepts, “the world” and “foreign countries,” we can detect a certain irony: to differentiate China from the world is to suggest that China is outside the world. Though deployed with more sophistication than post-Mao Chinese discourses of “China and the world,” Said’s analysis in Orientalism similarly counts out the East from the world.11 Orientalism, Western anthropology, and contemporary Chinese discourses of “China and the world” can thus be seen as a set of seemingly different and virtually similar “world-scapes”—the cartography-like discourses and “geo-politics” of world imaginaries—that deserve serious comparison. However, instead of further indulging in such comparisons, allow me to move on to my main argument—that the Occidentalizing narratives of “Orientals” like Bin Chun have found no place in contemporary discourses due to the irony that mainstream critiques, such as that found in Orientalism, allow no space for such an inversion.

Ethnographic “Missing Links” In order to find a position for Bin Chun in our discussions, let me return once again to analyzing the study of anthropology, a supposedly “mind-liberating discipline” whose ambition is to take on “the native’s point of view.” One of the most relevant examples is perhaps Clifford Geertz’s renowned essay, “From the Native’s Point of View.” In this essay, Geertz (1983, pp. 55–70) employs his enchanting literary power and paints the field of anthropology as a study that makes one cherish other peoples’ modes of thought. This point of view seems to offer a solid foundation for us to really “digest” the “native’s texts.” Geertz’s categorization of “natives,” however, excludes a certain aspect of the

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natives’ points of view. Surely, “worldview” is a concept that Geertz loves using. But in Geertz’s dictionary, a “worldview” does not necessarily mean a view of the whole world. Geertz fervently argues that the natives (“objects” or “social facts” of anthropological study) have their own developed ways of understanding the world. However, he does not see such understandings as possibly reaching a larger audience beyond the “natives” themselves. In order to identify the natives with certain “types” of culture, Geertz devotes most of his studies to the “natives” or “ethnic groups” in Indonesia, hardly feeling obliged to take into account the lasting contacts between “natives” and “other others”—including Indians, Persians, Chinese, and Arabs—which may have made the “ethnic groups” at least partly cosmopolitan. In Negara, one of his several masterpieces, Geertz (1980) sets out to invent a historical ethnography with a sensible statement about the interactions between different cultures in Bali: When one looks panoramically at Indonesia today … [a]ll the cultural streams that, over the course of some three millennia, have flowed, one after the other, into the archipelago—from India, from China, from the Middle East, from Europe—find their contemporary representation somewhere. (p. 3)

However, Geertz swiftly passes through these cultural streams and arrives in the “island” of Bali. As he says: Yet, in this whole vast array of cultural and social patterns, one of the most important institutions (perhaps the most important) in shaping the basic character of Indonesian civilization is, for all intents and purposes, absent, vanished with a completeness that, in a perverse way, attests its historical centrality—Negara, the classical state of pre-colonial Bali. (pp. 3–4)

By locating history at the moment when Western powers intruded into Indonesia, Geertz discovers an archaic “mode” of the Balinese theaterstate. In other words, he truncates history from the nineteenth century onwards and in effect isolates the island of Bali from its surrounding ocean. Geertz insightfully notes that “from India, from China, from the Middle East,” culture streams had run into Indonesia long before the

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“modern world-system” (which in a side note, is treated by Geertz himself as one of the many types of cultures in the world). But for “good ethnographic reason,” he fails to compare such older streams of culture with the later stream—the intruding “world-system” in which he is perhaps a reflexive participant. I find it hard to understand why Geertz assumes that the “natives” remained “native” until the nineteenth century. Couldn’t they have been changed by the earlier external cultural influences, and thus in turn developed their own understandings of “inter-cultural politics”? During the long centuries of pre-European “foreign invasions,” the “natives” living on the islands of Indonesia must have learned a great deal from the “world religions,” so much so that they could display their own world-scapes beyond “native myths.” Moreover, the spread of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Confucianism on all the islands had the same capacity as Christianity to “domesticate” the world. Even though Geertz confined himself to “local knowledge,” he should have been able to discover a “whole world” in the Balinese world-scape. But Geertz seems to have his own anthropological reasoning. In order to “localize” culture, he steps away from “surviving” fragments of “premodern” civilizations in the extensive lands of the “East” and ends up in the anthropology of “local knowledge.” Unlike the structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1987, p. 4), who anticipated the sad loss of the iconography of “the natural Man” in Western imperialist ethnology and non-Western anticolonialist sociology, Clifford Geertz was more or less an optimist. His is a kind of anthropology that respects the other by way of respecting its “nativism,” even if this had been defined by Lévi-Strauss as a result of the global “pollution” of civilization. Traveling on the margins of the world is a customary practice of anthropologists. Yet, it is precisely in anthropology that the rethinking of the other has recently become a fashion. Critiques of the politically meaningful temporal and spatial makings of the other (Fabian, 1983) and of its “holism” (Appadurai, 1986, pp. 745–776) has turned what was not long ago perceived as a good ethic into a conspicuous romanticism or a problematic civilizing project. Ever since Said’s work was published, such critiques have joined the discourse of Orientalism and turned their own works into anthropological derivatives of the “scripture.” Deconstructing the discipline of anthropology, many Western anthropologists have discovered many

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facets of power inhabited by the knowing subject—the West, their own place of belonging. But in doing so, they merely point out the impossibility of avoiding the confinements of colonial geopolitics. Finding other ways of knowing is not what they aim to do. Consequentially, critiques of the concept of the other has also denied the existence of the other, especially the other’s thinking capacities. Unable to recognize the existence of the perceptive other, many anthropologists, like Orientalists, have failed to rid themselves of Euro-centrism. They have mostly taken the “legends of the West” to be what appeared when the East reacted to the West, or as the only perspective of the other, the only anthropology.

Other Orientalisms Anthropology should not be the only discipline on which we blame all the faults. Many disciplines have brought forth similar “crises of representation” in imagining the other. For example, some Chinese intellectuals have analyzed expressions used by Chinese “men of letters” (wenren) to describe Chinese images of the West after the May Fourth Movement in 1919. In their analyses, Westernization somehow did not take place until Chinese “men of letters” surrendered to “Mr. De” (democracy) and “Mr. Sai” (science) and considered it necessary to equip themselves with techniques, epistemologies, and politics from the West. Undoubtedly, many of those modern Chinese “men of letters” indulged in creating illusions of the West (X. M. Chen, 1992). Thus, deconstructing their illusions is a step towards understanding Chinese “Occidentalism.” But such analyses reconstruct non-Western Occidentalisms within a “Western contact Eastern react” historical viewpoint. In so doing, it neglects the long history of East-West contacts and their intellectual consequences (Goody, 1996). As a result, these discussions have ended in repetitive conversations over what may be called “China in Western minds.” Orientalism has not only been transplanted into Chinese academia, but also enjoys a high respect in Japan. Unlike the Chinese, who often react to Western thought by accepting it, the Japanese appropriate such inquiries as a means of self-reflection. While Chinese scholars adopt the perspective of Orientalism to critique their own modern

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Occidentalisms, Japanese scholars deploy it to reflect on their own imperial missions of romanticization. For Japanese scholars, the conspicuous romanticism over the nearby Orient—China—becomes the most interesting “case study.” Some Japanese scholars move Orientalism to the East in analyzing the way in which Japanese “men of letters” wrote about China in imperial Japanese times.12 In so doing, they make use of it to urge themselves to rethink their own “imperialist eye” (Pratt, 1992). In regional Chinese anthropology, efforts to extend discussions over Orientalism have also been made. Western anthropologists who study China have “Sinified” Orientalism. In the anthropology of China, the concept of “internal Orientalism” has become popular. Anthropologists who focus on studying the interrelationship between ethnic groups and the Han in China have begun investigating how popular discourses shape—e.g., feminize—the image of ethnic groups with romantic technologies of domination.13 They have taken important notes of certain “social facts” of representation, and argued for the critique of “internal othering.” This kind of research is surely not trivial, but it does have certain obvious shortcomings. It, for instance, fails to acknowledge that Chinese “internal Orientalism” has always been derived from the conflation of the internal and external.14

Other Sightings and Linkages As the example of Bin Chun shows, the world known to the West as “China” is not a mere landscape “sighted” by European traveler-scribes like Marco Polo (Spence, 1998). For at least two millennia, Chinese “men of letters” have not only inscribed their own history and written about “cooked barbarians” (shufan, or the partially Hanized others) who have become the “objects” of “post-colonial” ethnological studies, but also about the “foreigners” known as “raw barbarians” (shengfan, the totally un-Hanized others), and produced certain “external Orientalisms.” In volume two of his Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham divided Chinese “world-knowledge” into two parts: the science of Heaven (consisting of astronomy and meteorology) and the science of Earth (geography, map-making, geology, and related sciences). In the long chapter on Chinese geography and map-making

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in particular, Needham argues that by the fifth century B.C., Chinese had begun to compose geographic and cartographic books which are “much more detailed and elaborate than anything which has come down to us from Anaximander’s time” (Needham, 1981b, p. 240). In the geographic works, “anthropological geographies” were also advanced. “In spite of all losses, an enormous literature exists in the geography of foreign cultures” (p. 244). Apart from these, there were also hydrographic works and descriptions of the coast, local topographies, and geographic encyclopedias. After having outlined “the immense mass of geographic knowledge,” Needham says that these geographic and cartographic achievements “were certainly not gained unless by the accumulated observations of countless travelers and explorers,” some of whom “were engaged in official or diplomatic missions, others were traveling in the cause of religion, but they all added their store of experience and their observations, more or less accurate and complete, to the growth of knowledge about the terrestrial world” (p. 250). Regarding Chinese descriptions of foreigners, another Western sinologist, Richard Smith (1996), also says: Chinese scholars have long included accounts of foreigners (most often described generically as yi, “barbarians”) and foreign lands in their histories, encyclopedias, and other compendia, both official and unofficial. From a practical standpoint, this information—ranging from local customs, agricultural and other products, and topography to military capabilities and economic activities—alerted the Chinese to external conditions that might affect the country’s trade and security. (p. 7)

The history of Chinese “external Orientalisms” or their reversals is such a long one that post-imperial Chinese discourses of Occidentalism should not be said to be purely an outcome of the impact of the West.15 Qian Mu, the leading modern Chinese neo-Confucian thinker and historian, traces the long history of contacts between China and its “West” back to “ancient times.” In an essay published sixty years ago, “Sino-Western Contacts and Cultural Renewal,” Qian (1994 [1948], pp. 203–230) argues that “Eastern-Western contacts” began long before the period in which the East was subjected to the impact of the new West. China had long had its own interactions with India, Africa, and the Islamic worlds. As these “foreign countries” were located to

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the west in the eyes of the Chinese, these cultural contacts had been perceived as “East-West relations” in “pre-modern times.” Qian Mu’s essay does not inform us that with all its interactions with its wide range of “Wests,” China (one of the “Far Eastern countries” in the “imperial eye” [Pratt, 1992] of the new West) has long entertained many “Occidentalisms”—“Occidentalisms” understood as an “Eastern” counterpart to “Western” Orientalism, as a sort of mixture of romanticism and strategic knowledge of the exotic. Qian also fails to indicate that Chinese archives are rich in narratives of the other, through which a long history of cultural interactions can be systematically reconstructed. Fortunately, in the early twentieth century, a number of Qian’s contemporaries started to reconstruct the pasts of “China and the world” from their own perspectives. A few outstanding examples include Zhang Xinglang’s A Collection of Archival Materials on the History of Sino-Western Communications (1930) and Xiang Da’s A History of Sino-Western Communication (1934). Studies falling into this category are historical, but they are also inspiring to social scientists.16 In these narratives of historical geography, boundaries between peoples, cultures, societies, civilizations, and empires give way to inter-regional communications. “The West” is thus not limited to the new West but refers to a whole range of countries to the west of China. As a social scientist, I perceive such historiographies as certain efforts to define China as it was. Long before the coming of the new West, the direction and place called “the West” had become significant, and sometimes even “holy.” “The West” in this sense can be seen as a “directionology.” Through it, a directionology-centered principle of cosmology was formulated as a conceptual foundation for the “native perspectives” of the world. Such perspectives depended, in their making, on the principle of alterity but did not inevitably produce the opposite of autochthony. In this kind of “world order,” the West was a changing geographical location, a variety of shifting senses of geo-political and cultural orientation which has a long-term relationship with the idea of the civilized and civilizing self—Huaxia.17 Li Ji (2005 [1928]), one of the founding fathers of Chinese ethnology, made the following complaint eighty years ago:

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Until now, Chinese historians seldom go beyond the limits of the “Central Kingdom.” They are limited by their ignorance of other cultural centers, which also have the same human weakness. These include the Egyptian, the Ancient Greek, and the Roman centers. These ancient peoples also took their own countries as the centers of the world and the foreigners as the barbarians…. But unless the foreigners had made connections with China, Chinese historians did not have any interest in studying them. (p. 7)

Li Ji heavily criticized his ethno-centric colleagues. He also pointed out their ignorance of ethnological diffusionism.18 Ancient Chinese historical and geographic descriptions have all the “self-isolating” fallacies that have concerned modern cosmopolitan intellectuals like Li Ji.19 But these perspectives have their own merits, one of which is that they represented not just “the Central Kingdom” itself. Such narratives and mappings demarcate models of hybridity and connectivity that were constantly alternating. Perhaps because he also found traditional historiography to be enlightening, Li Ji turned his “spear” against a major part of Western Orientalism—sinology. To Li Ji, Western sinologists perceived China as a country without history, “a culture that stayed in the same place for more than 4,000 years” (2005 [1928], p. 7). Yet, what is the “real China”? In his book The Formation of the Chinese People, Li Ji proposed a synthetic definition. The civilization of the Chinese people, for him, was founded upon the fusion of different “nations.” Two groups played the most important role in the fusion; one was the “We-group” (that is, the civilized people identified by Chinese historians), and the other was the “You-group” (the so-called “barbarians”). Li suggests that between “We-group” and “You-group,” cultural differences were not always political (p. 8). He starts by displaying the historical geographic distributions of modern ethnic groups, and then continues by showing his model. He then eventually reaches the conclusion that “modern China” (by which he referred to “civilized China”) is composed of as many as five main “nations” (minzu) including the descendants of Huang Di (Yellow Emperor); the Tungus; the “nations” belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family; those speaking the Mon-Khmer languages; and those speaking the Shan languages. Li Ji concluded that “Chinese” also include three secondary groups, the Huns, the Mongolians, and the Negritos. These many “nations,” which made different contributions to the formation of China as a civilization,

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resided in different directions: the descendants of Huang Di mainly reside in the eastern part of China, the Tungus in the North, the TibetoBurman speaking peoples in the West, the Mon-Khmer speaking peoples in the South, and the Shan speaking peoples in the Southeast. Moreover, the Huns are scattered in the North, the Negritos in the South, and the Mongolians everywhere. Li Ji’s “unity of diversity” mapping of China has its obvious problems. But this meticulous analysis has its merits too. It points to the fact that “Chinese” is not a “pure single nation.” In the 1930s, several other great Chinese historians such as Fu Sinian and Gu Jiegang were writing their own histories of Chinese civilization. Differences existed among them, yet they shared perspectives of “mixture.” Fu and Gu, who were active advocates of the great unity of China, divided China into the East and West and sought to consider its unity as a composition of diversity.20 They insisted that the “nations” living in the eastern and western parts of the East Asian continent originally had their different territories and cultures or “mentalities.” As a polity and structure of mind, Huaxia was one of several civilizations whose own formation was only possible when “other cultures” were included.21

Wests as Others In the world-scapes of the conflated “sciences” of Heaven and Earth and in the ethnological topographies of inter-cultural relations, we can find a way to rethink existing ways of recognizing the West and the East. Harboring this belief, I will integrate some relevant materials, myths, and ideas. I begin with the ancient book Biography of King Mu (Mu Tianzi Zhuan). From what I define as the synthetic text of biography and geography, I head out on a mental travel through time. The first stop will be the world of Xi Wangmu and the Kunlun Mountains in the classical period. The next will be a number of later Occidentalisms, including the Westernized Dongfang (the East, such as the Taishan Mountains and the Immortality Mountains Overseas in the Qin-Han period) and the ideal world of the “Western Heaven” (Xitian) in the minds of Chinese Buddhist monks and “world gazettes” of tributary narratives. Finally, I will arrive at the “stop” of “Europeanization” through the passages of Nanhai (the Southern Sea) and Xiyang (the

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Western Ocean) between Tang and Ming. By way of writing a history of Chinese “Occidentalism,” I investigate the cosmological contradictions for the historical virtue (de) of embracing the other. I conceived the project in reaction to the notion of isolation, which, as I will further examine in the context of “late imperial Europeanization” in Chapter Eight, had not only produced many of the modern social science misconceptions of the non-modern worlds but also limited a major part of Chinese anthropology. Following the cultural history advanced by a generation of pioneer Chinese ethnologists, I keep a distance from the practice of perceiving relationships as locally created “mirrors” of the community or society studied, and make efforts to follow the flows and networks that link objects and persons in relational complexities.22 In thinking of these relational complexities, I take into account the history of travel. In particular, I trace the outward journeys of kings, emperors, magicians, scholars, monks, imperial embassies, tributary envoys, travelers, and merchants in classical and imperial times. Travel is not a new topic in history. The geographic, cartographical, and ethnographic achievements of ancient Chinese world explorers have been studied by Chinese and non-Chinese historians.23 In writing this work, I rely heavily upon existing documentation and interpretations. However, I also endeavor to derive from the old something new. I seek to present a new kind of anthropological acceptance of the scale and splendor of the world activities and world-scapes in the “Orient”; and I write to enact this acceptance, to turn it into a perspective which critically engages modern anthropological world conceptions. Late Victorian anthropology and French sociology between the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century re-theorized the sacred, seeing its ambiguity as a means to re-interpret the enigmatic archaic Roman figure of the sovereign that, as Agamben (1998) argues, “seems to embody contradictory traits and therefore had to be explained thus begins to resonate with the religious category of the sacred when this category irrevocably loses its significance and comes to assume contradictory meanings” (p. 80). The paradox of European sovereignty had manifested in the long contest between mainstream discussions of “elementary forms of religious life” and much less known speculations of supra-national civilizations.24

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Precisely to the end of contrasting the European juridical order to its other, the “sinological sociologist” Marcel Granet25 looked to “another civilization” in which the dualism between outside and inside was conceptualized differently: in the “Chinese world,” as Granet argues, outside was not perceived as the sacred, and the mutual relations between humans in the realm of inside were not seen as “profane”; thus the “holy places” were situated in the in-between zones (Berr, 1930). I draw heavily from Granet’s densely implicative comparison of Eurasian civilizations. In a major part of the book, I speculate about non-Western possibilities of the external vantage, trying to free them from the exclusive social science paradox of solidarity. From the inception of the social sciences of which the field of anthropology is a part, the West has continued to appear as the only continent with knowing subjects, and the rest have consequentially been represented as a great diversity of human objects open for examination or survey.26 We should not underestimate Said’s contribution to our understanding of politics of othering and objectifying in the modern West, and I would not object to any attempt to define the present project as complementary to Orientalism. However, I must say that the book has been conceived to be more than a compensation for Orientalism’s shortage of Occidentalism. I propose that what is often treated as the object is in fact also a knowing subject who also objectifies and subjectifies the other. The non-Western adoption of Western disciplines of science, for instance, can be seen as an important aspect of such othering. I situate the othering and objectifying capacities of the East historically and cosmologically, seeking to elucidate them by way of writing a genealogy of what may be called “ethno-directionologies.” Roughly, the genealogy in question consists of the following five parts: 1. the making of Westernism in classical China; 2. the re-orientation of the “sacred direction” from the West to the East during the early empires of the Qin and the Han Dynasties; 3. the re-Westernization of the Central Kingdom (China) by virtue of the “Western Heaven” (Xitian) in the long period of the “Buddhist conquest” from the third to the sixth centuries; 4. the movement of the center of civilization to the South and the

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emergence of the concepts of the “Southern Sea” (Nanhai) and the “Western Ocean” (Xiyang), in the period of the unified empires since the sixth century; 5. the coming of the modern age and the “Europeanization” (Ouhua) of the West in Chinese directionology.27 After this chapter, I spend seven other chapters on the historical transformations of the directionologies I reconstruct.28 In Chapter Two, I deal with the legend of an archaic king’s journey to the West, which took place during the age of “Antiquity,” to centralize the imaginaries of the outside and of the other. In Chapter Three, I once again discuss what I define as “classical Occidentalism.” It on the one hand references a number of Chinese academic debates over the “authenticity” of the classical “biographic geography” or the legends that celebrate the complexity of the territorial. On the other hand, it traces a genealogy of the Zhou civilization. In both chapters, I also bring the origination of the geo-cosmological model of quarters surrounding the center into consideration, and relate the king’s travels to the model. Chapters Four and Five consider the reversal of the East-West and North-South contrasts between the time of the first empire and beginning of the second phase of unification in the seventh century. It shows how early imperial “pilgrimages” (fengshan) to the sacred mountains in the East was derived from the infused Eastern and Western systems of “mythology” in the aftermath of the conquest of the East (Qi Kingdom) by the West (Qin Kingdom). It demonstrates also how the mixing of cultures was eventually replaced in the age of “chaos,” characterized by a new kind of Occidentalism—Chinese Buddhism. Chapter Six continues to examine the re-patterning of the EastWest and South-North dualisms by bringing into play the gazettes of the Western Territories (Xiyu) and India. It investigates, in particular, India’s relation to the Southern Sea (Nanhai)—a concept which later evolved into the “Western Ocean” (Xiyang), implicating originally the Islamic world and later morphing into a term deployed in late imperial and modern regimes to describe Europe. Following the theme of Chapter Six, Chapter Seven focuses on the transition from mountain-imaginaries to ocean-imaginaries in the directionology of the South-North dualism. Special attention is given to the

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imperial Chinese “gazettes of the foreigners” and the changing meaning of material life during the period of maritime expansion between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Chapter Eight considers “Europeanization”—a concept developed by Zhang Xinglang (Chang Hsing-lang), the pioneer historian of SinoWestern relations—from the perspective of the greater history of modern inter-cultural relations. In this chapter, the early twentieth century reconceptualizations of anthropology and their Chinese sociological and ethnological “translations” are examined as at the same time mutually related and differentiable. They are contextualized in the longer history of “Europeanization” in which “journeys to the West” continued, but they paradoxically ended in the decline of a great part of the ancient perspectives of the other. At the “Eastern end” of Eurasia, East and West remained distinct from and related to each other until quite recently. Patterned out in accordance with a temporal order, these examples are anticipated to re-emerge as a “genealogy” of the changing ways of being among other humans, other things, and other divinities.29 The cosmo-geographic positionings of the West considered here consist of the following three types: Type 1: other-centric narratives and orientations with strong religious-ceremonial colors; they locate the world of the “beyond,” the “sacred,” or the truthful in the outside world (for instance, the Occidentalism in Chinese Buddhist “Journeys to the West”). Type 2: ethno-centric and tributary narratives and orientations derived from or associated with imperial “tributary diplomacy” and civilizing projects (for instance, the “gazettes” [zhi] or ethnographies of foreign countries recording race, customs, legal practices, religion, products, and social relationships in the “barbarian kingdoms”). Type 3: mixtures of other-centrism and tributary imperialism. I consider Type 3 to be the elemental form, and I exemplify it with the Biography of King Mu, a mythico-history which tells the story of the king’s “travels around the world [in classical Chinese, Tianxia].” Through such travels the king authorized a kind of “geography.” These travels were certain world activities (shijie huodong) carried out to define the thin line between civilization and the wild and to show respect for other places, things, divinities, and humans. As such, they marked out

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cultural boundaries and allowed these boundaries to become ambiguous, intertwining the East and the West, the inside with the outside. For me, the “classical” type is complex, containing both Types 1 and 2, and it speaks to the inevitable overlap between different types in historical realities.

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King Mu (Mu Tianzi) and the Journey to the West

In ancient China, to write was to establish images to exhaust meaning

(lixiang jinyi). Directional terms such as “Dong” (East) and “Xi” (West) referred not merely to directions; they also conveyed the meaning of the world. Hence, the East (Dong), or the opposite of the West, has the same pronunciation as “motion” (dong). Dong’s written character also contains “wood” (mu). Thus, it resembles the image of the sun rising from the woods. The character for the West imitates the scene of a bird in its nest, for birds will return to their nests when they see the sunset. Hence, the character Xi was created not only to refer to the direction of West, but its pronunciation also resonates with the character qi, which means roosting. Xu Shen (1982 [100]), a Han Dynasty scholar who compiled the first Chinese dictionary in the year of A.D. 100, associated the East with the sunrise and the vitality of plants (p. 126) and the West with the sunset and with trees on which birds sojourn (p. 158), vividly illustrating the conflation of specific things and abstract directions. The pictograph Xi (West) had been in use since the age of the oracles (G. Wang, 2001 [1921], p. 174), during which, in their treatments of “state affairs,” the kings stood in the middle of the North China plain, looking out to the quarters beyond their realms, “observing, forecasting, and recording the numerous directional phenomena, mandane and spiritual” (Keightley, 2000, p. 121). However, the early Chinese inscriptions do not tell us much about the history of “travel” toward the direction of the West. The first docu-

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mented “journey to the West” came much later. This journey was completed by King Mu (in power roughly from 1001 B.C. to 952 B.C.), or “Zhou Muwang” (King Mu of Zhou), the fifth king of the Zhou Dynasty which replaced the Shang during the eleventh century B.C., “a hero, sung by poets, like his ancestor King Wen. He is also the protagonist of an adventure romance and one of the favorite personages of the story-tellers of ‘inspired wanderings’” (Granet, 1930, p. 20). Liezi, supposedly a collection of works by Lie Yukou (a Daoist thinker preceding Zhuangzi), has a fantastic legend of King Mu’s inspired wandering:1 In the time of King Mu of the Zhou Dynasty, there came from a country in the Far West a magician who could enter fire and water, and pierce metal and stone, who overturned mountains, turned back rivers, shifted walled cities, who rode the empty air without falling and passed unhindered through solid objects; there was no end to the thousands and myriads of ways in which he altered things and transformed them. He not only altered the shapes of things, he also changed the thoughts of men. King Mu reverenced him as though he were a god, served him as though he were his prince; he lodged him in the royal chambers, presented him with flesh of animals bred for sacrifice, picked singing girls to entertain him. But the magician found the rooms of the royal palace too mean and humble to live in, the delicacies of the royal kitchen too tough and rank to eat, the ladies of the royal harem too ugly and smelly for intimacy. Then King Mu built him a new mansion, devoting to it all the skill of his craftsmen in clay and wood and decorators in red ochre and whitewash; his treasuries were empty by the time the tower was finished. It was seven thousand feet high, overlooked the tops of the Chuang-nan [sic] [Zhongnan] Mountains, and was called “The Tower in the Middle Sky.” The King chose the loveliest and daintiest virgins of Cheng [Zheng] and Wei to fill it, put fragrant oils on their hair, straightened their moth eyebrows, adorned them with hairpins and earrings, dressed them in fine cotton and gauze bordered with the white silk of Ch’i [Qi], powdered their faces and blackened their eyebrows, hung their girdles with jade rings, sprinkled them with sweet herbs. He performed Receiving the Clouds, the Six Jewels, the Nine Succession Dances and the Morning Dew to please the magician, and every month offered him costly garments, every morning served him with costly foods. The magician was still dissatisfied, but decided to accept the mansion in the absence of anything better.

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Not long afterwards, he invited the King to come with him on an excursion. He soared upwards, with King Mu clinging to his sleeve, and did not stop until they were in the middle sky. There they came to the magician’s palace. It was built of gold and silver, and strung with pearls and jades; it stood out above the clouds and the rain, and one could not tell what supported it underneath. In the distance it looked like a congealed cloud. All that the eye observed and ear listened to, the nose inhaled and the tongue tasted, were things unknown in the world of men. The King really believed that he was enjoying “the mighty music of the innermost heaven,” in the Pure City or the Purple Star, the palaces where God dwells. When he looked down, his own palaces and arbours were like rows of clods and heaps of brushwood. When it seemed to the King that he had lived there twenty or thirty years without thinking of his own country, the magician again invited him to accompany him on an excursion. They came to a place where they could not see the sun and moon above them, nor the rivers and seas below them. Lights and shadows glared, till the King’s eyes were dazzled and he could not look; noises echoed towards them till the King’s ears hummed and he could not listen. Every member and organ loosened in terror, his thoughts ran riot and his spirits waned; and he asked the magician to let him go back. The magician gave him a push, and the King seemed to meteor through space. When he awoke, he was sitting as before in his own palace, and his own attendants waited at his side. He looked in front of him; the wine had not yet cooled, the meats had not yet gone dry. When the King asked where he had been, his courtiers answered: “Your Majesty has only been sitting here absorbed in something.” From this time, King Mu was not himself, and it was three months before he recovered. He again questioned the magician, who answered: “Your Majesty has been with me on a journey of the spirit. Why should your body have moved? Why should the palace where you lived be different from your own palace, or the place of our excursion different from your own park? Your Majesty feels at home with the permanent, is suspicious of the sudden and temporary. But can one always measure how far and how fast a scene may alter and turn into something else?” The King was delighted, ceased to care for state affairs, took no pleasure in his ministers and concubines, and gave up his thoughts to far journeys.

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He gave orders to yoke his eight noble horses in two teams. In the team of the royal car, the inside horses were Blossom Red on the right and Green Ears on the left; the outside horses were Red Thoroughbred on the right and White Offering on the left. The charioteer was Tsao-fu [Zaofu], with T’ai-ping [Taibing] to second him. In the team of the next car, the inside horses were Tall Yellow on the right and Outstripper on the left; the outside horses were Dull Sable on the right and Son of the Hills on the left. Po [Bo] Yao was in charge, with Shen Pei [Bei] as charioteer and Pen Jung [Ben Rong] to second him. They galloped a thousand miles and came to the country of the Chü-sou [Jusou] tribe. The tribesmen offered the King the blood of white snowgeese to drink, and provided cow and mare milk to wash his feet; and they did the same for the men of the two teams. After drinking he went on, and lodged for the night on the range of K’un-lun [Kunlun] to the North of the Red River. On another day he climbed the summit of K’un-lun to look at the Yellow Emperor’s palace, and raised a mound there as a memorial for future generations. Then he was the guest of the Western Queen Mother [King’s Mother in the West] who gave a banquet for him on Jasper Lake. The [King’s Mother in the West] sang for the King, who sang in answer; but the words of his song were melancholy. He looked Westward at Mount Yan, where the sun goes down after its daily journey of ten thousand miles. Then he sighed and said: “Alas! I, who am King, have neglected virtue for pleasure. Will not future generations look back and blame me for my errors?” How can we call King Mu a Divine Man! He was able to enjoy his lifetime to the full but still he died when his hundred years was up. The world supposed that he had “risen into the sky.” (Graham, 1960, pp. 31–33)2

In Liezi, King Mu’s travel is depicted as dream-like. The King’s wandering in the West is initiated and guided by an all-capable magician from the Far West. Although it is true that “magicians from the barbaric lands” (huwu) were active in classical and early imperial China (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 619–621), descriptions of them as all-capable are “unreal.” While Liezi’s story of King Mu’s wandering is mythical, it is nonetheless not completely devoid of reference to the historical. The “dream-like” aspects aside, its outline of the king’s activities, such as hunting, sacrificing, mixing with Xi Wangmu3 in the West and the tribesmen, has its

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counterpart in another book—Biography of King Mu, which, compared to Liezi, has been considered a relatively more reliable source (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 603–619). Biography of King Mu became known to us by accident. In the second year of the Taikang reign of the Jin Dynasty (A.D. 281), a trove of bamboo strips were unearthed from the tomb of the King of the Wei state.4 Xun Xu, the Marquis of Jibei with the title of Guanglu Dafu (the highest rank of officialdom in court), was the supervisor of books and the advisor to the king. It was he who transcribed the contents of the bamboo strips onto yellow paper. After carefully examining and cross-checking the texts, he was eventually able to re-integrate the fragments into the six-chapter (juan) Biography of King Mu. Xun Xu hid his transcriptions along with the original bamboo strips in a chamber in his house. After some years, these scripts were re-discovered by Guo Pu, a highly noted natural historian and writer who lived between the late third century and the early decades of the fourth century. He was the author of an early source of fengshui (geomancy) doctrine, and an annotator of many pre-Qin classics such as Erya and Shan Hai Jing (The Book of Mountains and Seas). Having discovered the transcriptions and bamboo strips, Guo Pu annotated the Biography and made it available to later readers. According to Guo Pu’s revised version of Biography of King Mu, Xun Xu believed that the Biography “is about the travels of King Mu of Zhou.” In his “Preface,” Xun Xu says: As recorded in Spring and Autumn Annals with the Commentary of Zuo (Chun Qiu Zuoshi Zhuan), “King Mu intended to broaden his perspective by traveling around the world (Zhou xing Tianxia), leaving the footprints of his horses and the tracks of his carts everywhere.” The book ruminates on this event. King Mu was fond of making hunting journeys. He owned superior horses including Blossom Red (Daoli) and Green Ears (Lu’er) as well as the top charioteer Zao Fu. He ventured to the Moving Sands in the North and the Kunlun Mountains in the West. He visited the King’s Mother in the West (Xi Wangmu), as was recounted by the Grand Historian (Tai Shi Gong, i.e., Sima Qian) on the summit of Kunlun. (Guo, 2006, 197–198)

The first four chapters of Biography of King Mu are about King Mu’s

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journey to the West. The remaining two chapters are devoted to a description of his frustrating military expeditions in the East (one of which caused the death of his favorite concubine Sheng Ji, which plunged King Mu into deep sorrow).5 The bamboo strips were written hundreds of years after King Mu’s death. Even if they were based on original notes taken by King Mu’s close attendants (some of whom would have been historians and astrologers), the strips still should not be seen as “historical.”6 However, I find Biography of King Mu interesting in consideration of the following three related points: 1. The book combines notes, stories, fables, and myths, and thus it can be called a “synthetic text” of myth and history. It is a mixture of metaphors and realities, displaying a certain kind of mentalité which deserves our understanding. 2. Texts such as Biography of King Mu are components of a kingly way of rule that was evolving into a certain world-scape. They were effective scriptures which derived from, and in turn conditioned, history. That is, even though the Biography cannot be seen as “objective history,” it has a far-reaching historicity that is entangled with “historical processes.” 3. Biography of King Mu is significant for those of us who set out to learn about the concepts and realms of “Oriental” perspectives of “the Occidental.” It is a good departure for the attempt to understand the equally important “synthetic texts” of “illusions” and “realities,” which I will discuss later. Hence, instead of diving immediately into discussions over historical truths, I will postpone it to the next chapter and focus now on the “representation” of King Mu’s adventure.

Travel as a Ritual of Linkage King Mu did not travel alone. He was accompanied by a large troop— eight noble horses, six dogs, several excellent charioteers, many warriors, and a group of Sages, all chosen by himself, the Son of Heaven (Tianzi)—who made his journey a splendid parade. Biography of King Mu calls this kind of splendor zheng. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, zheng has often been

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misunderstood as “military expedition,” while it meant something quite different in classical times. Differentiated from fa, which did mean “military expedition,” zheng referred to the king’s regular tours of inspection in his fiefs; these were explicitly ceremonial (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 826–829). The Book of Poetry (Shi Jing) includes a poem called “Inspection”: Lord Wu inspects the country on the run; In the name of Heaven’s son, The House of Zhou remains a blessed one, When he wields his slightest force, Anyone can hardly ignore henceforth. The host of gods he will subdue, The rills and hills subdued, too; Great indeed is our Lord Wu, The House of Zhou is open and bright; All the princes have their right. The shields and spears are laid in hoard; The bows and arrows are likewise stored. Grand virtue is the only quest; Everywhere in the land manifest, So that Lord Wen will always be blest. (R. Wang & X. Ren, 1998, pp. 1434–1437) Li Ji (The Book of Rites), one of the later editions of Zhou’s sacred books of ceremonials, has a description of zheng. It suggests that zheng means the events in which the king went out for his five-yearly tours of inspection. Such tours were related with a certain “official” set of space-time regularities. When he went on the tours, the king moved in accordance with the seasons and corresponding to the four directions. He performed different ceremonies at different times and places all year round. As Li Ji tells us: The son of Heaven, every five years, made a tour of Inspection (zheng) through the fiefs. In the second month of the year, he visited those on the East, going to the honored mountain of Tai. There he burnt a great pile of wood, and announced his arrival to Heaven; and with looks directed to them, sacrificed to the hills and rivers. He gave audience to the prince; inquired out those who were 100 years old, and went to see them: ordered

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the Grand music-master to bring him the poems (current in the different states), that he might see the manners of the people; ordered the superintendents of markets to present (lists of prices), that he might see what the people liked and disliked, and whether they were set on extravagance and loved what was bad; he ordered the superintendents of rites to examine the seasons and months, and fix the days, and to make uniform the standard tubes, the various ceremonies, the (instruments of) music, all measures, and (the fashions of) clothes. (Whatever was wrong in these) was rectified. Where any of the spirits of the hills and rivers had been unattended to, it was held to be an act of irreverence, and the irreverent ruler was deprived of a part of his territory. Where there had been neglect of the proper order in the observances of the ancestral temple, it was held to show a want of filial piety, and the rank of the unfilial ruler was reduced. Where any ceremony had been altered, or any instrument of music changed, it was held to be an instance of disobedience, and the disobedient ruler was banished. Where the statutory measures and the (fashion of) clothes had been changed, it was held to be rebellion, and the rebellious ruler was taken off. The ruler who had done good service for the people, and shown them an example of virtue, received an addition to his territory and rank. In the seventh month, (the son of Heaven) continued his tour, going to the South, to the mountain of that quarter, observing the same ceremonies as in the East. In the eight month, he went on to the West, to the mountain of that quarter, observing the same ceremonies as in the South. In the eleventh month, he went on to the North, to the mountain of that quarter, observing the same ceremonies as in the West. (When all was done), he returned (to the capital), repaired (to the ancestral temple) and offered a bull in each of fanes, from that of his (high) ancestors to that of his father. (Legge, 1966, pp. 216–218)

Obviously, what was known as zheng was a set of rituals, involving sacrifices to “God,” to the Earth, and to royal ancestors, held in a temporal and spatial sequence. The chief ritual performer was the king, who, through making the sacrifice, observing customs, and performing as the model of virtue, became more or less like the “pendulum of time,” comparable with the activities of Kronos in the ancient Greek myths. Drawing from Leach’s analysis of “primitive myths of time” (1961, pp. 124–136), in the chapter “Early time reckoning” in Empires of Time, Aveni patterns out three calendars in the ancient Greek context. Aveni argues that Hesiod’s Works and Days is the archaic prescription

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for the action that human beings must undertake to hold their declining world together, and is thus also the original sociologics and cosmologics of calendars. Works and Days consists of two “calendars.” On the one hand, it is a calendar that codifies the association of celestial rhythms with the biorhythms present in all living beings since their beginning, and makes a scheme “fashioned to gain a foothold on nature, to assist a rugged Peloponnesian farmer in his desperate quest to exercise a measure to control over his environment”; on the other hand, it is an almanac that “sets forth not only the holy days but also those days supposed to be good or bad for such events as the birth of children and the performance of specific activities” (Aveni, 1995, p. 48). While astronomic timings and crosschecks in Works are accurate, by contrast, Days strike us as “irrational, metaphysical, or mythical” (p. 49). According to Aveni, bridging the two is a third “pole,” the religious pendulum of Hesiod’s Theogony. The same pendulum can also be found in the creation myths of the Old Testament and Babylonian scriptures. This is the myth narrated as “a lengthy genealogical catalogue of alternating good and evil deities who represent different parts and powers of a highly animate, personified universe” (p. 58). It is in this genealogical catalogue that time’s origination is traced back to the separation of Father-Heaven and Mother-Earth: “For the Greeks, Kronos created the pattern when out of the homogenous symmetry of chaos, he polarized the universe. He made time when he parted the earth and the sky, when he separated the male principle that fell into the sea to become its own opposite, the female principle in the form of Aphrodite” (p. 63). Following Leach, Aveni argues that Kronos was the pendulum of time whose oscillation derived from its own separating efficacies (p. 62). Whilst the tempos lived by the people under the King of Zhou could be said to be more or less like Hesiod’s Works, bringing together the repetitive “ecological time” and the time of “dying life,” those which were bound up with the arts of divination originated long before Zhou was established as a dynasty were akin to Hesiod’s Days. Between classical China and the Greek Antiquity, similarities existed. However, similarity seldom means uniformity: though history is made in a Chinese place within temporal frameworks composed of space-time systems that resemble their classical Greek counterparts, in the Chinese world, Heaven and Earth are not perceived as created by

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God, and alternations between them were not seen as motivated by Kronos. Thus, a King of Zhou was a counterpart of Kronos only partially. The role of the king in the rituals of zheng was, like Kronos, the “pendulum of time.” However, through zheng, the king did not polarize the universe, did not part the Earth and the sky, and did not separate “the male principle that fell into the sea to become its own opposite, the female principle in the form of Aphrodite.” Rather, in his movements between the directions to honor the seasons, he conducted zheng as rituals of linkage. Like the oscillations of Kronos, when a year was divined as appropriate for tours of inspection, the king moved between Heaven and Earth. But he did not move like a typical pendulum, from one pole to the other; instead he moved in a circular way to make a round tour through the quarters surrouding the center and thus around the cycle of the seasons. And he did so as the divine reaper who cuts the seed from the stalk so that Mother Earth yields her harvest (Leach, 1961, p. 129). Alternatively, he did it by going beyond his “usual realm” into the “fields,” the quarters of the mountains and rivers, the feudal fiefs, and the countryside for the purpose of forging ties between Heaven and Earth, yang and yin, right and left, the superior and the inferior, and the “other world” of the ancestors and this world of living beings. Zheng as depicted in Li Ji thus was a kind of activity aimed at making the relations of the world, and as such, they were complementary to the king’s activities within the Mingtang, the model of the world which the king followed in usual years. The whole country, enacted by the movements of the Son of Heaven in accordance with the constantly changing “moods” of the universe, was seen as coordinated with the rules of the calendar. A quote from Granet’s Chinese Civilization (1930) perfectly illustrates the point: In the royal capital (and there only after certain ritual) there was supposed to be a tower Ling, which was never spoken of without connecting it with a temple called Ming t’ang [Mingtang]. While the tower Ling is named on the occasion of triumphs and of offerings of captives, it is also the place where manifestations of the heavenly Will take place. Correspondingly, Ming t’ang (where tradition says that the Chou [Zhou] celebrated the defeat of the Yin [Shang] by a triumphal sacrifice) is both the place where

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the interfeudal gatherings are held, at which the Son of Heaven presides, and the place where it is customary to promulgate the monthly ordinances (yue ling) which apply to the whole kingdom.… To do that he has to go round the House of the Calendar which is square (like the Earth) and oriented to the points of the compass, but which must be covered by a roof of thatch, circular (like Heaven).… Thus, there is established (by virtue of the Chinese belief, which postulate an exact coincidence of Spaces and Times) the twin order of the Orients and the Seasons. The Son of Heaven extends to the entire Empire his regulating Virtue, because in the House of the Calendar, he rules, in the name of Heaven, the course of time,—after having, in the seasonal parades of the hunts, presided over the sacrifices which the whole of the confederated nobles offered to the divinity guaranteeing good order and rational peace. (pp. 381–382)

Because the political body of the Son of Heaven was seen as the place from which the virtue of relatedness radiated, it was restricted by the astrologists, necromancers, and geomancers, or the “superior colleagues” of the Sages who were recruited into the court to instruct and inspect the movements of the king’s political body (J. Gu, 1998b [1955]). The imperial capital was not constructed to isolate the realm from the other worlds. In fact, the four quarters around the center were seen as not only the squares in which the nobles and the barbarians— who were obviously subordinated to the Son of Heaven—were distributed but also as the places in which all the holy mountains (shan) and rivers (chuan) where the king could perform the mediating role of linkage were situated.

Journey to the West The king’s journey to the West as described in Biography of King Mu was neither the same as his regulated movements within Mingtang, nor the same as an ordinary tour of inspection that took place in accordance with the tempos of the years and seasons and with the directions. Occurring at a special time, it was undertaken as a special event for a special purpose. Nonetheless, its ritual forms had all the essential characteristics of zheng. They involved not only parading symbols of his majesty—army, horses, dogs, and charioteers—but also a sequence of “pilgrimages” to the “holy places” in the four quarters outside the center. They were, like zheng, certain cosmo-religious actions aimed as

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creating a “harmonious society” in Tianxia, or All under Heaven. The king’s mediations between Heaven and the Mundane were what characterized zheng. These mediating practices were intended as means with which to learn, from nature, gods, and ancestors, the way to govern Tianxia (Fig. 2.1). Figure .

Map of the Great Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and the “Barbarians” in Yu Gong (Tributaries of Yu) (replica made in A.D. , presently kept in the archive of ancient maps in the Beijing Library)

The king’s journey began with a sacrifice to the River God near the holy source of water, and ended in his climbing the nine levels (mountains) leading to Heaven (jiuchong tian). Concerning his departure, the first chapter of Biography of King Mu has the following description: On the day of kui-chou, the Son of Heaven held a great ceremony in the Yan Mountains beside the Yellow River. He granted Jing Li and Liang Gu the power to control the six troops. The Son of Heaven divined the day of wu-wu auspicious. That day, he put on solemn costumes: crown on his head, colorful gown with red fur belt on the waist, jade decorations on both sides of his waist, a jade board in hand. He stood below the statue of

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the River God (He Bo), facing the South. The ritual master (zhu) presided over the ceremony. The officials displayed five animals as sacrificial offerings to the God. The Son of Heaven handed the jade board to Bo Yao, the Sage communicating with river deities, and Bo Yao in turn threw the jade westward into the river after kowtowing twice to the God. The ritual master threw a cow, a horse, a pig and a goat into the river. Bo Yao spoke in a high tone to make the voice of the God audible, conveying the message of Heavenly King (Di) to the Son of Heaven. Heavenly King said: “Mu Man (the name of King Mu), you should rule Tianxia forever.” The Son of Heaven bowed twice to the south. Bo Yao spoke again in the voice of the God, “Mu Man, I will award you the treasure in the mountains. You have to go to the Kunlun Mountains and pass through her four palaces and seventy sweet springs. After climbing to the summit of Kunlun, you can see the treasure and get it.” Bowing twice, the Son of Heaven accepted the order. (Guo, 2006, pp. 203–204)

As mentioned earlier, Liezi suggests that King Mu met a magician from a country in the Far West. This magician could enter fire and water, pierce metal and stone, and shift walled cities in an instant. One day when King Mu was talking with him, he hypnotized King Mu and, in the dream, guided him to the West for pleasure. The West in his dream was beautiful, filled with stunning music and the daintiest ladies. After waking up in his own palace, King Mu realized that it was only a dream. From that moment on, King Mu was determined to ride his eight noble horses and head to the West. In Biography of King Mu, the king was accompanied by many when he went on his journey. The most notable among his company were the Group of the Seven Sages (qicuo zhi shi) composed of magicians, erudite scholars, ritual masters, and spirit mediums. They were responsible for divination, arranging rituals, making the voice of the Heavenly Supremacy (Tiandi) heard, and virtually helping Heaven in its authorization of the ruling power of the king. In the Biography, the Sages are like the stranger-magician depicted in Liezi: they inspire the king and make him determined to leave his court. But they persuade the king in a different fashion than did the stranger-magician in Liezi. Once when the king was hunting in the fields and mountains, as noted in the very first chapter of Biography of King Mu, he suddenly felt uneasy. It was then that he realized that what he was doing was too playful. He was so worried about possibly being blamed by future

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generations that he sighed: “Alas! I, who am the King, have neglected virtue (de) because I over-indulge in pleasure. Will not future generations look back and blame me for my mistakes?” (Guo, 2006, p. 204). The Seven Sages beside him tried to comfort him, and said: The mere expectation of the future generations’ is that you, the Son of Heaven, obey the rules of Heaven. Since peasants and artisans have what they want, men and women are content with sufficient clothes and food, everyone leads a rich and satisfying life, all the officials are serving properly in their positions, and Heaven is in order with four seasons, why does our majesty the King insist that he is only playing and neglecting virtue? Hunting is beneficial both to the Son of Heaven and the people, and everyone agrees so. (p. 205)

Hearing this, King Mu praised them by rewarding them with jade, and he and the Sages arrived at the consensus that hunting was what he, the Son of Heaven, should do.7 The king’s expedition was an enlarged version of hunting, and “hunting” in this sense had changed from hunting animals to the incorporating of human others and non-human others (things). During his journey of inspection, King Mu went to several places where he was supposed to go as the Son of Heaven. He did so with the guidance of the Sages. He visited many tribes. Historian Cen Zhongmian (2004 [1962], p. 4) once commented on King Mu’s journey to the West and argued that the king was there to deal with the issue of “races and ethnic groups.” King Mu was not an anthropologist, yet a part of his mission seems to have been to express his open-mindedness towards the other. The king held ceremonies but he did not espouse a great religion. He did not seek to make others share his notion of “truth” by way of persuasion or coercion. In his effort to include the others, he resorted to the art of relationship. One day while he was taking a rest, he met members of a tribe. They were hospitable and wise, giving him many leopard pelts and some other gifts. As he went on, he met more and more tribal people. King Mu and these “barbarians” exchanged gifts, held banquets, and held farewell ceremonies to say goodbye to each other. All the people he met were different from the ones he met in his daily life in his capital. These people stayed in the mountains, in the valleys, or in the grass, similar to what we presently call shaoshu minzu

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(ethnic minorities). King Mu was extremely polite to these people. From time to time, he also showed his admiration of their different forms of wisdom and life styles. King Mu also paid his respects to the sacred mountains located near the local tribes. He, the ruler of the East, was to find a mountain in the West where he could re-connect himself with Heaven. He was extremely touched by a certain scene in a tribal area where “the sky was trapped in the mountains.” In turn, he decided to organize a ceremony to express his wish to subject himself to it. Whenever he discovered the relics of any great human forerunners, King Mu would make a sojourn to honor them. According to Biography of King Mu, the king’s journey was inspired by the legends of the Xia Dynasty sovereign Shun, which he had learnt from the Sages. Shun was remembered as a highly virtuous king, loved by many tribes and fiefs in Tianxia. It was even suggested that Shun was highly praised by Xi Wangmu, the older sister of all kings under Heaven, who bestowed upon him a white jade tube, a deeply symbolic item which supposedly had the magic power of linking the sexes and relating the human world to Heaven. It was also said that between King Shun and Xi Wangmu there were regular dialogues from which Shun learned a great deal. King Mu was determined to do the same. King Mu thus made his own journey to the West a travel through time as well as through space. When King Mu arrived at the places where ancient sovereigns had done great deeds, he would hold elaborate ceremonies to express his respect, to learn from the sovereigns their different virtues, and to show the world the greatness of the past. King Mu read maps and classic records prepared by the Seven Sages so as to compare them with the mountains and rivers he saw himself, trying his best to recognize their greatness. The first chapter of Biography of King Mu says: The Son of Heaven made a large sacrifice to the Yellow Mountains, checked the maps and the classic records, viewed his treasures, and said, “My treasures include jade fruits, fine jade beads, bright silverware, gold solutions, and so on.” (Guo, 2006, p. 204)

The treasures of King Mu comprised different kinds of jade. In King Mu’s time, the jade of the Son of Heaven was worth tens of thousands of gold pieces, while that of the lower ranking class was worth a

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hundred gold pieces, that of attendants fifty gold pieces, and that of the luren (deer hunters) only ten gold pieces. This “equation” materializes social status, implying a certain logic of exchange whose reversal was also accepted. The king’s exploration in nature was thus not merely for the sake of knowledge. His approaching the mountains and rivers was regarded as part of his “domestic affairs”—the treatment of class relations in the political world. Bo Yao, described as the stranger-magician from the Far West in Liezi, also plays an important role in Biography of King Mu. Bo Yao is now believed by historians to have come from the Chu state in the South. The name first appeared in a description of the king’s reading of maps and classic records near the Yellow Mountains. It was Bo Yao that “presented maps and classic records of all the rivers to the Son of Heaven, took the fast horse Qu Huang before the King to guide the way, and finally arrived at the furthest West” (Guo, 2006, p. 204). The maps and classic records that Bo Yao showed to the king were not only geographic descriptions of rivers and mountains but were also maps of the distribution of products, especially the distribution of jade. Bo Yao was not only a magician (a spirit medium and ritual master), but also an erudite scholar. He was the leader of the Sages who persuaded King Mu to set out on the adventure. He had his ideal and engaged himself in the quest for what could be shown to the world as the “perfect model ruler.” Biography of King Mu mentions that Bo Yao guided the Son of Heaven “to reach the Extreme West (Ji Xi).” “Extreme” meant “Furthest,” which implied that the vision of the Zhou was to extend to “the end of one side of the world—the West” through the king’s tour of inspection. The Group of the Seven Sages, who accompanied King Mu on his way to the West, rode in an extravagant chariot driven by eight noble horses: Blossom Red, Green Ears, Red Thoroughbred, White Offering, Tall Yellow, Outstripper, Dull Sable, and Son of the Hills, with Zao Fu as charioteer and Bo Yao as guide. They led the king and his troop into “the field,” crossing the Zhang River, traveling through the middle Yellow River (He Zong), the Yangyu Mountains, and the All-Jade Mountains, and finally arriving at the land of Xi Wangmu. Marcel Granet (1930) mentioned briefly the story of King Mu in his Chinese Civilization, referring to the journey as an “adventure romance” (pp. 20–21). Indeed, the king’s journey was an “adventure

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romance” instead of being a mere inspecting expedition as designated in The Book of Rites. He traveled at least ten thousand miles before reaching the land of Xi Wangmu in order to pay a visit to this mysterious Lady (J. Gu, 2000, p. 826). The third chapter of the Biography details the king’s visit with Xi Wangmu: When Tianzi was a guest of Xi Wangmu, he presented her with a white jade gui [a ritual item with a pointed top and flat bottom] and a black jade bi [a round decoration with a hole in the center of it] and three hundred scrolls of silk and brocade as gifts. Xi Wangmu thanked him twice and accepted the gifts. (Guo, 2006, p. 220)

When King Mu met Xi Wangmu, he behaved as if he were inferior to her, holding the “white jade gui and black jade bi” in his hand to show his respect, just as if he were sacrificing to Heaven, mountains, rivers, and ancestors. He gave this faraway goddess silk and brocade, which probably implied that, unlike the ladies in the Central Plains, the goddess wore no splendid “fashions.” Hence, the brocade from the East would be a rare and valuable gift for her (Fig. 2.2). Figure .

Xi Wangmu (rubbing of a Han stone carving by the Sichuan University Museum)

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After exchanging gifts, “the Son of Heaven and Xi Wangmu had a drink near the Jasper Lake.” At this moment, the two began to dialogue in the form of song. Xi Wangmu sang for the Son of Heaven: White clouds are flying freely in the sky, But the mountains under the sky are obstacles on your way. You traveled here through the mountains and across the rivers from far away. May you live a long life, and we will have a chance to meet again. King Mu sang in answer: I have to go back to my eastern land, Because I am responsible for the harmony and order in the East. After all my people are able to lead a peaceful life with love and equality, I will come see you again. It will be only three years before we meet again. Hearing this, Xi Wangmu sang again, I live in the wild West together with tigers, leopards, and birds. It is my destiny to stay here forever because I am the Daughter of Heaven. You are such a great emperor that none of your people will leave you. I will play a piece of music for you with a reed pipe and wish you happiness. You are the Son of Heaven, So people look at you the same way they look up at Heaven. I hope you can realize the expectations of Heaven. (Guo, 2006, p. 220) Soon after the exchange of these melancholic songs, Xi Wangmu went back to the mountains. King Mu climbed level by level up to the top of Yan Mountain. He inscribed his encounter on a rock, and carved “Mountain of Xi Wangmu” (Xi Wangmu zhi shan) on a big tree.

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Other Places, Other Things, Other Divinities, and Other Humans While things and locations in Biography of King Mu are depicted as if to resemble real life counterparts, they can be read as world metaphors. As a system of signs, these world metaphors also have their counterparts in other Chinese classics. The similarity of names in different scriptures has made it possible for scholars in different regions to discover local versions of such metaphors. Moreover, it has also helped scholars turn these signs into the components of their own local “world-scapes.” For instance, contemporary historians in the Tibetan province of Qinghai have sought to prove that all the mountains, rivers, and “ethnic groups” are located in their own province.8 But we should not forget that Biography of King Mu is a “synthetic text” of myth and history, revealing the world as one through which the king traveled. Thus, an elementary schema can be drawn from the book: in King Mu’s fantastic geography, the mountains and rivers far from his royal residence existed not only on the surface of the Earth but also in his own “inner world.” They were not simply objects of “geography” but were a system of locations where divinities could be found, sacrifices made, and relationships with tribes forged. In the fourth chapter of the Biography, it is recorded that on the geng-chen day (the nineteenth day of the tenth lunar month), the king held a big sacrifice in the ancestral hall where he counted the mountains and rivers he passed on the way: Starting from the west of the Chan River near the Capital, I traveled three thousand four hundred miles to the north and arrived at the country near the source of the Yellow River and the Yangyu Mountains. Then I went another two thousand five hundred miles west from the Yangyu Mountains to the country of Xixia. From Xixia, I traveled one thousand five hundred miles to Zhuyushi and the source of Yellow River. From the Xiang Mountains near the river source, I traveled seven hundred miles south to the Chong Mountains, Zhu River, and Kunlun. From the west of the Chong Mountains I headed three hundred miles towards the Chong Mountains of Chiwushi. Turning to the northeast, I returned to the AllJade Mountains. I then traveled three thousand miles from the north of the Chong Mountains to the land of Xi Wangmu by way of the western AllJade Mountains. From the land of Xi Wangmu I went one thousand nine hundred miles north to the wild fields of Kuang Yuan, where even the flying birds lose their feathers and die. It took me a total of

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fourteen thousand miles to travel from the capital to the wild fields in the northwest. I then returned southeast for seven thousand miles to arrive at Yangyu again. I covered another three thousand miles from there to Zhou. Altogether, my journey was a total of thirty-five thousand miles. (Guo, 2006, p. 227)

In terms of their outlooks, distributions, and locations, contemporary geographers find the mountains, rivers, and tribes depicted in Biography to resemble those recorded in the Chinese classic on geography, The Book of the Wuzang Mountains (Wuzang Shan Jing) (C. Wang, 2005, pp. 191–194). Yet, unlike the geography of The Book of the Wuzang Mountains, Biography of King Mu is an “epic” of a king. The main bulk of Biography is written on a textual structure through which Tianxia is constituted. The Central Plains, on which King Mu roams, is the inside, while Xi Wangmu’s wonderland is the outside. The singing intercourse between King Mu and Xi Wangmu conveys the contrasting relations of inside and outside: King Mu inside Central Plains male East guest civilized lower

Xi Wangmu outside mountains and rivers female West host wild higher

Xi Wangmu lived among tigers, leopards, and birds. Some Chinese historians have assumed these “animals” to be “totems” of certain tribes living in the wild West (Cen, 2004 [1962]). Although we should not easily trust such a conjectural or structural history, we should admit that Biography of King Mu does allow us to conceptualize a certain kind of historical imagination. For me, an acceptable guess would be that King Mu’s choice to be hosted by Xi Wangmu was an expression of his inclination to include the tribes in the West in his “map of the world” by means of ritual intercourse, not military expedition or universal religious mission. The king changed quite dramatically after returning from his journey to his imperial capital. The journey added a certain sense of

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“strangeness” to his character, which certified him to be an exemplar whose kingship “makes its appearance from outside the society” (Cen, 2004 [1962], 2:741). But let us not swiftly move away from King Mu’s “colonial encounters” in the West. Had the Biography given more details about the tribes inhabiting the areas surrounding the mountain-residence of Xi Wangmu, we would have known more about how the “indigenous people” in the Far West responded to his visit and survey. Were sufficient data available, perhaps we would be able to draw out a picture of an event that would show how King Mu was transformed into a holy or semi-holy person or how he was “absorbed and domesticated by the indigenous people” into a stranger-king (Sahlins, 1985, p. 73), a component of the local chieftain’s dual sovereignty. Even if the natives worshipped King Mu as a “local god,” they did not terminate his life in order to provide him an eternal existence. Hence, King Mu was not reborn. Nor had he totally encompassed the outside. He left Xi Wangmu and her world intact in its original place. For him, exclusion seemed to be the best way of inclusion. Coming from a kingdom with a mature system of the “rule of rites,” King Mu adored the opposite of his “home”: the land of Xi Wangmu. “Home” was the East.9 The East or Dong was where the sun rises and days begin. Associated further with the beginning of the New Year, and hence its spring, the East was a kind of bluish green. The East, where King Mu was from, was the country which belonged to the “inside.” The king was the Son of Heaven (male), but he was willing to bear the burden of a “long march” for the sake of a special kind of “conscience”—to be hosted by the other, Xi Wangmu (female), to subject his civilization to the barbarianism of Xi Wangmu, to submit his springs (the East) to her autumns (the West). The most attractive part of King Mu’s “adventure romance” is his singing intercourse with Xi Wangmu, which can be itself seen as an art of relationship, a kind of ritual facilitating the alternation of the East and the West. It is a spectacle of the unusual joining of the Eastern King and the Western King’s Mother (in mythology, also the Older Sister of the King). Xi Wangmu’s home, Kunlun, holds the desirable treasure— the truth of politics—in a place far away and high up. The royal family of the Zhou Dynasty believed their own ancestors came from Kunlun. If Fu Sinian is correct about the directional alternation of Chinese

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antiquity, then, while the royal family of the previous dynasty, Shang (overthrown by the Zhou), came from the East, the Zhou came from the West (Fu, 1996, pp. 187–240). In other words, the original “other” of Zhou was Shang from the East. Further, it is important to note that after the Zhou conquered the East, they reoriented their kingdom in the East so to contrast it with the magnificent Western mountains and rivers, which became a source of their own sovereignty. Although the exchange between King Mu and Xi Wangmu was one between the East and the West, the West itself became where the East returned. Like Bo Yao, the Erudite Shi was a magician, historian, and adviser, who also accompanied King Mu on his journey. He must have also thoroughly analyzed the “deep-mind” of the Zhou royal family before the king departed for the West. It is no wonder that in Liezi he is described as a stranger-magician with all the unusual capabilities typical of such men.

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THREE

“Illusionary” and “Realistic” Geographies

King Mu’s journey was directed toward the West, the outer reach of

Tianxia on the border of the Far (Extreme) West. But where was the Far West? The question provoked heated debates among Chinese scholars at the transition from the late nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. That the Far West was the mysterious land of Xi Wangmu was agreed, but every scholar had different suggestions for its specific location. Ding Qian (1915) located the Far West in the Assyrian empire. Gu Shi (1934) located the land of Xi Wangmu on Elburz Peak of the Caucasus Mountains situated north of Tehran, Iran. He also argued that King Mu’s return route was that of the “hilly areas and flat plains,” or the “wild fields” close to the ancient location of Warsaw. Gu Jiegang (2000b) located Xi Wangmu’s land at the Hexi Corridor, depicting it as lying on the Silk Road linking China with the rest of Eurasia. While some geographers try pinpointing the “Western end” of Tianxia by comparing descriptions in Biography of King Mu to the real world, others debate whether or not those descriptions are at all true. Early twentieth-century Chinese historiography is divided into two camps. One believes it to be an “illusionary geography” (huanxiang dili), while the other sees it as “realistic” (zhenshi dili). Some take the Biography to be “an authentic archive” which contains invaluable information about Zhou history, while others consider it to be a “‘fake book’ (weishu) fabricated on the basis of rumors” (K. Yang, 1999). The difference in perspective creates certain academic rivalries

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which constantly reappear through newly annotated ancient travel writings. For instance, Zhong Shuhe’s Going to the World, to which we have referred in the introductory chapter, includes Biography of King Mu as a rare ancient Chinese narrative on “world activities” (shijie huodong). Zhong, however, did not consider the Biography to be “true history,” the reason being that it was accidentally discovered and not a part of The Records of the Historian (Shi Ji). For Zhong (2000), only dynastic histories compiled by official-scholars since Han can be considered “true histories” (p. 2). Despite the fact that the author of Shi Ji, Sima Qian of the Han period, perceived King Mu’s legend to be a truthful perspective, Zhong argues: The West was far away. It never came to know the Chinese until the modern era. There were stories about the West in ancient times, but they were nothing more than rumors. In this sense, the West in ancient Chinese views is sharply different from the real West. (p. 1)

Zhong even implies that Chinese “world activities” were only realized after the West, as a power-knowledge system, entered the Central Kingdom. Biography of King Mu has also attracted the attention of Chinese ethnologists. Some of its paragraphs have been included in Selected Annotations of Ancient Travels to the West (J. Yang, 1987). Compiled by an ethnologist in the late 1980s, the book lists the Biography as a reliable historical source concerning northwestern China. In his “Foreword” the famous ethnologist Weng Dujian (1987) argues that the Northwest is “the origin of Huaxia civilization” and is “a stage on which different ethnic groups reproduce, survive, interact, and integrate” (p. 1). Illuminating the authenticity of northwestern ethnic groups’ ancient history, the compiler not only lists Biography of King Mu as a “true history” but even goes so far as to claim that “the routes recorded in the book can still be followed today.” He argues that “as early as the pre-Qin times, people in the Central Plains possessed adequate knowledge and understanding about the Northwest and the further West” (J. Yang, 1987, p. 3). Here, the classical West is seen as a real place when it refers to groups other than the Han; otherwise, it is mythical. Is Biography of King Mu a history or a myth? While any answer to the question can induce controversy, the answers given thus far share

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the underlying assumption that “legends” or “myths” are incompatible to “facts.” This paradox is prevalent in the fields of history and the social sciences. Historians and social scientists consider the “revealing of reality” to be their ambition, but “reality” has never been a source of consensus. Undoubtedly, mythology (also a modern science) usually enters the paradox from the opposite direction. In order to investigate myths and grasp “inner mytho-logics,” mythologists tend to “inject” all histories into their containers of myths. In order for mythology to be properly evaluated, mythologists need to first accept it as a part of history. Thus, Chinese mythologists feel obliged to explore the “objective histories” which are presumed to rest behind myths. A contemporary mythologist, Yuan Ke, spent much time and energy revealing Xi Wangmu’s original image and tracing the various changes to that image in later “legends.” Because Xi Wangmu’s image was constantly modified (Yuan, 1991, pp. 136–289), in a chapter entitled “Myths of Historical Figures,” Yuan Ke concludes that “we should not simply say that all the mythological figures are fictitious.” He eventually came to believe that myth is “the shade of history” (lishi de yingzi) (p. 22). “Shade of history” as a notion is attractive to anthropologists of history including myself. What is the “shade of history”? Historians who seek to render it valid easily identify it with a kind of political rationality that determines historical processes. For them, such an approach to the king’s journey to the West enables us to see transitions in early China’s political life. The idea of political rationality does not hinder us from seeing the journey as an “inspecting expedition”—a solemn and effective ritual of procession. It does, however, prevent us from perceiving it as it is “represented.” Pressing us to abandon the mythology of “travel ritual,” the idea of political rationality makes us adopt a “power theory” in explaining the king’s connections with the “outside,” “remote,” “wild,” “tribal,” and “far past.” Qian Mu, a leading modern Confucian thinker, has not forgotten to meet the demands of political rationality. Prior to the reign of King Mu, he explains, the Zhou frontiers were extending along two lines. Zhou’s sphere of control and influence first expanded through King Wu’s military expeditions “from Shaanxi to the outskirts of Tongguan (an ancient fortress).” In his battle against Shang, King Wu (the first king of Zhou) also took over the Yellow River, the Luo River, and the

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Eastern Capital. He eventually led his army along the lower Yellow River and made himself the owner of its fertile land. Second, King Zhao (the fourth king and father of King Mu) extended his regime beyond Wuguan (another ancient fortress) to cover the valleys of the Yangtze River, Han River, and Huai River. But King Zhao’s project was not successful. He encountered great resistance from the South. Qian Mu believes that King Mu departed for his journey to the West after having made up his mind that the West was good for his strategic reorientation. As a great military leader, King Wu was successful in realizing Zhou’s eastward expansion. Yet King Zhao faced great obstacles when attempting to bring the South onto his “map of the world.” King Zhao’s failure in the South resulted in his son’s peaceful expansion into the Far West (Qian, 2006, pp. 45–46). But in forging his rationalist interpretation, Qian Mu fails to take into account another line of political culture which was evolving into historical reality prior to the founding of Zhou. In order to retrieve the conditions under which King Mu set out on his journey, we ought to widen our analytical parameters and consider a longer history of “antiquity.”

Classical Transformations Around 8,000 B.C., agriculture replaced hunting, gathering, and fishing in many places. Over the following millennia, several areas—notably, Yangshao, Longshan, Qinglian Gang, Da Wenkou, Hemu Du, Liangzhu, and Hongshan—grew into integrated societal systems perceivable as “archaic kingdoms.” Each of these areas was nurtured by their productive systems, and each installed a cultural order with its own synthesis. By the late Neolithic Age, certain kinds of “science of Heaven” had been developed in the different regions. Like their successors, these early versions of astronomy as intellectual systems were integrated with “non-intellectual” systems, and, if we can describe them in terms of the “sciences of Heaven,” then we must also say that they were not separated from the “sciences of Earth.” The conflated “sciences” made certain primary world-scapes. In these archaic world-scapes, movements of the political body were realized with reference to the mythology of the inventor of astronomy, Xi and He. The myth of Xi and He is inscribed in one of

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the oldest surviving texts, the Classic of History (Shang Shu), compiled between the seventh and eighth century B.C. They are said to have been two or more brothers commissioned by the legendary emperor Yao to invent the calendar. The story goes that: (Yao) commanded the (brothers) Hsi [Xi] and Ho [He], in reverent accordance with the august heavens, to compute and delineate the sun, moon and stars, and the celestial markers, and so to deliver respectfully the seasons to be observed by the people. He particularly ordered the younger brother Hsi to reside among the Yü barbarians (at the place called) Yang-ku [Yanggu] and to receive as a guest the rising sun, in order to regulate the labours of the east (the spring). He further ordered the youngest brother Hsi to go and live at Nan-chiao [Nanjiao] in order to regulate the works of the south and pay respectful attention to the (summer) solstice. He particularly ordered the younger brother Ho to reside in the west (at the place called) Mei-ku [Meigu], and to bid farewell respectfully to the setting sun, in order to regulate the Western (autumnal) accomplishment. He further ordered the youngest brother Ho to go and live in the region of the north (at the place called) Yu-tu [Youdu], in order to supervise the works of the north. (Needham, 1981b, pp. 73–75)

According to Needham, Xi He is not the name of two or six persons, but a binome, the name, in fact of the mythological being who is sometimes the mother and sometimes the chariot-driver of the sun. The name then in some way became split up and applied to four magicians or cult-masters who were charged by the mythological emperor to proceed to the four “ends” of the world in order to stop the sun and turn it back to its course at each solstice, and to keep it going on its way at each equinox. (p. 75)

Had the legend of Xi He been a “primitive myth,” in the beginning, it could not be “split into four.” Archaeology has indicated that this model, perhaps an East Asian example of Mircea Eliade’s axial mundi (1961; 1971), had existed millennia before the first centralized kingdom was inaugurated.

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Prior to the Bronze Age was the Jade Age (Demattè, 2006). Jade Age culture continued to be impactful in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and beyond. But the term “Jade Age” refers approximately to the two millennia before Xia. Its most advanced cultures were those of Hongshan, Lingjiatan, and Liangzhu, respectively centering on the areas of present-day Liaoning, Shandong, and Zhejiang provinces. The oldest was Hongshan culture, dated between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago; the other two cultures both formed almost at the same time, in the period beginning 5,500 years ago. While the Hongshan and Lingjiatan cultures retained a combined economy of hunting and agriculture, Liangzhu culture was a mature agricultural civilization. These three cultures have been related to three different tribal alliances of Dongyi, Huaiyi, and Dongyue who created their different cultural systems. The Jade Age has also been described as the “Phase of the Magical Jade” (Wu Yu Jieduan), differentiated from the “Phase of the Kingly Jade” (Wang Yu Jieduan), starting in the period of the three classical dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou (B. Yang, 2005, pp. 3–11). In the “Phase of the Magical Jade,” each of the three main cultural areas just mentioned created and used different systems of jade artifacts. In Hongshan culture, the main items consisted of jade utensils such as knives and containers and jade figurines of mythical animals such as dragons and holy birds; in Lingjiatan culture, jade items consisted of jade magicians, jade turtles, and jade rectangular ornaments; and in Liangzhu culture, they consisted of bi, huang, and jade weapons. Because the sun was represented in ancient Chinese mythologies as a mythic bird, historians concerned with the origin of astrology have selected the jade crafts of birds among the jade artifacts in different late Neolithic cultures as core items of evidence of the development of the “science of the heavens” in the late Neolithic Age (S. Feng, 2007, pp. 176–259). But among the different varieties of jade artifacts for magical applications, I have found bi and cong the most intriguing. The earliest of these types of artifacts were found in Liangzhu culture, but they became more and more widespread in all the cultural areas in the Phase of the Kingly Jade. Bi and cong were obviously the core magical items with which the magicians communicated with Heaven. A bi is a flat jade disc, shaped in a circular form. A cong is a jade artifact crafted into a tube with a circular inner section and square

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outer section. Its outer surface is divided vertically or horizontally in order for the whole artifact to define a hollow cylinder embedded in a partial rectangular block. The earliest bi were produced by the Liangzhu culture, and they were undecorated. Jade crafts with the shape of bi have been associated with the images of Heaven, while cong related to the shape of the Earth or the Earth embracing Heaven. Both bi and cong obviously contained the core cosmological concepts of a covering round sky that revolves around a central axis and the magical square that continued to be essential in the Bronze Age, the Axial Age, and the Age of Empire. We do not have sufficient data to illustrate the ways in which the magical vessels of bi and cong were deployed by the magicians or magician-chiefs in their actions of “communication with Heaven.” Nonetheless, with reference to what James Frazer (1993 [1922], pp. 60–90) wrote about magic and religion, we can imagine that they were applied by “public magicians” as mysterious technologies to control the rain, the sun, and the wind, acts which by the same token also reasserted the greatness of these “man-gods” themselves. Unlike the man-god of the phase of religion, who belonged to an “inspired type” and who “derive[d] his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his heavenly radiation behind a dull mask of earthly mould,” a man-god of the “magician type” drew “his extraordinary power from a certain physical sympathy with nature.” As Frazer goes on, He is not merely the receptacle of a divine spirit. His whole being, body and soul, is so delicately attuned to the harmony of the world that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send a thrill vibrating through the universal framework of things; and conversely his divine organism is acutely sensitive to such slight changes of environment as would leave ordinary mortals wholly unaffected. (Frazer, 1993 [1922], pp. 60–61)

While the jade model of Heaven and Earth emerged in the South and spread in the direction of the North, another cosmic model seemed to appear first in the North and spread southward and westward. This cosmic model, which combined the shapes of the covering round Heaven and the square Earth, is found in the Hongshan culture of China’s Northeast in the remains of pre-historic sacrificial enclosures. A good example is that excavated in Dongshanzui. The sacrificial enclosure, 60 meters long and 40 meters wide, is constructed with stone

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materials and is situated in the open space backed by two mountains and facing a river.1 There are two main altars, one square and one round. These two altars are respectively located in the North and the South, the two directions in which Earth and Heaven were imagined to be. Between the two larger altars, there are three other small round altars, possibly symbolizing the sun, the moon, and the stars. Overall, the sacrificial enclosure is made of three zones: the inner zone of the squared Earth, the intermediate zone of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the outer zone of the round Heaven (S. Lu & D. Li, 2005, pp. 37–52). Among the three kinds of altars, the square central stage—which is higher than the other altars—can be seen as forming one of the early versions of what Eliade has described as “the architectonic symbolism of the Center,” a man-made “sacred mountain” where “heaven and earth meet” and chaos is conquered (Eliade, 1971, p. 12). On the occasions of sacrifices, the square becomes the stage on which a chief, a king, or a magician-king mediated between Heaven and Earth. But as Chinese astronomic archeaologists have noted, such a sacrificial enclosure is also an archaic model of the cosmos, plotted both for yearly sacrificial purposes and for astronomic calculations. The square-earth altar has four sides, representing four directions and four seasons. On the altars, three small clusters of rocks are found to be shaped like mountains. Evidently, the cosmology of quarters surrounding the center had been well advanced prior to the first dynasty, in the times of the mythical “five sovereigns.” Like other cosmologies, it too was a mandalalike “map” of the world which emphasized the ordering capacities of the center. Nonetheless, it seemed also to entertain the possibility of seeing the center—a jade cong, symbolizing a square embracing the round, or a square altar or platform in the middle of the sacrificial enclosure—as merely the place from which to reach the “third zone” and make the intermediary zone the true center. Thus, in the “primary model” of the archaic cosmos, both the axial mundi and its transformation were present. The former, being closer to the Indo-European cosmology of the Three Functions (Dumézil, 1970), was oriented toward the vertical linkage; the latter was oriented to the intermediate zone situated between centers and peripheries, and thus to a combination of the horizontal and vertical linkages.

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The chiefs, kings, or magician-kings struggling to obtain “legitimacy” in their realms of control had either to choose between the two variations or make combinations of them. The alternations of dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou) in the age of “Antiquity” were contextualized within this kind of “cosmic-political choice-making.” Xia, Shang, and Zhou,2 which have previously been regarded as the three classical dynasties of China, were not the only “centralized polities” in East Asia. Legendarily, similar states or chiefdoms existed under such names as the “three Miaos” (san Miao) (X. Xu, 1985 [1943]). Archaeologically, as Su Bingqi (1999, pp. 129–168) has pointed out, the three “royal dynasties” were nothing more than the fangguo, or larger regional kingdoms, that had incorporated several guguo, or the smaller regional archaic kingdoms. The incorporated guguo could include the archaeological “cultural areas” distributed on the periphery of the Central Plain (zhongyuan). These larger regional kingdoms are specified as fangguo partly because they had fitted themselves into the pervasive cosmography of quarters (fang) around the center, assuming the role of those who brought great powers from different directions into the Central Plain. However, these three dynasties also faced challenges from different directions. Efforts including military expeditions were made to incorporate surrounding kingdoms and tribes in the margins. Each dynasty developed an elaborate civilization that distinguished itself from the “tribal” worlds it belonged to prior to its dynastic establishment. As Granet (1930) puts it, Each dynasty which retains power when its time has passed, only possesses power de facto. De jure, it is a usurper. The founders of the dynasty whose hour has come, fulfil a heavenly mission by suppressing the dynasty that has become out-of-date and maleficent. They are the ministers of divine chastisement, and their victory is the proof that heaven has entrusted to them its mandate. (p. 14)

Traditional Chinese histories and legends refer to Xia as the dynasty which established most of China’s technological, cosmological, and political institutions. Concerning the succession of Xia, in Tian Wen (Questions of Heaven) Qu Yuan (a great poet of the Chu Kingdom living in the period between the fourth century and third century B.C.) offers a

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description of Xia in the form of poetic query: […] How did Qi take Yi’s place After he met disgrace? Put in prison by Yi, How could Qi be set free? All shot at Qi with bows; He was not hurt by bows. How was Yi overthrown? How did Qi win the crown? Qi sought favor divine And got melodies nine. How could his stony breath Entail his mother’s death? The Lord sent Archer down That Xia’s evils be mown. Why did he shoot the Lord of Stream And wive his Lady Dream? He bent to the full his bow And killed the big swine below. Why was his sacrifice Not accepted as nice? The traitor wed his wife And plotted against his life. How was he boiled and slain, Piercing sever shields in vain? (Y. Xu, 2009, pp. 89–91)3 While archaeology does not tell us anything systematic about Xia,4 it has much information about Shang. Decades ago, with an extensive range of historical, archeological, and philological data in hand, Fu Sinian (2006 [1940], pp. 71–81) pointed out that Shang’s sacred cosmos consisted of Supremacy (Di) and Ancestors (Zu). Seemingly, the pair of the concepts of the divine meant the same as the religious connotations of fate and justice, which according to anthropologist Meyer Fortes (1969), form a universal theory of society.

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In his renowned study of Tallensi ancestor worship and father-son relationships, Fortes presents a European mythological perspective of two mutually contradicting and complementing themes of life and misfortune in an African ethnographic context. The first is the Oedipal theme, that fate is predetermined and conflict with authority is inevitable; the second is the “Jobian” theme, or the concept of justice which supposes that conflicts with authority unavoidably result in recognizing that unquestioning submission to it is the proper role in life. Fortes believes that fate and justice in the Oedipal and the Jobian principles are “religious and ethical conceptions that seem to be mutually opposed in some respects but complementary in others” (p. 3), and he concludes social psychologically that beliefs in fate and the ancestors (or Job’s God) “can be described as supplementary conceptual moments in a religious apparatus for dealing with the commitments created for society collectively and for its members severally by the passage of the individual into and through society” (p. 40).5 In the Shang era the idea of fate was conveyed through three interchangeable Chinese characters—sheng (life or birth), xing (essence), and ming (fate) (Fu, 2006 [1940], pp. 4–25). We can say that, like the theme of Oedipus, the Shang idea of fate had to do with the essence of life. However, life in Shang was not simply attributed to the authority of the Ancestors, but related to the abstract Supremacy of the outer world. Justice being determined by the abstract organic material force of Supremacy, Ancestors were unlike their counterparts among the Tallensi. As Fortes (1969) tells us, “In the religious system of the Tallensi the lineage ancestors have the last word. They are a person’s or a group’s fathers and forefathers by strict patrilineal descent from a founding ancestor and his wife to a deceased father. They are omnipotent, but not uniformly benevolent or malevolent. They are just, and their justice is directed to enforcing the moral and religious norms and values on which the social order rests” (p. 27). Unlike Tallensi ancestors who “manifest themselves in different ways for men and women and with different effects at the successive stages of the individual life” (p. 14), Shang Ancestors were more or less benign forces that assisted humans—especially those who belonged to the royal descent—in their efforts to approach the Supremacy. Shang rituals worked from the bottom up: the lower ancestors were seen as more amenable to the blandishments of human rituals, whereas the higher powers were

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perceived as stronger but less malleable, and the goal of ritual was thus to work one’s way up the pantheon (Puett, 2002, pp. 44–53). In the Shang ritual universe, Ancestors were transformed deceased humans, forming a bureaucracy-like hierarchy, serving to pacify the more powerful, non-ancestral powers, including Di, or Supremacy. In other words, “there was no unshakable conviction that everything was the will of Fate which could not be avoided, as for example is expressed in the Oedipus drams of Sophocles; nor on the other hand, was it believed that all circumstances were the result of one’s choice of action—the view strikingly portrayed in Shakespeare’s King Lear” (Walters, 1992, p. 15). The Shang kings always had their names coupled with the character ri (sun) which had the connotation of Heavenly Stems (Tiangan)— a part of the mathematical system which they used to calculate time. They were both divinities and men, and they led members of the noble class who held the exclusive right to make sacrifices and wage war (K. C. Chang, 1980, pp. 190–198). The royal palace (gong), which was closely related to royal tombs (qin) and temples (miao), assumed the functions of all kinds. The king was also the chief priest who led an extensive group of religious specialists to divine for state affairs. His power-symbols involved special sorts of bronze vessels, banners, weapons, and decorative patterns. Internally, the kingdom was divided into the royal family, the lords, the supervisors, zhong (the masses), and captives of Qiang origin. Externally, the Shang had numerous objects of conquest—potential captives that often stimulated the king’s interest in warfare. But the powerful king willingly surrendered himself to the divinities for determination (K. C. Chang, 1980, pp. 190–211). Structural anthropology (Lévi-Strauss, 1997) and mythological studies of the “archaic Roman religion” (Dumézil, 1970) have inspired an archaeological interpretation of Shang civilization. According to K. C. Chang (1980, pp. 201–211), Shang civilization was founded upon garrisoned cities and a mature writing system. During Shang, kingwarriors, magician-diviners, and producers were the main “social classes”; their integration depended upon the verticality of the mystic oneness of the king. Some more recent archaeological studies have countered Chang’s argument and depicted Shang’s cosmology as an “anthropolocentric”

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worldview—with reference to Fortes’s perspective, one which differed significantly from the cosmology of fate. In particular, Keightley (2000) has argued that in the eyes of the Shang kings, “[t]he world was filled with manifestations of sacred power, but Shang survival depended upon manipulating, cajoling, and competing with those manifestations, upon a determined effort to interpret, order, and dominate the arena of religious forces” (p. 119). Thus, the kings’ “attitude toward the natural landscape would not simply have been pantheistic, one of reverence and awe for the Powers encountered there; it would also have been anthropocentric and pragmatic” (pp. 118–119). Following Keightley, Puett (2002) argues that: The Shang sacrificial system was an attempt to domesticate these highly agonistic forces and place them within a hierarchy manipulable for the sake of human interests. Far from revealing an assumption of harmony, a belief in the benevolent intentions of the divine powers, and a desire to adjust to the world as given, sacrificial practice in the Shang was aimed at a radical transformation of the divine world, a transformation undertaken precisely so that humanity could appropriate and domesticate nature for its purposes. Such an attempt to transform both the divine and the natural worlds does involve an enormous investment in sacrificial action, but that investment emerged not from an assumption of harmonious collaboration between man and god but from a sense of radical discontinuity and lack of harmony. (p. 78)

The absolutist and “pragmatic” politics of Shang came into crisis when an alliance closely related to the lowest class—the Qiang captives— emerged from the West and took over the Central Kingdom’s power in the early eleventh century B.C. If the Shang polity was oriented toward the axial mundi of the kingly, then the newly created dynasty Zhou could be said to be quite different. In the early twentieth century, Wang Guowei (2001 [1921], 1:287– 303) had conceptualized the transformation from Shang to Zhou in terms of a “moral revolution” (daode geming). Wang listed three aspects of the revolution—the establishment of the official lineage and funerary rite systems along with feudalism of the fief, the inauguration of the institution of temple worship, and the invention of a marriage “law.” All of these were considered “moral instruments” (daode qijie)

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which worked to discipline the subjects to respect the nobles (zunzun), love their relatives (qinqin), trust the capable (xianxian), and differentiate the genders (nannü youbie). While the new world of Zhou was, compared to Shang, more based on virtue (de), its virtue was related to the larger cosmo-geographic system of Tianxia. Unlike that of Shang, the political ideal in Zhou was Tianxia—a great polity realized by the civilizing extension of rites which, compared to the vertical mystic oneness of Shang, was more horizontal and extensive. The founding father of Zhou was King Wen, who commanded one of the major fiefs under the rule of Shang. In order to overthrow the Shang rulers, King Wen devised a cultural politic—“rule of morality.” As Granet (1930) describes, In his domain, under the influence of his genius of moderation, all spirit of strife disappeared; “[t]he husbandmen gave way to each other about the field boundaries, and all gave way to the aged.” The nobles recognized in this the sign of a heavenly mandate. The Chief of the West [King Wen] drew Sages to himself. (pp. 19–20)

King Wen admitted that in initiating its dynastic rule Shang obtained the fate of being the monarch from Heaven, but he also argued that as the Shang approached its own dynastic end, the king “neglect[ed] the sacrifice to heaven and earth” and “discontinued the offerings in the ancestral temple” (Legge, 1889, p. 174). He thus proclaimed himself a re-installer of tradition. King Wen propagated the social efficacy of the human respect for Heaven and ancestors, and he demanded civility among the peoples he led. Civility was conceptualized in contrast with the excessive punitive measures employed by Shang. It was also based upon a set of rules of conduct, bound up with the reconceptualization of the idea of “rites” (li). An important aspect of King Wen’s “rule of rites” was interestingly the prohibition of drunkenness: King W n [Wen] admonished and instructed the young nobles, who were charged with office or in any employment, that they should not ordinarily use spirits; and throughout all the states, he required that such should drink spirits only on occasion of sacrifices, and that then virtue should preside so that there might be no drunkenness. (Legge, 1889, p. 175)

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King Wen contrasted his own vision of a peaceful and productive society with the Shang kings’ indulgence in drinking spirits on nonsacrificial occasions. King Wen’s regulation of “drunkenness” was bound up with a political reform implemented in the name of li. According to Wang Guowei (2001 [1921], 1:177), the Chinese character for li is composed of two parts: that meaning “divinity” and that meaning the vessel containing offerings including jade and spirits. During Shang, while li had already meant “sacrifice” (si), which later usages followed, it was also used interchangeably with another character also pronounced li but conveying simply spirits. It was from Zhou on that the two characters of li were separated to mean different things—sacrifice and spirits. In Zhou, not only was “drunkenness” regulated, but ritual was also redefined. In Shang, li could mean any sacrificial acts involving offering “foods” and spirits to the divinities to make possible the ascendance of the sacrificers. In the Zhou regulations, li was limited to special occasions, and its lavishness was controlled. When your reverent father, the king W n [Wen], laid the foundations of our Zhou kingdom in the western region, he delivered announcements and cautions to (the princes of) various regions, and to all his (high) officers, with their assistants, and the managers of affairs, saying, morning and evening, “At sacrifices spirits should be employed.” When Heaven was sending down its favouring decree, and laying the foundations of (the eminence of) our people, (spirits) were used only at the great sacrifices. When Heaven sends down its terrors, and our people are thereby greatly disorganized and lose their virtue, this may be traced invariably to their indulgence in spirits.” (Legge, 1889, p. 176)

Moreover, li was re-conceptualized in terms of the ritual expressions of hierarchy and respect for the other. Thus, as Li Ji (Legge, 1885, p. 62) tells us, in conducting li, “Pride should not be allowed to grow; the desires should not be indulged; the will should not be gratified to the full; pleasure should not be carried to excess.” Rather, li should be organized to create desired socializing effects: “Men of talents and virtue can be familiar with others and yet respect them; can stand in awe of others and yet love them.” While King Wen prepared all the principles for civilization, his son, the warrior king—King Wu—declared the end of Shang’s Heavenly

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Mandate and secured a material victory, with the many capable men and extensive alliances gathered previously (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 62–103).6 In terms of polity (rather than in social life, which was never free of both the rules of agnation and marriage), the transition from Shang to Zhou could be seen as a shift from the principle of descent to that of alliance. This was achieved when King Wen successfully became the mythical mediator. A poem entitled “The Swallow” in The Book of Poetry depicts the mysterious birth and becoming of the warrior king who created the kingdom of Shang: From eggs of God-sent swallow Qi sprang, Fore-father of the House of Shang; On this land of Yin inhabited his gang, And then the God ordained the warlike Tang To push forward the frontiers of the land. He brought the chieftains under his command, And made himself the lord of all the land. The House of Shang went from king to king, Never negligent for anything, Until the far-descendant Lord Wuding. The far-descendant Lord Wuding, Excellent in all respects the former king. Ten wagons with his dragon flags Carried great store of grains in bags. His whole domain outstretched a thousand li, Where people dwelled care-free And reached the distant sea. So many neighboring states arrived To pay homage that the capital thrived. Who received all the grace? Shang is ordained to rule the race; It gains the bliss in every place. (R. Wang & X. Ren, 1998, pp. 1560–1563) This ancestry, traced from the Shang founder’s legendary birth, was mythical, patriarchical, and autochthonic; his deeds were depicted to be chiefly military. By contrast, the birth and becoming of Zhou’s founder is described as much less vertical, his deeds much less militant. In a

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poem entitled “Brilliance,” King (Lord) Wen’s birth is depicted as a result of the alliance with a family in a prefecture within Shang—the kingdom which King Wen later overthrew. His becoming a king, moreover, was attributed not only to his heavenly fate and virtues, but also to his marriage: […] Ren, the second son of maid of Zhi, Was born in Shang, so gay, so free; Married in the State of Zhou, To the capital she had to go. The king named Ji became her man; A virtuous life they thus began. After she was pregnant then, She gave birth to a son, Lord Wen. […] When Heaven gazed at life below, All powers to Lord Wen would go. When he became the head of state, Heaven picked for him his mate. She lived on northern side of He, Along the bank of River Wei. Lord Wen was now prepared to wed A maid in that large state well bred. […] From Heaven came the great command To make Lord Wen king of the land. In Zhou he built the capital town And wed Shen’s maid of high renown. […] (R. Wang & X. Ren, 1998, pp. 1132–1141) In European mythology, the kind of transition we see in the “birth stories” of kings is said to be achieved through one mythical personage—King Erichthonius. King Erichthonius was a mythological early ruler of ancient Athens, son of Hephaestus and Athena. Half man and half serpent, his very being mediates notions of autochthony and birth. Erichthonius was autochthonous, born of the soil, or Earth. Yet

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at the same time, he not only represented the disputes between Athena and Poseidon over Athens, but was also related to the attempted rape of Athena by Hephaestus and the consequent impregnation of the Earth. Thus, the word “Erichthonius” also means the successful transition from a situation of disjunctive strife to an act of sexual union (Peradotto, 1977). King Wen was a different kind of mediator. He was a conscious inventor of the principle of alliance in politics. Born of sexual union in a formalized marriage, he deployed all the wisdom of alliance to create a kingdom different from that of Shang. Unlike the founders of Shang, who established their rule chiefly by means of conquest,7 King Wen led his allies to found his kingdom by means of “civility” and was thus “respected [by those] far and near” (R. Wang & X. Ren, 1998, p. 1135). After overthrowing Shang, Zhou continued King Wen’s line and established a system of aristocratic cities in accordance with reformulated cosmological principles. The fiefholders who resided in their respective cities were united within a hierarchical order of kinship and privileges and, ideally, they were to be related in terms of a refined ceremonial culture. Peasants who helped defeat the archaic Shang royalty became a strong force in Zhou society. Clear-cut distinctions among social classes were altered. In turn, the quest for the perfect union between Heaven, Earth, and Man for an intermediary realm of principalities became predominant (Gernet, 1982, pp. 32–56). Between Shang and Zhou, there was a certain degree of continuity. In both dynasties, the supreme political leaders were known as wang or “king.” The characters huang (“august one” or “god-king”) and di (“sage-king” or “sovereign”) were used separately to refer to the “Three August Ones” and “Five Sovereigns” (Sanhuang Wudi). These were the mythological rulers.8 As legend has it, the archaic sovereigns were considered to be model rulers and moral exemplars. These sovereigns were not inventors of “sciences.” They reigned but did not invent; “invested with a more complete, and what seems in a sense a more abstract Virtue, they confine themselves to the task of civilizing by radiating a controlling power” (Granet, 1930, p. 11). They were said also to be commanders of different directions—for instance, Shaohao of the East, Zhuan Xu the North, the Yellow Emperor the Center, Shennong the South, and Fu

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Xi the West. They were worshipped either by the Central Kingdom as the guardian-gods of directions or by the tribal unions in different areas as local patron deities. Attributing supreme authority (huang and di) to the legendary sage kings and fusing them with cosmic supremacies, both Shang and Zhou conceptualized their own kingships as the intermediaries between Heaven and Earth, the basic definition of which was “to try to use sacrifices to build support through the ancestral pantheon and win the support even of Di.” Thus, one may presume that the Zhou conquest “simply meant a replacement of the Shang pantheon with the Zhou pantheon” (Puett, 2002, p. 78). However, as Pankenier (1995) has pointed out, in the process of the Shang-Zhou transition, a return to the more archaic cosmology was achieved. The outcome of the Zhou “revolution” against Shang was the shift from “legitimacy based on the principle of contiguity, that is, membership in the royal lineage” toward a “legitimacy premised on emulating Heaven as the paradigm of order and harmony” (p. 173). The tripartite cosmos of Shang was retained in Zhou, but Heaven assumed the role of Supremacy and Ancestors obtained importance as never before.9 Meanwhile, ideologically, Zhou turned away from Shang’s focus on “orthodoxy of belief” and alternatively placed the strongest emphasis on “orthodoxy of ritual”—the ceremonial dispositions known in Chinese as liyi (rites and styles). These original patterns of “rites and styles” were derived from reciprocal interactions among the communities in the countryside.10 The origins of such ways of exchange rest in sexual and marital passages between Neolithic villages. Closely related to rural cycles of human and agricultural reproduction, the original forms of “rites and styles” corresponded with the seasons of seed planting and harvest defined by spring and autumn (Granet, 1932). Traditional historians often attribute this invention of liyi to the great sage Zhou Gong (Duke of Zhou), the brother of King Wu, the military conqueror who defeated Shang. King Wu died only three years after defeating Shang, and the kingship passed to his young son, Cheng, who was too inexperienced to run the newly founded kingdom. Zhou Gong, the uncle of the new king, served as regent and took care of King Cheng until he was old enough to rule. He led his army to fight against his two brothers, who conspired with the feudal rulers and the remnants of Shang to oppose Zhou. Zhou Gong’s enemies claimed that

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Shang owned the sole divine kingship and were the true descendants of the Supremacy. Although Zhou Gong defeated them, their myth remained prevalent in the countryside. In order to counter Shang’s claim of divine kingship, Zhou Gong formulated the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. This postulated that Shang, which induced great chaos, had grossly offended Heaven and thus Zhou, despite its reluctance, was commanded by Heaven to replace Shang and to restore order. To gather all the tribal unions into a larger system, Zhou Gong also invented the fengjian (usually translated as feudal) polity. Zhou Gong’s story may just be legend, but it contains certain valuable truths. To differentiate its own civilization from the previous Shang divine kingship, Zhou devised a new kind of order. The new order was intended to be universal; but it was universal not in the sense of the ascendance of the king, but in that of the extension of civility. In turn, the new order was linked to tiguo jingye (embodying the city and experiencing the wilderness), a down-to-earth view of the world. Shang cosmology resembled a turtle. In particular, it mirrored the plastron (breastplate) of a turtle, which was among the most prominent mediums for divination. In this cosmology, the duality of Heaven and Earth, along with that of yin and yang, were correlated with the cosmos and any microcosmic parts it developed. Shang cosmology, which was foundational, continued to be applied and refined in later periods, but the mythology of the Supreme Lord, Shangdi, and cults of various spiritual beings remained (Allan, 1991). In order to turn the Central Kingdom into a more inclusive world, the Zhou king took the title of “Son of Heaven” (Tianzi) and situated himself in-between Heaven and Earth. The new cosmology afforded the king a new kind of “legitimacy”—a new “Mandate of Heaven”— accompanied by specialized cosmic-moral duties: The King should examine the (character of the whole) year; the high ministers and officers (that of) the month; and the inferior officers (that of) the day. If throughout the year, the month, the day, there will be an unchanging seasonableness, all the grains will be mature; the measures of government will be wise; heroic men will stand forth distinguished; and in the families (of the people) there will be peace and prosperity. (Legge, 1889, p. 148)

Similar to a form of gardening, the Son of Heaven cultivated in himself

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world order—the Mandate of Heaven. And the methods with which he achieved his world, as expounded by Confucius in his endeavors to revitalize the Zhou’s Tianxia, should all be derived from the way in which “natural Order and human Order were thought of as being one.” Thus, he “is charged with a civilizing mission whose effects extend over things as over men” (Granet, 1975, p. 102). As the fifth principle of the Zhou “Great Plan” also indicates: The Sovereign, having established (in himself) the highest degree and pattern of excellence, concentrates in his person the five (sources of) happiness, and proceeds to diffuse them, and give them to the multitudes of the people. Then they, on their part, embodying your perfection, will give it (back) to you, and secure the preservation of it. Among all the multitudes of the people there will be no unlawful confederacies, and among men (in office) there will be no bad and selfish combinations. (Legge, 1889, pp. 143–144)

By means of a sense of universal virtue replacing the particular anthropomorphic spiritual powers found in Shang, Zhou re-deduced the concepts of Heaven (Tian) and “All under Heaven” (Tianxia), and deployed them in the pursuit of an inter-cultural polity. Among the various cosmological reinventions, the most important would be the remaking of the pentology of quarters surrounding the center, initially developed in the late Neolithic Age, and reformulated in Shang in terms of fang (directions and quarters) (Keightley, 2000, pp. 81–96).11 This was known as wufu—the five concentric zones (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 395–425).12 In modern sociology, the concentric zone model is often associated with the work of the Chicago School, especially that of Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie. Built on the sociological study of Chicago, the concentric zone model charts the emergence of a city as starting from a business district surrounded by a high-crime transition zone with low-income residents. Outside the business district is a working-class residential zone, which is in turn surrounded by two other zones—the middle-class residential zone and the upper-class residential zone (Park, Burgess & McKenzie, 1967 [1925]). Wufu was similar to the concentric zone model. However, instead of being circular, wufu was square-shaped. More importantly, unlike a modern model of a city, it was not centered around a business district.

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Instead, its center was the imperial capital (didu). The “five zones” were at the same time centripetal and centrifugal. While these zones changed over time, Zhou’s designation of these five levels implicated a civilizing order. The founding king of Zhou made an institution to differentiate these zones (fu)— the inner domain of the capital is defined as dianfu, the outer domain as princely domains (houfu). The princely domains are protected by the zone of pacification (binfu), which is in turn surrounded by allied barbarians such as the Yi, which forms a semi-cultured zone (yaofu), along with the Rong and Di, which forms a desolate zone (huangfu) of savagery. The five zones were concentric squares radiating from the imperial city. They were also levels of culture oriented in a centripetal manner towards the center (Fig. 3.1). There were different ceremonial patterns in different zones, each of which had its own kind of worship. The different ceremonial patterns were named and characterized hierarchically—ji for royal domains, si for princely domains, xiang for the zone of pacification, gong for the semi-cultured zone, and wang for the zone of cultureless savagery (J. Gu & N. Shi, 1999, pp. 56–57). The zones denoted no more than a few square Chinese miles within the Zhou’s territory. Nevertheless, they were also modeled on the squared earth, “a disc-shaped world” with the cosmological constituencies of the Earth (Needham, 1981b, pp. 238–239). To the Zhou rulers, the five zones were a complex system of differentiation and relationship, a catalogue of peoples, and a structure of hierarchy deployed to know, describe, pacify, and manage. They marked cultural boundaries between the king and the lords of principalities, along with those between the principalities and the “barbarians.” A concentric square was a unity comprised of diversity, a system of “rites and styles” defined in the explicit vocabulary of hierarchy. In such a new hierarchy, gong (tribute-paying), which later became a constituent element of the tributary mode, was merely applied to describe the interrelationship between the barbarians and princes. The other sorts of relationships were instead described by various ceremonial levels—the great sacrifice (ji), the worship (si), and offering (xiang) (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 830–831) (Fig. 3.1).

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Figure .

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Heaven and Earth Conflated in the Making of Time (The overall image is extremely like a mandala; but the contents emphasize the important role of the intermediaries between Heaven and Earth—the “quarters” of directions, holy mountains, cosmic sounds, seasons, and climate features—in the making of time. Source: Z. Lai, Yijing Laizhu Tujie, )

The wufu system was related to the cosmo-geography of quarters around the center which was legendarily invented during Xia. Qu Yuan depicted this immediately after mentioning Yu: Why are the nine lands dry And wet the valleys lie? Who knows why streams east go And seas never overflow?

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How far is east to west Or north to southern crest? Is it longer than wide From north to southern side? The Hanging Garden’s high. But where did its base lie? Kunlun walls were ninefold. How high were they, all told? Who went with rapid strides Through the gates in four sides? And what wind passed before The open northwest door? (Y. Xu, 2009, pp. 83–85) In order to construct a civilizing order, a system of sacrifices comprising the inner-locality cult of she (enclosed community and state) and supra-local worship of jiao (outskirt ceremonies) was created. While she denoted the worship of Earth, jiao referred to sacrifices at the open altars devoted to Heaven (through mountains). She carried the connotation of “place integrity.” Worshiping at she consisted of paying respect to the Earth God and the God of Grain. “Place integrity” conveyed the integrity of the country. Thus, “state” was also called sheji. It is in the inherited legacy of sheji cults that jiaosi was reproduced. Jiao, originally meaning “suburb,” referred to sacrifices to Heaven, Earth, and all the powers of nature outside the capital. As for the external zones, astrological and topographical correspondences were made to constitute the star-fields (xingye) of regions; these were also used to define administrative “prefectures” (zhou) (H. Lin, 1993 [1934], pp. 832–835). The topographically differentiated ceremonies and administrative “levels” were practiced to maintain the order of “this world,” which was not seen as independent from the celestial. In addition to the “politics” of the human order, Zhou also succeeded in creating a cosmology of “change” (yi).13 As expounded later in both Confucian and Daoist philosophies, the boundaries of the concept of yi were extended to the whole circle of natural and human domains, which made the system of wufu a perfect reflection of yin and yang and the Five Elements. As exposed in the “religion of the literati,” in the cosmology of yin and

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yang and the Five Elements (wuxing), “Space and Time were seen as the result of the interaction among these concrete categories. Their play was explained by different laws” (Granet, 1975, p. 105). Granet continues: There were three procedures of enumerating the Elements. The first of the procedures seems to have derived from the lay-out of the templum; the Elements (which were Directions) were arranged in a cross, the N-S branch being drawn first and begun from the bottom (North), the horizontal branch E-W drawn second, being started from the left (East). That produced the following numbering and order: 1 (=6=North) Water; 2 (=7=South) Fire; 3 (=8=East) Wood; 4 (=9=West) Metal; 5 (Centre) Earth. The second procedure appears to derive from the Calendar’s order of movement round the square mansion; the Elements were in the following sequence: Wood (=Spring, beginning of the year); Fire (=Summer); Earth (=Center-pivot of the year); Metal (=Autumn); Water (=Winter). The Elements being enumerated in the order of the sequence of the Seasons they symbolized, theory had it that the order must be that of a regular succession in a cyclic form. According to this theory, called the mutual production of the elements, Wood (the Virtue of Wood) engendered Fire (the Virtue of Fire), Fire engendered Earth…, Water engendered Wood. A third arrangement opposed the Elements direction by direction in the order W-E N-S Center=Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth. The corresponding theory was that the elements conquer one another in the opposite order to that in which they are enumerated…. (p. 106)

In the king’s palace, a ceremonial hall was constructed to mark the brightness of Heaven (Mingtang). In this ceremonial hall, discussed in chapter two, the king’s body moved alongside the motions of heavenly compartments so as to comply with cosmic rhythms and join in the movements of Heaven and time. Cities were modeled after the ceremonial hall. The imperial capital and princely residences of the principalities were envisaged as the perfect reflections of the Heavenly compartments. Chinese historian Lü Simian (1985 [1938], pp. 448–450) has compared the polities of Shang and Zhou. Lü points out that while Shang was more heavenly, Zhou and Xia were comparatively more “down to earth.” Lü, adopting much of the Han historical interpretation, implies a contrast of polities: while Shang’s polity was kingly, Zhou’s imperium was deeply embedded in kinship and ceremonies.14

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Each of the dynasties had its own paradox. Shang’s cosmology was kingly, but it relied on the queen’s brothers to organize the army and the court. Zhou’s kingship was based on the principle of alliance, its imperium being more “horizontal,” but it was also Zhou that first established the Chinese hereditary system (p. 449). Neither Shang nor Zhou sought to situate their rulers in the cosmological level of the “august,” the supreme, or the ultimate sovereign. But both Shang and Zhou can be conceptualized as “cosmocracies,” which, as Sahlins has recently defined the term, are “governed by rulers of universal pretensions.” Unlike stranger-kingships, the cosmocrats are not marked by the dual sovereignty of immigrant rulers and indigenous owners. Rather, cosmocrats “synthesize the ontological and theological dualisms of stranger-king politics.” They retain the powers of Heaven and Earth both by means of a bureaucracy that extends their presence as well as their powers (Sahlins, 2009). Comparatively, Zhou was even more of a cosmocracy than Shang. Lü is correct in referring to Zhou as a less kingly order, but it is apparent that Zhou became more cosmocratic than Shang simply by means of becoming more “down to earth.” On the one hand, with tiguo jingye Zhou devised the system of fiefs and forged a synthetic relationship with them by means of combining lineage and tributary theories. On the other hand, it also theorized the system of cosmogeographic mutual reflections by the same means, and sought to legitimate itself and extend its scope. These allowed Zhou to turn the wholes of smaller tribal unions or kingdoms into the fiefs or the parts of its designated world.15 But the Zhou world was not the ultimate whole either. It was also a part of a whole at the highest level—the cosmos of heaven and earth. In Zhou, the stratum of the shi (men of letters)—who were believed to command both the “science of heaven” and “science of earth”— gained a considerable amount of power. They were given the power not only to theorize cosmographies but also to “manage ceremonies” (Yu, 2003). In archaic times shi simply referred to adult members of any particular clan. In Shang, it came to connote noble members of the clan who combined the roles of warriors, diviners, historians, and officials. In Zhou, the shi relied heavily on lineage regulations (zongfa) to gain their social status and were keenly involved in political affairs. They asserted

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their distinction by way of “channeling the family and the country” (zhiguo yu zhijia). In the court, they were assigned to deal with state affairs. As authors and bearers of “civilization,” they were also known as junzi or “gentlemen” who wrote both li (rites) and su (customs), and as a result inscribed their distinction into history. Operating on the levels of state, lineage, morality, and intellectual capability, the shi promoted ideas of “respecting the respectable, loving the kin, and recognizing the virtuous and capable” (zunzun, qinqin, xianxian). They inscribed into the text-ritual three categories of men—jun (king), fu (father), and shi (teacher) (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 475–480). It is said in many official Chinese dynastic histories that to order “chaos,” the shi compiled the “three books on rites” (san li): Zhou Li (Zhou Book of Rites), Yi Li (Styles and Ceremonies), and Li Ji (The Book of Rites).16 All were concerned with the concept of Tianxia and not with a bounded Chinese “society” or “nation.” To the shi of Zhou, rituals were important devices whereby Tianxia, or the world, could be orchestrated towards a higher harmony or the “Great Unity” (Datong). The concept of the “Great Unity” in terms of ritual was core to Zhou perceptions of order. Reading Confucius’ interpretations in Analects—a collection of interviews in the later phase of Zhou—we find a sense of unity as a means of government by ritual. Govern the people by regulations, keep order among them by chastisements, and they will flee from you, and lose all self-respect. Govern them by moral force, keep order among them by ritual and they will keep their self-respect and come to you of their own accord. (Waley, 1998, p. 25)

The “Great Unity” and its attached rites were not a Zhou-bound theory, it was a “world-scape.” In the earlier phases of Zhou, “many internal parts of China were independent states and tribes.… The so-called ‘Huaxia’ [Chinese] civilization was confined to today’s Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, and Hebei provinces, which were integrated into a single area. Outside this area were ‘the areas of the Barbarians’ (Manfang)” (J. Gu & N. Shi, 1999, p. 52). In terms of cosmocracy, as we indicated earlier, Tianxia in the Zhou Dynasty was mapped as the total disc-shape—square—of the Earth. This world-scape was hierarchically organized through levels of cultural maturity (hua). In the five zones theory, the center of the square-world was the “emperor’s capital” or “royal domains” (didu). Radiating from it were zones

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which varied in terms of distance and cultural hierarchy from each other and from the center. Cai Yuanpei (1993 [1926]), one of the earliest Chinese advocates of ethnology, once quoted at length from the chapter on “Kingship” (wangzhi) in The Book of Rites (see also Note 15 above), indicating that ethnology existed in classical China. The Book of Rites locates different peoples in the five different directions and explains the formation of their “local cultures” in their local settings. As it states, “In the east, there are people who are known as the Yi. They keep their hair long and tattoo their bodies, and they do not grow grain for food. In the north, there are people who are known as the Di. They dress in birds’ feathers and live in caves. Some of them do not grow grain. Both the central kingdom and the four sorts of the barbarians (Yi Man Rong Di) feel at ease when they are settled. They all wear clothing and are capable of applying different kinds of equipment. Yet the peoples in the five different directions (wu fang zhi min) do not share the same language and same hobbies (shi) and desires (yu). If we really want to express the differences, then we can say that relatively the eastern peoples express themselves with more conveyance (ji), the southern peoples express themselves with more imageries (xiang), the western peoples express themselves with more warrior action (dishi), and the northern peoples express themselves with more mutually translatable messages (yi)” (pp. 1116–1117). Cai goes on to mention that The Book of Rites defines each of the parts of the Central Kingdom and the Rong and Yi as having “its own nature,” and states that “each should not deploy its own measure to judge the others.” Cai argues, with good evidence, that a sense of ethnological cultural relativism already existed between the fifth and the third centuries B.C. in the Chinese world. The books on rites designated a class system for peoples and cultures whereby the center and the divided outer zones were rendered their respective ceremonial and social institutions. In Yi Li, Zhou Li, and Li Ji, the class system of peoples and cultures are presented in different ceremonial and cosmological guises. Zhou Li describes Zhou’s institutions. Yi Li emphasizes more the hospitality rituals among different social classes: the royal, the shi, the peasants, and so forth. Li Ji deals mostly with the construction of “Great Unity” through ceremonial conduct. Though each book’s focus is different, the three books also have

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many overlapping themes and mutually validating phrases. Rituals stipulated range from the Son of Heaven’s embodiment of the cosmos to agricultural laborers’ rites de passage. Ranked ceremonies are assigned to different levels of society; the king’s great sacrifice, the princes’ worship, and the hundred families’ (baixing) offering (xiang) occupy prominent positions. Also important are guest rituals (yan) conducted by the Son of Heaven and mutual-disposition rituals (xiangjian li) conducted by shi. Guest rituals are designated to honor the Son of Heaven’s location in the world, in which the self-other relationship is constituted as host-guest relations in bodily placements. Likewise, when the shi meet each other, they have to obey strictly defined rules of politeness. Interrelationships among different social strata are also categorized. For instance, according to stipulations for “mutual disposition rituals” in Yi Li, if one calls somebody his jun (ruler), a shidaifu is automatically called xia chen (serving lower rank official). Those chen whose houses are located within the city are to be called “serving officials of the city.” Those chen whose houses are located in the wild countryside are known as “serving officials of the grass.” The commoners (shuren) are called “thorny grass serving people” (cicao zhi chen). Foreigners (taguo zhi ren) are called wai chen (external serving people) (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 742–766). The efficacy of ritual is expected to be what is put forward by the shi—to respect the respectable, love the kin, and recognize the virtuous and capable. It is further highlighted in terms of music-dance unions and distinctions among different levels of hierarchy. In the three books on rites, music-dance performances are described in terms of yue. Yue is a character that also finds its source in the trance-dances of pre-Xia shamans. Reified as a part of the ceremonial culture for civilization, it became much more reserved and classicized (P. Lin, 2008). A book that emphasizes this aspect of Zhou civilization is Shi Jing, or The Book of Poetry. Completed in the later stages of the Zhou, it was revised in the Han. The Book of Poetry is comprised of three parts: feng (country songs), ya (euphonies, also translated as odes), and song (royal praises, also translated as hymns). In spite of some obvious overlaps (J. Gu, 1998a, pp. 10–15), the three sections are obviously derived from different sources. Country songs are folk songs that the shi collected in different areas of the principalities. Euphonies refer to performances among the shi themselves.17 Royal praises are devoted to

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epic-like rhythmic narratives of Zhou. Further differentiation among the three types of music-dance performances, as recorded in The Book of Poetry, was made with reference to the application of musical instruments and tunes. It is evident that in the performances of country songs, euphonies, and royal praises, different musical instruments and tunes were deployed to highlight the distinctions among different levels of Zhou society—the country (principalities and their outward extensions), the shi, and the royal palace. As euphonies and royal praises narrate the styles of ritual and historical emergence of the shi and royal line, country songs include richer folkloric sources. There were many advocates of the political line of the “rule of rites.” Among them were those who had absorbed the wisdom of Zhou’s founding father King Wen and become devoted to the enterprise of the Great Unity. However, King Wen’s invention was not always effective. Although the “rule of rites”—as practiced in what we may call “tributary diplomacy” between the court and the fiefs—created a temporary “harmonious society,” they were easily challenged. The rulers of certain feudatory states often tried to become kings and did not listen to the Son of Heaven’s callings (K. Yang, 1999, pp. 62–103). Hence, within the court of Zhou, there were two political lines. Due to King Wen’s charisma, one line saw the rule of rites as what characterized the orthodoxy of Zhou. But this orthodoxy was constantly devalued by more forceful actions, like military expeditions, which were made possible by the counter-arguments of some shi-advisers that worked for the kings. Tianxia as a unity was sketched out on a federal plan. “This confederation brought together overlordships of varied importance, which felt themselves connected less by the force of political relations than by a certain community of civilization” (Granet, 1930, p. 76). Since the “confederation” was far from being an actual “Unity,” in order to achieve “surface unification,” the Son of Heaven had to bear the heavy burden of separation. Modern Chinese historians including Qian Mu have interpreted King Mu’s journey to the West in light of this political predicament of Tianxia. For them, an “inspecting expedition” intended to include the ceremonial whole of Tianxia could only be a consequence of feudalist disintegration. This type of travel consisted of the rites of hunting, exchange, and inspection, which were “military” merely in the sense of ceremonial spectacle. Hunting,

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exchange, inspection, sacrifice, and so forth could be highly valued by the king, but they could not bring sufficient surveillance and order. After all these ceremonies, the extensive countries outside of the capital and the “core areas” of the Central Kingdom yet remained independent.

The Superior Other The power of the Zhou court was constantly vulnerable to military challenges from outside and below. But the Zhou kings adopted different strategies to cope with the challenges. King Wu had his military line, King Mu his civilizing way. Apart from being a civilizing project derived from the court’s consideration of “feudalism” (fengjian), his journey was “burdened” by a structure. While modern historians usually divide the world into centers and margins and consider this division the result of objective analysis, King Mu is seemingly limited to his own division between inside and outside. He defined his own political world (the sphere of the Son of Heaven) as inside, and the world of Xi Wangmu (the “Daughter of Heaven”) as outside. Through his ceremonies, moreover, he treated the outside as superior to the inside. Paying tribute to the others—tribes, divinities, and things—was to King Mu an effective “ceremonial instrument” to bring them into his realm. In this dualistic and complementary world-scape, a contrast between the political East and the mythical West, along with the male East and female West, was made explicit. King Mu was busily engaged in political affairs in the East, but his “epic” was made in the non-Eastern wonderlands, in which he was “heroic” only if he was “diplomatic.” From his perspective, making friends with faraway “strangers” and sacrificing to the faraway “geographical divinities” (such as the mountains and the rivers) were the only purposes of the journey. The shi, or specifically the Group of the Seven Sages, were the more active sources of “know-how.” Although Biography of King Mu represents the king as the supreme human, his world-scape was developed by the Seven Sages who also “guided” the king into the Far West. These sages held extensive knowledge of different levels of the world—cosmological, geographical, and historical. As the makers of ceremonial regulations, they controlled the rules of where-to-go, what-to-do, and howto-practice. As an old saying suggests, they were those who “embraced Heaven in order to limit the power of the king” (feng Tian yi yuezhi

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wangquan). In a sense, these sages had mastered a certain archaic type of “ethnological knowledge.” On his way to the West, King Mu was guided by the sages not only to the holy mountains and rivers but also to the lands of the “barbarians.” He interacted with many tribesmen in a courteous manner, organized great ceremonies to honor the holy mountains and historic relics, and exchanged gifts and songs with Xi Wangmu. Despite the fact that an assumption of dualistic division between “the civilized” and “the barbarians” underlie his travels, King Mu did not assume himself and his kingdom to be superior. On the contrary, he reversed the hierarchy by placing the other and the outside on higher levels. Just as in the illusionary worlds of Liezi, the political world surrenders to the mythico-cosmological world in its attempt to get closer to the remote. King Mu’s travels can be seen as a synthesis of travel through landscapes, peoples, and time. Its purpose was to link the self with the other. In Zhou, the highest requirement for politics was to connect the world of humans with the world of things (which often included nonChinese humans). At first, the value of “the West” for the Chinese came from the belief that the West is the other of Chinese politics—mythical in nature, higher in “levels” of moral conscience. It was thus an important part of the King’s “inspecting expedition” to get closer to things in the natural world and even to command them by hunting. The third volume of Biography of King Mu says the following: On the day of ding-wei, Tianzi drank in the Wen Mountains, investigating the types of birds there. On the day of si-you, Tianzi drank beside the Ru River and ordered the six troops to collect the feathers of birds. That area is full of waters, rivers, and springs, along with continuous hills and mountains, where giant birds remove their feathers. [Having received the order,] the six troops gathered in the wild field. Tianzi stayed there for three months, holding great banquets and playing heavenly music for the marquis, dukes, officials, and the Seven Sages. The six troops hunted in the wild field for birds and wild animals for nine days. They hunted too much to leave any animal alive. Their booty of feathers and furs was so abundant that they had to borrow vehicles to carry them back. In the end, Tianzi had one hundred carts of birds’ feathers. (Guo, 2006, p. 30)

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In this description the Son of Heaven, accompanied by the marquis, dukes and sages, tried to approach nature by watching the birds and playing the music of rites. They also went hunting to engulf the energy of nature. Humans undertook cultured actions to get close to natural things, to show their dependence upon materials. In this sense, the dualistic structure is not the end, but rather the means, of constituting a relationship between the self and the other. Because the compilers of Biography of King Mu could only stand on one side of the dualistic world, they, with the perspective of the other, took the position of compensating the disadvantage of the self with the advantage of the other; in this case, the compensation of the Daughter of Heaven to the Son of Heaven, of the birdsongs to the ceremonial sound-scape, of the hunted birds to the energy of human body. But “compensating the disadvantage of the self with the advantage of the other” was not impractical. To contemplate the relationship further, let us return to King Mu’s visit to Xi Wangmu. The two exchanged gifts. The king took white jade gui and black jade bi and also three hundred scrolls of silk and brocade as gifts. Xi Wangmu thanked him twice and accepted the gifts. In Xi Wangmu’s country, fabric was very precious to cover their naked bodies, while for King Mu jade was the most valuable because the best quality came from the West even though the best jade artisans were from the East. “A stone from other hills may serve to polish [the] jade [of this one]” (ta shan zhi shi, ke yi gong yu). This old saying suggests that the most suitable stones used for polishing jade are always from the other hills. This interpretation can be applied to Biography of King Mu. Just as Gu Jiegang (2000b, p. 810) has argued, King Mu’s journey to the West had “two purposes: to search for jade from the Kunlun Mountains, and to visit Xi Wangmu.” Biography of King Mu speaks of King Mu’s quest to the Mountain of Jade (Yushan). Mythical places such as the Kunlun Mountains and the Mountain of Jade located in the land of Xi Wangmu, were the sources of jade. According to Shan Hai Jing, around a thousand miles east of Kunlun “there is a Mountain of Jade, where Xi Wangmu dwells” (Guo, 2006, p. 30). As legend has it, the Mountain of Jade is related to the Jasper Lake, and it was there which Xi Wangmu resides. Deeply influenced by Frazer’s anthropological studies, Jiang Shaoyuan (1935) stated in his outstanding book The Study of Ancient

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Chinese Travels that King Mu’s journey to the West took place when the Central Kingdom was full of rumors of ghosts and devils. At the time, jade was believed to be a magical material that could protect humans from harm by such creatures. Thus, Jiang regarded King Mu’s journey to the West as a campaign to find magical stones. Jiang’s interpretation has its charms, but even if the high demand for jade was indeed bound up with popular anxieties over ghosts and devils, the magical “function” of jade had already been taken over by another “function.” Confucius once said: “The virtue of gentlemen can be compared to that of jade.”18 For the meaning of jade had changed twice. At first, jade was taken as a symbol of kingship in the East and was thus used as a sacrificial object. In the Zhou Dynasty, the value of jade was entwined with the “rule of rites”—the representative of feudalism. The shape and quality of jade symbolized the social rank and wealth of the noble class. The strict rules on jade ware reflected the rigid class system.19 In Artificers’ Records (Kao Gong Ji), there are detailed rules on the weight, size, color, and quality of jade applied to different classes of people. For example, “to produce a jade tablet nine inches long, named yuangui (everlasting jade tablet), is for the Duke; to produce a jade tablet seven inches long, named xingui (trustworthy jade tablet), is for the Marquis; to produce a jade tablet seven inches long, named gonggui (modest jade tablet), is for the Earl” (Wen, 1993, p. 60). In the Zhou Dynasty, jade was a kind of natural symbol with which gentlemen, politicians, and commoners defined their social statuses. The significance of jade for the constitution of Zhou is widely known. But one thing often left unsaid is that jade, the tool of classifying “internal social hierarchy,” came from the faraway “West.” Thus, the Zhou civilization’s dependence on foreign “jade” to demarcate its internal “rites” mirrors the dependence of the self on the other.20 Biography of King Mu is more or less an “epic” which narrates the hero’s travels through different passages. But an “epic” is a derivative of the “wisdom of the West.” It is a European mythological invention meant to turn history into a stage, on which the hero performs his acts of conquering the demonic. If this is the case, Biography of King Mu is different. It differs from usual “epics”; it can either be history or folklore, a book of geography or a magical ritual, a science or an art. It is neither pure “reality” nor pure “fiction.” It is both history and myth; it

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is about the world of humans and things. In The Riddles of Kunlun, the Republican diffusionist mythologist and writer Su Xuelin says: Ancient Chinese history and geography are indistinct and interwoven, as if hidden by the mist. Kunlun is also covered by the mist. Compared to other issues, the issue of Kunlun is much more difficult to understand because the realities and the illusions about it are mixed, just as the echoes in empty valleys and the reflections in mirrors cause dizziness and confusion. Hence, scholars do not know where to begin. “There is another Kunlun overseas” (Guo Pu, Jin Dynasty); “The Fangzhang Mountains in the Eastern Sea are also called Kunlun” (Li Daoyuan, Latter Wei Dynasty); “Kunlun has no fixed location” (Jin Luxiang, Yuan Dynasty); “Ancient sayings about Kunlun are as scrambled as public quarreling” (Gu Shi, modern times); such pities are full of the discussions and arguments around Kunlun. There are also other terms like great Kunlun and little Kunlun, eastern Kunlun and western Kunlun, Kunlun in a narrow sense and in a broad sense. Modern foreign scholars are also haunted by this problem when they study ethnic groups in the Southern Ocean [of China] or in Africa. For, in ancient Chinese books there are records about “Gulong” [the family name of a Negrito noble family] and “Kunlun nu” (Negrito slaves). In this sense, Kunlun is not only a myth for the Chinese, but a myth for the whole world. (X. Su, 1996 [1945], 4:87)

Kunlun was King Mu’s destination on his journey to the West. The mountains of Kunlun were the West, and the goddess residing in them was the King’s Mother. Su Xuelin raises several important points. Perhaps the most attractive is her point that geography like that in Biography of King Mu is the fusion of realities and illusions about landscapes, just like the echoes in the empty valleys and the reflections of images in the mirrors. For me, Biography of King Mu is the first masterpiece of Chinese “Occidentalism.” Like modern Western Orientalism, this Occidentalism pursues a geo-politic in all its romance of the other; and like Orientalism, it is a mixture of “illusionary” and “realistic” geographies. Biography of King Mu can be said to belong to mythology because, like any myth, it depicts a king’s journey to the West as a journey back to nature. Unlike its depiction in Li Ji, King Mu’s journey can be read not only as an “inspecting expedition” but it was also associated with the rites of huimeng (alliance) and shi (oath-making) that the kings of Zhou

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held regularly. The cultural politic of huimeng consists of the Son of Heaven’s meeting and feasting of the chiefs of fiefs below him, and the tribes outside his realm. The politics of shi consist of sacrifices to divinities made to link the kings and the lower chiefs vertically with Heaven when they have problems forming a peaceful relationship. Huimeng and shi constituted a system of rituals, a way of cultural politics, oriented toward the formulation of the relationships between the Son of Heaven and his fiefs, and between Heaven and Man (in this case, Man refers to the kings and noble families). The mountains and rivers are locations of fiefs, but they also mediate between Heaven and Earth, and that which lays beyond the capital of the Central Kingdom. King Mu’s journey through the mountains and rivers was part of the King’s rites de passage. The king was the king because he was the chief medium between Heaven and Earth. He himself embodied a mixture of “illusionary” and “realistic” geographies. Neither Shan Hai Jing nor Biography of King Mu is simply a narrative about geography. Each integrates myths and realities into a whole. Such texts were authorized to serve as expressive and instrumental attachments which linked the higher to the lower, the lower to the higher, and the self to the other. Like huimeng and shi rituals, they demonstrate the power of symbols, combining expressions and recognitions in performance—a song of fusion that could touch Heaven and move Earth. In this song, the Daughter of Heaven, Xi Wangmu, who is beyond and above the king, is a symbol of all things and of Heaven. In other words, she is not only the source of life but also its summit. Xi Wangmu appears as the matrix of fate and morality, encompassing the world ruled by the Son of Heaven. By way of communion with the Son of Heaven, she leaves a powerful promise. She promises to harmonize all the relationships under Heaven, and convert them into “cells” of herself as a whole. As a synthetic text of “illusionary” and “realistic” geographies, Biography of King Mu opens up a broader scope of the world than that available in the kingdom of Shang. Paying tribute to the other (including Xi Wangmu and the other divinities of mountains and rivers, feudal nobilities and tribesmen) was its core ritual. But the other was neither the Absolute, the Holy, the Christian God (Otto, 1958), the Relative, nor the “Savage.” It was instead a whole range of divinities and peoples

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in a whole range of mountains and rivers beyond the western frontiers of the Central Kingdom. Within this world-scape, the king, the sages, the warriors, and the producers form a world of distinctions and relationships. The king assumes the role of the political and the priestly, but he is taught by the sages whose “illusionary” and “realistic” geographies guided his journey to the West. With the guidance of the Seven Sages, the king ventures into the Far West and exchanges gifts, greetings, and songs with all kinds of others. He returns with a promise to Xi Wangmu, and in turn, he himself becomes another other. He becomes the re-authorized Son of Heaven, a politic beyond the political, an ideal world enlightened in the narratives of the land of Xi Wangmu—the West in the East, through a Biography that becomes a Geography.

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FOUR

Easternizing the West, Westernizing the East

In the “prehistoric” worldviews, the intermediaries between Heaven

and Earth were the pentology (wufang) of the quarters and the middle, correlative both to the celestial patterns and territorial grids. Within the framework of such perspectives, the polities in the subsequent age “rotated” to command the linkages. The framework was not taken as the same; on the contrary, it was “interpreted” in different ways, and it allowed alternations. During Shang, the king followed a cosmology that, being more vertical than that adopted in the preceding dynasty (Xia), permitted his own person to monopolize axial mundi in terms of what Keightley (2000, pp. 121–122) calls the “time-space grid of cosmology.” In overthrowing Shang and in maintaining its world order, Zhou became more “inclusive” cosmologically: “Where Shang rulers had venerated and sought the guidance of their own ancestors, the Zhou claimed their sanction to rule came from a broader, impersonal deity, Heaven (tian), whose mandate (tianming) might be conferred on any family that was morally worthy of the responsibility” (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 40). The world in which the Zhou king assumed the position of the supreme was extended horizontally.1 The king performed ceremonies to forge ties not only between Heaven and Earth but also between There and Here. Seen in the light of King Mu’s journey to the West, the Zhou cosmology located the linkage to Heaven in the directions beyond the middle, outside the center. The “Wild West” became especially “holy,” imagined as certain remote mountains where all the treasures of other divinities, other things, and other

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humans could be discovered as the sources of efficacy necessary for the mandate in the East. So far, much of our inquiry has been focused upon the “myths” and “realities” of the Zhou geo-cosmography. Though later the Zhou model was often promoted as the “Good Way,” it was nevertheless neither “successful” nor eternal. Unlike Shang, Zhou was more like a “confederation.” As Chinese archaeologist Li Xueqin (1985) notes, In the areas surrounding the royal domain, which were directly under the administration of the king of Zhou, were a large number of so-called feudal states (zhuhou guo) of various sizes established by members of the Zhou clan or other clans. Then in between these lords and surrounding the states of the lords were a large number of states and tribes that were, to varying extents, subordinate to the royal Zhou Dynasty. The rulership of the states of the lords was also hereditary, but the lords had prescribed political and economic obligations toward the Zhou royal house. (p. 3)

The weaker verticality along which it established its “confederation” made Zhou a looser unity.2 Thus, “[c]ompared with the rule of the Shang, the Zhou rule was not particularly successful” (p. 4). During the reign of King You, the last ruler of the Western Zhou, political corruption, social turmoil, and an invasion by the Quanrong people in the West caused the downfall of the royal house. A great many changes took place thereafter.

Yi-Xia, East-West In an essay entitled “Speculating about Yi-Xia in terms of East-West relations” (1933), Fu Sinian—a great Republican scholar, the founder of Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology, and the advocate of an alternative “Orientalism”3—says the following: Since the Eastern Han Dynasty [A.D. 25–220], Chinese history has been written through distinctions made between the South and the North, partly because there was indeed a split of political powers between the South and North, and partly because the North was several times conquered by foreign nations. However, this distinction cannot be applied to the history of antiquity. The Yangtze valley area did not prosper until the Eastern Han. The area was not an independent political entity before the reign of the Sun family of the Wu state. Before that, in prehistory and in the three

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royal dynasties of Antiquity, political evolution from tribe to kingdom took place mainly in the valleys of the Yellow River, Ji River, and Huai River. In this extensive region, the main politico-geographical entities which contested against each other were those in the East and the West rather than those in the South and North.

Fu continues: History should find its basis in geography. To a great extent, Chinese history prior to the Eastern Han evolved along a distinction between the West and East. This lasted as long as two millennia. As we can reconstruct through the application of geographic method, contemporary histories of Antiquity make it clear that during Xia, Shang, Zhou and the even earlier periods before the three dynasties, there mainly existed the Eastern and Western systems. These systems contested and fought against each other and gradually united. In the end, they jointly created the civilization of China. Yi and Shang belonged to the Eastern system, while Xia and Zhou formed the Western system. (c.f. Fu, 1996, p. 168)

In one important aspect, Fu’s master piece is deeply inspiring. As the above quotes clearly indicate, Fu strongly argued that in the periods preceding the Eastern Han, the sequence of the alternations of the kingdoms should be conceptualized as the fateful oscillation between the powers from the West and the East, but not that between those from the North and the South.4 Fu made this point for the purpose of re-shaping the historical trend of his time. In the early twentieth century, many Chinese scholars continued the late Qing Dynasty Han patriotic historiography and paid tribute to the late Ming and the early Qing (the seventeenth century) Han distinction between Yi and Xia. The Republicans, who mostly resided in the South, saw themselves as China’s liberators. They assumed their own role to be the rescue of the Chinese nation from the repression of the Northern barbarians (the Manchus). They saw late Ming anti-Manchu thinkers as their ideological ancestors. Working under this perspective, many such Republican intellectuals narrated the distinction between Yi and Xia into that between the North and the South.5 Writing in reaction to such studies, Fu sought to bring the history of classical China into the forefront of Chinese academic discourse. Fu noted that after the Eastern Han Dynasty, with the emergence of the

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Yangtze Delta as a political, economic, and cultural center, Chinese history was indeed re-patterned. But he argued that the repatterning of history had one condition: that the prior stage was not the same. Fu stressed that “scientific history” should avoid remaining in the redundant narrative of the North-South dualism. It should instead dare to begin with the classical period and its geographic patterns. For Fu, the North-South distinction appeared much later than West-East distinction, and it could be said to be a transformation of the contest between the East and the West during the classical age. As Zhou was from the West, we can also perceive Xi Wangmu’s land, depicted in Biography of King Mu, as belonging to the Western system. Kunlun, the destination of King Mu’s journey and Xi Wangmu’s wonderland, was situated further west than the homeland of Zhou’s founders. This thus made it possible for the Western system to transcend its own realm, destabilizing popular distinctions of the West and East. Further expounded, Fu’s speculation could have been extended to an interpretation of the classical Zhou “Occidentalism”—a perspective of the world oriented toward the other worlds of the Western exteriors. It might have supported our argument that, for Shang, which belonged to the Eastern system, the idea of the West was the opposite to home— the East, where the sun rises.6 Nonetheless, Fu too quickly moves to the discussion of the production of the East-West dualism re-emerging later in history. Fu states: The Qin state gobbled up the rest of the six states in the Warring State Period and in effect opened a new chapter in history. The new polity should not be said to be an invention solely of Qin, however. It borrowed heavily from Xia and Zhou institutions. The Qin Dynasty was terminated in the battle in Guandong, which can be seen as a return to the past. Yi peoples in the East abandoned their boats in order to fight in the Western mountains, and the Yin peoples vanquished the ghostly land in the West.… Qin’s victory was the victory of the West, while its defeat was the victory of the East. Chu and Han were regimes which realized the victory of the East. The Pinglin and Chimei Rebellions were directed towards defeating the Han court. They were indeed forces from the East. Cao Cao’s victory over Yuan Shao was that of the West. (c.f. Fu, 1996, p. 236)

As I have pointed out earlier, both the Southeast and the Northwest, later seen as the margins of Chinese civilization, had developed

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highly advanced “Jade Age” civilizations prior to the age of the “royal dynasties.” So far as archaeological findings reveal, it was in such “magins” that the so-called “sciences” of Heaven and Earth were invented. The fact disapproves Fu’s point that the Yangtze valley area was more backward than the North. Moreover, though we should not simply oppose Fu’s positivist “new history,” we can nevertheless regard Fu’s interpretation as problematic. Core to Fu’s narrative was a kind of directionology. Fu represented it as if it were an “etic” or “scientific” perspective, without recognizing the fact that the directional terms he adopted had already been conceived in the “native” cosmology in which not only the “ideologies” of different dynasties but also their later reconstructions and transformations were situated.

“The Collapse of Rites and Destruction of Music” After the downfall of King You, the following King Ping moved his capital east and located it in the region of modern-day Luoyang in Henan province. The period known in history as “Eastern Zhou” began. The Eastern Zhou started in the first year of the reign of King Ping (770 B.C.). Traditional historiography divides Eastern Zhou into two periods, the Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn) and the Zhan Guo (Warring States).7 The end of the Eastern Zhou is either placed at the death of King Nan of Zhou in 256 B.C. or extended to the unification of China under Qin in 221 B.C. As a whole, Eastern Zhou became a true “confederation,” which brought together overlordships of varied importance, connecting them less by the force of political relations than by a certain “community of civilization.” The connection rested either on genealogical ties, implying identity of family name, or on a political tradition of intermarriage. Though connections of this kind were always represented as existing from time immemorial, they became somewhat different now. As Granet (1930) notes, during the Eastern Zhou, for instance, The House of Wu (Kiang-su [Jiangsu]) is supposed to have issued from the same ancestors as the royal house of the Chou [Zhou]; but Wu is an outlying overlordship, and one of its ambassadors calls the central overlordships (Chong Kuo [Zhongguo]) which he visits, “superior” overlordships (Shang Kuo [shang guo]). He qualifies as hsia [Xia]—the name of the

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first dynasty, but this word signifies civilized—the music which is used in them. (p. 76)

Thus, while the fiefs or states which boasted of their own “authenticity” and civilization were those near the capital, the others, further out, were supposed to have a less pure civilization. Meanwhile, the hierarchy of “civilization” was having a different kind of impact. In the previous period, Western Zhou, the royal palace was where the fiefs resorted to for sources of ritual, political, military, and economic dynamics. Around 900 B.C., the fiefs, engaging in the contests of expansion perceived by traditional historians as resulting in the so-called “collapse of rites and destruction of music” (libeng yuehuai), began to take the model of Zhou royalty and map it onto their own regimes.8 In the course of “localization,” a system of aristocratic cities, known as guo (cities enclosed by walls and, later, states), replaced the form of archaic royalty. In the Spring and Autumn period, the leaders of the fiefs held power in their cities and in turn became the replica of royalty within a vast hierarchy of noble families and domains. As Gernet (1982, pp. 53–61) brilliantly outlines, the organization of the fiefs, or guo, mirrored that of the royal palace. In each principality, the chief bore the title of “lord” (gong). He grouped different sorts of shi into his own palace and monopolized military power in his own domains. Prior to the expansion of the fiefs, Zhou society relied on systemic hierarchies of worship or rites to ensure the cohesion of the vast country and the preeminence of the royal line. But then the monarchy declined along with the localization of the royal model and the geographical dispersal of principalities which were thinly held together by way of rites. The fiefs’ tendency to compete over territory impaired the balance between the cities—in fact, they had become citycentered states. Meanwhile, the Zhou court was faced with invasions by the chiefdoms surrounding it. The fiefs that belonged to Zhou in the Spring and Autumn period were Qi, Lu, Jin, Qin, Song, Wei, Zheng, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qing. These were not “pure” in terms of “civilization” or ethnicity. On the margins of different fiefs, Yi from the East, Rong from the West, Man from the South, and Di from the North settled. Several branches of the Man, notably, the Hundred Yue (Baiyue), the Shu, and the Southwestern Man (Xi’nan Man) established their

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own kingdoms in the South. The Di in the North, including the Red Di (Chidi), White Di (Baidi), and Tall Di (Changdi) settled in the east, west, and north of the Jin. Together with the Yi, the Man also attacked other principalities like Lu, Wei, and Qi. From the South, the Chu (a part of the Man that in the Warring States period became one of the great powers in China) sought to extend its territories into the North. The so-called “Central Kingdom” (Zhongguo) only occupied some twenty percent of the land known as Tianxia (H. Lin, 1993 [1934], p. 26). Zhou and many of its principal underlings were ethnically related to the tribes and chieftains in the West, especially those of the Qiang. The Qiang lived in the extensive lands to the west, north, and northeast of the Central Kingdom. They helped the founders of Zhou overthrow Shang. Yet, in the later phase, these “ethnic groups” mixed with the Han through settlement and warfare, and over time they made important contributions to the integration of the Han. The incoming “barbarians” constituted a serious issue. In fact, by the Spring and Autumn period, the Zhou court had lost the power to defend itself against the “barbarians.” To survive, the royal family depended on several major principalities—especially Qin and Jin—to act as fences against “barbarian invasions.” In so doing, the Zhou court also provided an excuse for their territorial expansion. Both Qin and Jin launched campaigns to “respect the king and resist the barbarians” (zunwang rangyi). This resulted in many “barbarian kingdoms” being incorporated into the “fiefs.” The Jin took seventeen such kingdoms by military action and made thirty-eight surrender. The Chu and the Qin respectively annexed thirty-nine and twenty (J. Gu & N. Shi, 2000, pp. 44–45). To rule the expanding territories, the lords of the principalities invented the prefecture and county system (junxian zhi), whereby Zhou’s official zones of relationship were turned into what was merely ceremonially useful. As a result, the system of the nine prefectures (jiu zhou), which probably already existed in early Zhou, was redefined and deployed to cover the new territories of the loosely united “Central Kingdom” (p. 53). However, a radical change in ideology did not come along with all these changes. While competing “self-expansions” by the overlords resulted in the “collapse of rites and destruction of music,” what Granet terms “feudal religion” continued to place the level of Heaven as outside and beyond the realms of the fiefs or states.

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In Festivals and Songs of Ancient China (1932) Granet shows how “feudal court society” derived its cosmology from the outer realms. According to Granet, the Spring Festival first originated in the rural communal celebrations of seasons. These celebrations were deeply rooted inter-village contests in which the sexes were divided and conjoined to formulate a generic relationship (p. 32). The conceptual framework of the contests further defined the constructive interrelationships between neighboring villages. Later, these celebrations were transformed from enactments of “impoverishment and specialization” into simplified cycles of seasonal rhythms of the royal clans of the regional states (pp. 155–158). The “royal” cycle of sacrifices, heightened to go beyond the communal confines of festivity, actually narrowed it to certain spatially confined celebrations of cosmological order. Thus, “when the alliance which, to begin with, was revived at periodical intervals in the holy places, came under the control of a princely family, the faithful were provided with human mediators in close touch with the powers which they had originally externalized in things, and with which the power of the prince was then identified” (p. 205). The change from festivity to “court society” resulted in a more “fixed” scheme of cosmic order and worldview. However, the model of concentric squares still was modeled upon the holy places of the naturepowers located outside the cities. Integrated with the kingly “royal line” of rule, the princely cosmology was not a part of the whole, the cosmology of China as a confederation. It was mimetic of the model person—the Son of Heaven—who maintained the order of the universe by bringing in the reign of moral order. The standardized calendar was the Son of Heaven’s authority to regulate the activities of the country. The mountain-residences of divinities were fixed as natural altars for the Son of Heaven to communicate with Heaven. The residual Son of Heaven, or Sovereign on High, “the same sacred Power,” gained a variety of attributes. He was the regulator of seasons, the performer of the celestial work of time, the dynastic providence, the chief diviner, and oath-maker (Granet, 1975, pp. 64–72). Meanwhile, “closely related to the dignitaries of the feudal heirarchy, mountains and rivers took their rank,” “bestowed upon them [was] the style of duke or count” (p. 74).

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In Western Zhou, the worship conducted by the ruler in honor of mountains and rivers, the “natural symbols” of authority derived from “the traditional symbols of the social pact” of gendered exchange (Granet, 1975, p. 9), was held to make the places outside the royal capital holier than himself. After Western Zhou kings “moved” their holy mountains east, the overlords and warring kings also situated their own worlds in the cosmological topography of landscape, mimetic of Zhou’s mountains and rivers, and Zhou’s Tianxia. In the subtle process of historical transformation, characterized by both continuity and rupture, the role of the shi had changed. In the earlier phase of Zhou, the shi were selected from aristocratic families. By the Spring and Autumn period, they could come from lower classes including the “commoners” (shumin). In the past, the shi were chiefly concerned with the construction and recording of ceremonial rules and did not make distinctions between rites, law, and politics. The shi in the Spring and Autumn period re-emerged as classical historians who also orchestrated civilities; they became those who made historical judgments, took on political service, and managed the government.9 Along with this change, their scope of knowledge extended from the pursuit of ceremonial order into the fields of law, politics, and ethics. In turn, the shi themselves became divided into schools of thought: Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Legalist, and so forth. The age of separation, the period of the Warring States, was a time when “a hundred schools competed to voice opinions” (baijia zhengming). If we follow Karl Jaspers (1953), we may define this as part of the “axial age,” a large-scale revolution in the first major civilizations of the world. Prior to the “axial age,” the civilizations remained tied to tribal cultures and to natural and cosmological cycles. During the axial age, in the three major areas of civilization—the Near East (including Greece), India, and China—prophets and spiritual figures (most notably Zoroaster in Persia, Deutero-Isaiah among the Hebrews, Heraclitus and Pythagoras in Greece, the Buddha in India, and Confucius in China) emerged to remake history. These “spiritual figures” revolutionized thought, turning cosmological knowledge into the religious and philosophical. In the axial age, legacies of sacred places, tribal polytheism, and sacrifices gave way to “higher” civilizations and world religions. While a partial continuity of “animistic” humanity and cultural union with nature was maintained throughout the Bronze Age, new religions

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in the axial age de-linked the profane world from the sacred. Zoroastrian and Hebrew-Judaic traditions developed monotheism and conceptualized categories of good and evil. In India, Buddhist canonical scriptures reformulated the premises of Hinduism and made Buddha the detached observer of human suffering. In China between the sixth and fifth century B.C., Confucius developed the doctrine of ritual formalism and civilization. Abandoning connections with nature, Confucius focused on social issues and conceptualized transcendence in terms of inward conscience and ethical authority. The flourishing of wisdoms seems to characterize the “axial age” civilizations. In the Far West, in ancient Greece, for instance, one sees not only Plato’s attempt to restore the archaic cosmos, which tied human beings to a complete and coherent universe as a model of the Good, but also other schools of thought, such as the Atomists, the Scriptures, and Gnosticism (Brague, 2003). In the East, in the “Chinese world,” there were also a “hundred schools” (baijia). Many of these diverse schools of thought carried with them regional cultural elements, just like the contesting kingdoms: The Lu produced Confucius, and the Chu Daoists. “The literati reduced religious life to a collection of symbolic practices which, in their mind, intended to govern social relationships in a manner consistent with the common demands of tradition and reason” (Granet, 1975, p. 107). Thus, “mental attitudes inherited from the archaic periods continue to operate more or less beneath the surface” (Gernet & Vernant, 1990, p. 83). Though the new cosmic imaginaries between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. have been seen by some as a form of correlative thinking radicalized against Bronze Age cosmologies (Puett, 2002), I see them as closer to “axial age” reinventions of what anthropologists call the “primitive world view.” According to Douglas (1966), the “primitive world view looks out on a universe which is personal in several different senses” and has the following characteristic: “Things are not completely distinguished from persons and persons are not completely distinguished from their external environments. The universe responds to speech and mime. It discerns the social order and intervenes to uphold it” (p. 88). The “primitive anthropocentric world views” form a contrast with the great religions of Eurasia, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, whose “anomalous

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institutions”10 founded the cosmological principles of the modern world” (p. 92). Interestingly, in his Les Mots et les Choses (The Order of Things) published the same year Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger was released, Michel Foucault makes a similar point. Unlike Douglas, Foucault does not compare the “primitive other” to the Eurasian or Western self. Instead, he focuses on the history of Europe and distinguishes the modern—or post-Classical—from its pre-history. Douglas (1966) sees “the primitive” as non-differentiational and “the modern” as differentiational. For her, “progress means differentiation” or the increase of social control (p. 77). Foucault provides a similar contrast.11 Yet Foucault (1992) insists on investigating further, asking questions such as: On what conditions was Classical thought able to reflect relations of similarity or equivalence between things, relations that would provide a foundation and a justification for their words, their classifications, their systems of exchange? What historical a priori provided the starting point from which it was possible to define the great checkerboard of distinct identities established against the confused, undefined, faceless, and, as it were, indifferent background of differences? (p. xxiv)

Both Douglas and Foucault refer briefly to China. Douglas (1966, pp. 84–85) includes China as an example of the “primitive world view” and relates it with ancient Greece. In his “Preface” to The Order of Things, Foucault quotes at length “a certain Chinese encyclopedia in Borges,” a reified exotic Chinese classification of the animals that at the same time has the power of contagion.12 Douglas and Foucault’s brief interpretations of China somehow approximate Chinese philosophical presentations of “mysticism,”13 or more precisely, “immanent transcendence,” which made the Chinese “axial age thought” a different “Tradition of traditions” from the other traditions of Eurasia. In the “Greek variation,” for instance, the gods “formed, as it were, a society of Powers—who are both competitive and at the same time mutually supporting,” and they are “possessed of a superior strength to which men must submit” (Vernant, 1990, p. 94). As Vernant (1990) puts it:

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… the gods whom the Greeks worship only emerged at a given point in time; they had not always existed. In relation to the original powers they are “late-comers” who seized power for themselves. Zeus established at the same time his own sovereignty and a world order never again to be brought into question. He holds the scepter and is master and king of the universe, but he did not secure this position without difficulty or without a fight. Zeus is aware of what he owes to the allies who supported him, and what he has to fear from the enemies whom he has put into chains but who are not all totally disarmed; he knows which are the powers that he must treat with circumspection and the prerogatives that he is obliged to respect. (pp. 111–112)

By contrast, in the Chinese variation, as Gernet outlines: It is easy to see what concept of society and nature is implied by such a philosophy: Order can never result from the external intervention of a power of command, nor from an arbitrary authoritarian division of functions and powers, nor from a balance dependent upon an agreement reached between antagonistic forces. In short, it cannot proceed from anything that is arbitrary. The activity of the sovereign is similar to that of the farmer who does no more than encourage the growth of his plants and in no way intervenes in the process of germination and growth. He acts in accordance with the orders of Heaven (t’ien), and identifies himself with it. The principle of order is to be found only in the things that are. It cannot but be immanent in the world. (Gernet & Vernant, 1990, p. 84)

Long ago, Kang Youwei, the late imperial reformer and pioneer of modern Chinese humanities,14 attributed the differentiation of Chinese and Western cosmology to the work of Confucius. In the beginning of the twentieth century while in exile, Kang took a long tour in Europe. In 1904, he began to publish his Travel Notes on Eleven European Nations (Kang, 2007 [1904–1905]). In the book, Kang expressed his deep fascination with the historical relics of the Holy Roman Empire— in particular, he said that he was amazed by the remains of the excessive amount of deity cult statues in Rome. Kang derived from his impression a comparison. He argued that peoples in Eurasia originally had similar “customs” (fengsu). In archaic times, the Chinese people shared with other Eurasian civilizations the “Way of Gods” (Shendao)15 and took deity cults to be important aspects of “moral education” (jiao). However, by the Spring and Autumn period, they had become aware of the shortcomings of too many deity cults. As the end of Antiquity

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approached, while the Europeans continued to reinforce their deity cults, the Chinese, under the guidance of the sages, gave up religion. Confucius specifically had gained awareness of the problems of overdeveloped deity cults. He detested the proliferation of religions in his time, seeing them as dividing society, and he determined to reform them. But being a reformist instead of a “revolutionary,” the sage did not wipe out all the deity cults: among the various “religious beliefs,” while excluding most personified divinities and demons, Confucius selected many of the natural divinities, including the holy mountains, rivers, and the like, and advocated them as models of moral virtue and social harmony. To Kang Youwei, if in the Western end of Eurasia what was taking place was the substitution of religion for magic, or that of propitiation and conciliation of powers superior to Man and transcending the world, then, in ancient China, at a similar age, civilization took the opposite direction—it went back to the age of what modern anthropologists have defined as “magic.” As conceptualized by the anthropologist James Frazer (1993 [1922]) at a slightly later stage, “magic thought” assumes “that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual and personal agency” (p. 64). In Kang’s representation, the worship of natural divinities that Confucius selected seemed to approximate “magic.” The worship of Heaven (Nature) was to Confucius sufficient to keep the feudal lords, officials, and commoners in check—it was sufficient for making all humanity fear the powers presiding over them. Following Confucius, according to Kang (2007 [1904–1905]), later dynasties perceived the Confucian “Way of Humanity” (Rendao) as consisting of worship of Heaven and cultivation of the person (pp. 80–82).16 In Chapter Three, I argued that the “worship of Heaven” had emerged in Zhou, as a “counter-thesis” against Shang verticality of the cosmos. Following Granet, Gernet argues that prior to the coming of the “axial age,” especially in Zhou, the Chinese had already naturalized the divine, and thus closed the way to developing any form of transcendental thought. Consequentially, neither Daoism nor Confuciansim derived their philosophies from the radical separation between the world of men and the world of the gods. While Confucian thinkers

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sought to derive principles for social order from the regularities of the universe,17 Daoist philosophers saw the oneness between personalities and things as essential.18 In “axial age” Greece, the first necessary step toward the birth of rationality was the distinction between subject and object. In China, at a similar stage, philosophical thought fell short of and went beyond such a distinction, and it was never concerned to separate the ritual sphere from the positivist or the cosmic from the human (Gernet & Vernant, 1990, pp. 86–87). Enough has been said regarding the “axial age” cosmologies. It remains to be noted that while cosmological perspectives became more pronounced in the so-called Chinese philosophies,19 explorations in different parts of the world became a pre-eminent enterprise. In advancing their expansion, the lords and the shi of different fiefs also inscribed their relationships with each other in the records of history. In such records, the rivalry between the countries was emphasized, but also recorded were references to what they learned from each other. For instance, it was said that the Yue king (Yue Wang) was introduced to a smart archer, Chen Yin. Chen Yin said that he grew up in a small tribe where people enjoyed a simple life. He simply learnt to shoot for the purpose of getting birds for his old parents to eat. But gradually, his skills became so good that he was known throughout the country. Moved by his story, the Yue king appointed him as a military trainer for his army. Chen Yin, though a person of Chu, gave the Yue much assistance. When he died, the king was deeply saddened (Yuan, 1984, pp. 419–420). In Spring and Autumn Annals (Lüshi Chun Qiu) and Legends of the Ancient Kingdoms (Guo Yu), much is said about the barbarians who sought to revitalize their own tribes in the play of power amongst fiefs. At that time, to learn from barbarians was regarded as good for self-strengthening. Several fiefs practiced Hufu qishe, namely to train soldiers in the ways of the barbarians—making them dress up, ride, and shoot like the Hu (see Chapter Eight for further discussion). As Confucius says, “When the Way prevails under Heaven, all orders concerning ritual, music, and punitive expeditions are issued by the Son of Heaven himself. When the Way does not prevail, such orders are issued by the feudal princes” (Waley, 1998, pp. 218–219). When the fiefholders, princes, and shi created conflicting states that did not obey the rules set up by the Zhou court, they were regarded as

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responsible for “the collapse of rites and destruction of music.” Nevertheless, “the contests between expanding fiefs gradually resulted in the subordination and assimilation of ethnic groups other than Huaxia.” By the Warring States period, certain new “national cultures” had already been produced—i.e., the cultures of different states (H. Lin, 1993 [1934], pp. 26–27).

When the West Met the East I continue with a study done by Gu Jiegang, who applied mythology to interpret history and related the spatial propensities of the Central Kingdom with the dualism of the East and the West in a very different way from Fu’s positivist “new history.” In his essay “The fusion of the two myth systems of Kunlun and Penglai in Zhuangzi and Chu Ci,”20 Gu Jiegang (2000b, pp. 646–878) categorized Chinese myths into two systems: (1) myths about Kunlun and (2) myths about Penglai (the Immortality Islands overseas). Gu’s distinction is similar to Fu’s but much more detailed.21 In Gu’s essay, the Kunlun myths originated from the northwestern plateau and emerged earlier than the Penglai myths. Gu examined the historical geographic traces showing how Kunlun myths spread to the East and merged with local Penglai myths. This all happened at a time when the Qin and Qi states were political and military rivals. Such rivalry did not prevent the later fusion of culture. The fusion of myths resulted in a mixture of mountain myths and maritime fantasies. What emerged was a new mythological world. To Gu, this new mythological world appeared in classical books such as Shang Shu and Shan Hai Jing.22 These myths were revised and enriched in books such as Spring and Autumn Annals with the Commentary of Zuo (Chun Qiu Zuoshi Zhuan) and Legends of the Ancient Kingdoms (Guo Yu). Qin expanded further into the West and interacted closely with the Qiang and Rong groups. The expanding Qin brought many myths from the West back to their homeland. Meanwhile, the Qi state, located in the eastern part of China, enjoyed the early development of its maritime transportation. Although the Qi economy had partly relied on the maritime world, its ceremonial system was characterized by the worship of holy mountains. The Qi king borrowed from myths in the West the idea of mountain worship, and selected some of the higher mountains in his territory to be holy

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sites for worship. But the king could not stop his people from venturing towards the sea. In fact, when he conservatively oriented his ceremonies toward the West, his people, together with the Yan, the Wu, and the Yue peoples, had already become quite attached to the sea. Gu argued that within Qi, the two separate tendencies finally made compromises with each other, resulting in a Qi-style mixture of maritime adventures and mountain myths. Local necromancers or magician-scholars (fangshi) in Qi played an important role in combining different traditions. They combined the two myth systems into a passionate regional cult—the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas (Haiwai Sanshan) (J. Gu, 2000b, p. 779). The cult of the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas was rooted in an obsession with the afterlife and longevity originating from a “native tradition” in the East. The Three Immortality Mountains Overseas had actually been discovered by sea adventurers prior to their official authorization. As Sima Qian recorded: From the age of Kings Wei and Hsüan [Xuan] of Ch’i [Qi] and King Chao [Zhao] of Yen [Yan], men were sent from time to time to set out to sea and search for the islands of P’eng-lai [Penglai], Fang-chang [Fangzhang], and Ying-chou [Yingzhou]. These were three spirit [immortals’] mountains which were supposed to exist in the Gulf of Pohai [Bohai]. They were not very far from the land of men, it was said, but the difficulty was that, whenever a boat was about to touch their shores, a wind would always spring up and drive it away. In the past, people said, there had been men who succeeded in reaching them, and found them peopled by fairy spirits [immortals] who possessed the elixir of immortality. All the plants and birds and animals of the islands were white, and palaces and gates were made of gold and silver. Seen from afar, the three spirit [immortals’] mountains looked like clouds but, as one drew closer, they seemed instead to be down under the water. In any event, as soon as anyone got near to them, the wind would suddenly come and drag the boat away, so that in the end no one could ever reach them. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:26)

Like Kunlun, the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas were imagined to be steps that lead to Heaven. If one were to find these mountains, one would discover the key to releasing one’s spirit and obtaining immortal life. “Native traditions” of the East, in other words, turned Kunlun myths from the West into an embodied instrument that ensured immortality. When Western myths of Kunlun arrived in the East, people

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in the East quickly latched onto certain of its elements, added on their own geographic and environmental imaginaries, and created a new system. Through mythological excavations, Gu Jiegang (2000b) tells us a story of “fusion”: People in the West believe that humans can become deities. Therefore, their gods include human-like deities living in Kunlun Mountains, such as the Yellow Emperor, Xi Wangmu, Yu, Yi, Di Jiang, and so on. People in the East believe that humans can become immortals. Therefore, their immortals include those who live on the Penglai islands such as Song Wuji, Zheng Boqiao, Xian Men’gao, and so on. Westerners attribute the immortality of gods to the gods’ “eating jade food [and] drinking from magic springs,” and to their dwelling under the immortal tree and [consuming the] Elixir of Life. Easterners explain everlasting life by the immortals’ “eating of six gases, drinking of vapor in the night, cleaning of their mouths with sunshine, and harboring of the dawn light in their mouths.” Meanwhile, they can “break down their material body and also own the Elixir of Life.” “Gods” and “immortals” are different words, but they have the same nature of “immortality” and “floating freedom.” (p. 780)

The cult of mountains in pre-Qin times is displayed in the Biography of King Mu. The myths of Kunlun originating from the Western mythological system were borrowed by the East and became dominant in the Chun Qiu period. How did these Easternized myths become important enough to be inscribed into history? As Gu explains, the Qi lords in the East had a plan to rule the whole of Tianxia while the Son of Heaven’s power was declining. To make their mountains the most representative of those in Tianxia, they borrowed from the West its myths of Kunlun, Easternized them, and enthusiastically promoted their own version—the legend of the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas. In writing about the duke of Qi’s project, Sima Qian says: Duke Huan of Ch’i [Qi] made himself leader of the feudal states and summoned all the lords to a conference at Sunflower Hill. At this time, he proposed to carry out the Feng and Shan sacrifices, but his minister Kuan Chung [Guan Zhong] said: “It is related that in the past the rulers of seventy-two houses performed the Feng sacrifice at Mount T’ai [Tai] and the Shan sacrifice at Liang-fu [Liangfu], though I can find the names of only twelve of these in the records. In the most ancient times, Wu Huai

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performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and the Shan at Yün-yün [Yunyun], and the same was done by Fu Hsi [Xi], Shen Nung [Nong], and the Fire Emperor [Yan Di]. The Yellow Emperor performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and the Shan at T’ing-t’ing [Tingting]. Emperors Chuan Hsü [Zhuan Xu], K’u [Ku], Yao, and Shun all performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and Shan at Yün-yün, while Emperor Yü [Yu], the founder of the Hsia [Xia], performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and the Shan at K’uai-chi [Kuaiji]. T’ang [Tang], the founder of the Shang, performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and Shan at Yün-yün, while King Ch’eng [Cheng], the ruler of the Chou [Zhou], performed the Feng at Mount T’ai and the Shan at She-shou [Sheshou]. All these had first to receive the mandate of Heaven to rule before they could perform these sacrifices.” Duke Huan replied, “I have marched north to attack the mountain barbarians, past the land of Ku-chu [Guzhu]. In the west, I have attacked the Great Hsia, crossing the drifting sands and, binding tight my horses and strapping together the carriages, have ascended Pi-erh [Bi’er] Mountain. In the south I have invaded as far as Shao-ling [Shaoling], and climbed the Bear’s Ear Mountain to gaze out over the Yangtze and the Han rivers. Three times I have met with the other lords in war conferences and six times I have met with them in times of peace. Nine times I have called together the other feudal lords to order the affairs of the empire. None of the other lords dares to disobey me. How then am I different from the rulers of the Three Dynasties of antiquity with their mandates of Heaven?” Kuan Chung saw that he could not dissuade Duke Huan from his intentions by such arguments, and so he brought forward the following stipulations: “In ancient times when the Feng and Shan were performed, millet from Ho-shang [Haoshang] and grain from Pei-li [Beili] used as offerings. A certain kind of reed which grows between the Huai and Yangtze rivers and has three ridges was used to spread the grain offerings on. Fish were brought from the eastern sea having two eyes on one side of their heads, and pairs of birds from the western sea whose wings were grown together. In addition there were fifteen kinds of strange creatures which appeared of their own accord without being summoned. Now the phoenix and the unicorn have not come to our court and the auspicious grain does not spring up, but instead only weeds and brambles, tares and darnel, while kites and owls appear in swarms. Is it not unthinkable at such a time to attempt to perform the Feng and Shan sacrifices?” With this Duke Huan abandoned his proposal. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:19–20)

Although the duke of Qi failed to establish Mount Tai as the holy

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mountain for Tianxia, the Qin and Qi rulers still made many sacrifices there. During the Spring and Autumn period, the Qin and Qi rulers made a total of eight sacrifices to the mountains and rivers. The divinities worshiped included Heaven, the Earth God, the lord of Yin, the lord of Yang, the God of the Sun, the God of the Moon, and the God of the Four Seasons. The “Easternization of Western myths” was completed in the East. Later, near the Warring States period, the new myths in turn spread back to the West and were again fused with “local myths,” thus producing a reformed mythology. During the Warring States period, Zhuangzi—a Daoist philosopher—discussed the myth of Kunlun philosophically and made himself a reformer of the mythological tradition. Adapted myths about Kunlun and the Immortality Mountains can also be found in poetry written by Qu Yuan, the Chu patriot and “renouncer-like shi” (J. Gu, 2000b, p. 777). Both Zhuangzi and Qu Yuan integrated the ideas of “immortality” and “floating freedom” in their philosophy and literature of an “Easternized West.”23

Empire and the Immortal East If “the last period of ‘feudal’ times was marked by furious competitions wherein, struggling by means of piled-up wealth and new magic, some princes gained the ranks of potentates and the name of tyrants” (Granet, 1930, p. 391), then, the first “imperial” time could be said to be have been a period wherein the potentates’ contests, ascents, and declines were put to an end. Unsurprisingly, in the early empires, the pursuit of a unitary cosmology and political order outweighed other matters (Eberhard, 1957, pp. 33–70), and a new synthesis of cosmologies emerged. In the making of this new synthesis, the role of the shi became once again important. The shi, who used to contribute new cosmologies and political ontologies in the Warring States period, had by now been subjected to the emperors’ power, which was gaining a new sort of efficacy through internal pacification and external expansion. Arriving along with the changes of the role of the shi were a renewed administrative system and new distinctions between civilization and its exteriors. Kingdoms built upon the basis of Zhou fiefs during the Warring

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States period gradually developed theories and institutions for the centralized state. Previously, the foundation for the Zhou kings’ and princes’ authority was a mixture of horizontal co-ordination of the other and the monarchical principle of ancestral worship conceptualized in terms of Heavenly Fate. The princes had to command territorial resources, military forces, and human capital in order to claim dominance over the Chinese world, and to gain or maintain their territorial integrity. In order to manage their expanding territories, the princes turned to the official and shi classes. While their tasks in the previous periods had been to manage sacrifices, warfare, palaces, and estates, the Zhou princes expanded their duties and in turn changed the nature of territorial control (J. Gu, 1930, 2:1–6). A major part of the change was derived from the idea of xian (county), which emerged in seventh century B.C. By the fourth century B.C., the concept had evolved, especially in the kingdom of Qin, into an institutional measurement used to control conquered territories. Xian started out as a notion referring to newly acquired lands under the traditional power of upper rank nobles. It eventually took on broader meanings relevant to the general management of the country. Xian later referred to a new type of territorial power—administrative districts controlled by representatives of the central power. These shifts in meaning produced also transformations in political organization. Such transformations were coupled with, if not preceded by, the invention and prevalence of Legalism (Fajia) in kingdoms such as the Qin that were rapidly expanding. The concept of law (fa) that the Legalists adopted connoted a powerful state-governed instrument deployed to control social activities in accordance with the state’s envisaged pattern of order. Unlike our contemporary understanding, fa as concept did not refer to the resolution of disputes. It gained its meaning chiefly by differentiating itself from the earlier Confucian moralistic and ceremonial social theories which, as many have pointed out, had been developed among the descendants of the Eastern Yi (barbarians) in the Qi and Lu kingdoms. While Confucians emphasized li or rites, the Legalist theory of political order aimed to build a new institution by way of destroying the multiplicities in rites, statuses, rights, and customs which characterized the old Zhou regime (Y. Feng, 1983 [1934], pp. 212–332). From 314 B.C., after Qin’s victory over the nomads of the North,

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successes in a sequence of wars against the Ba in Sichuan, the Han, Chu, Wei, and Zhao, brought Qin extensive territories. In 249 B.C., Qin finally put an end to Zhou. In 247 B.C., Prince Zheng came to power and, through ten years of military campaigning, eliminated all the other major kingdoms. Having conquered all the lands, he took the title of Huangdi or “august sovereign” in 221 B.C. With the help of his Legalist adviser Li Si, Shi Huangdi (the “First Emperor” of Qin, also known as Qin Shihuang) deployed a whole series of unifying measures to turn the Chinese world into a centralized state. Writing, transportation, money, and ways of measurement were forcibly unified. The country was also re-allocated administratively into jun (commanderies) and xian (counties).24 Qin also constructed the Great Wall on the basis of ancient fortifications built by Qin, Zhao, and Yan. The Great Wall may look like a mere border to some, but it functioned chiefly as a line of defense. Extending from Gansu to Liaoning, the Great Wall was built to protect the empire against invasions by the Xiongnu (Huns) in the North. With its line of defense intact, the Qin armies conducted an extensive number of military operations from Gansu to Korea and from Fujian to Vietnam, so to expand the empire’s territorial reach (J. Gu & N. Shi, 1999, pp. 60–62). The government in the central regions constructed towns, roads, post houses (yizhan), canals, palaces, and more. An extremely severe penal system was imposed on the country as well. The harsh work conditions, severe penalties, and repression, accompanied by the dispossession of aristocrats, who lost their privileges and properties, provoked widespread discontent. Scholars who maintained a distance from the Legalist state machine also emerged to criticize the emperor. To eliminate his opponents, the First Emperor banned all their books and executed a great number of scholars in Xianyang, who were supposedly shi of the Confucian sort. Nonetheless, popular resistance continued to grow. Soon after the First Emperor’s death in 209 B.C., Chen Sheng and Wu Guang led a peasant uprising. They were joined by an old aristocratic family—the Xiang in the old Chu Kingdom. Xiang Yu became a strong force in the South and created eighteen fiefs along the lines of noble principalities. The Han Kingdom was under the command of Liu Bang, who gradually gained wide recognition. Following his growing fame, Liu Bang was able also to expand his military force. In 206 B.C., he led his troops across the Qin River, crushed the Qin army, and in

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turn founded the Han Dynasty. By 202 B.C., he had eliminated his rival Xiang Yu and proclaimed himself emperor. The Han empire lasted for some two hundred years. It was subsequently ruled by twelve emperors descended from the royal line of Liu.25 The long history of Han is a full and complex one. Yet for our purpose here, I will dwell only briefly on one important point. To replace Qin, the Han founders not only mobilized the peasantry, but they also sought to revitalize the aristocratic feudalism of the Warring States period. The new empire legitimated its authority by promising a non-Legalist state consisting of looser central control, more territorial kingdoms, and moralistic politics. A new synthesis of cosmological and ethical philosophies thus emerged in the name of revitalizing the Zhou system of rites. Meanwhile, the fiefs (principalities) that Liu Bang distributed during the war had to be placed in a proper political hierarchy. These fiefs and their aristocracies were of particular concern for the emperor. Most of their rulers were descendants of the six old fiefs abolished by the Qin in the late Zhou. The larger fiefs comprised around five or six jun, while the total number of jun belonging to the Han was said to be eighteen. The Han royal family did not even have complete control over these prefectures. Eventually, the barons who gained their old estates and palaces began to contradict each other, much as in the old days. To maintain this vast and complexly provincialized empire, the Han applied many devices from the Legalist tradition. Taking advice offered by political thinkers such as Jia Yi, Cao Cao, and Zhufu Yan, the Han court made an effort to reduce the power of the aristocratic kingdoms. The system of regional administration, characterized by jun and xian allocation, was thus emphasized. In effect, a new system of administrative officers known as cishi or administrative inspectors was inserted (J. Gu & N. Shi, 1999, p. 78). But the difficult task of balancing power between the semi-kingdoms of the nobility and the centralized state remained a problem until the very end of Han. Despite internal political tensions, Qin and Han rulers nonetheless kept their empires unified. Under these two considerably different dynasties, the search for the universal kingdom of Tianxia was important to their emperors, who were eager to construct a country of prolonged order and peace (changzhi jiu’an). The first integration of Chinese ethno-political entities occurred in

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the classical period. The politics of integration culminated in the Qin period. Qin not only absorbed the other six kingdoms but also went on to conquer several other major “families of ethno-political entities.” Qin troops eliminated Shu and Ba (present-day Sichuan), in which the Qin emperor established two jun. They later conquered the Yue and created the Minzhong jun (present-day Fujian). The famous general Meng Tian subsequently led 300,000 soldiers into Xiongnu lands; he also conquered the Southern Yue (present-day Guangdong). It was also Meng Tian who implemented the construction of the Great Wall and established the Nanhai, Guilin, and Xiangjun jun, territories once ruled by the Southern Yue (H. Lin, 1993 [1934], pp. 26–27). Taking advantage of Qin’s fall, the Xiongnu re-emerged in the earliest period of Han as a major expanding empire. They eliminated the Hu in the East, attacked Dayuezhi and Wusun in the West, and invaded the Hetao region in the North of the Chinese world. The Xiongnu dominated the North and Northwest of the Chinese world. They also pressed Han emperors to summit women and gifts in exchange for peace. From the Wu Di to Xuan Di reigns (140 B.C. to 49 B.C.), however, Han sent military expeditions into the West and forced many of the chieftains to surrender. Meanwhile, the Xiongnu were internally divided into two parts—the South and the North. Along with the weakening of Xiongnu power, its northern section moved northward, while its southern section became integrated into the Han by the time of Xuan Di’s reign (73–49 B.C.) (H. Lin, 1993 [1934], pp. 28–29). Although the Xiongnu remained a core issue during the Han expansion, it was not the only target for conquest. Korea, which was ruled by Wei Man from the Yan Kingdom in northern China, took advantage of the political turmoil in China to attract Chinese migrants and set obstacles for tribute-paying tribes. In 107 B.C., Wu Di sent troops into Korea, made its king surrender, and established four jun there. During the dynastic transition from Qin to Han, the Southern Yue was led by King Zhao Tuo, who proclaimed himself emperor. However, Wu Di eventually defeated the Yue by 110 B.C. From Wu Di’s reign onwards, military expeditions were also sent to Yunnan and Southeast Asia, where the tribes, princedoms, and kingdoms were replaced with administrative jun (J. Gu & N. Shi, 1999, pp. 78–82). We may call Qin and Han the “Age of Great Expansion.” Prior to Qin, the “realistic geography” of Tianxia was limited to core fiefs

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surrounding the capital and its royal zones. From Qin to Han, the Central Kingdom extended northward into Mongolia and Central Asia, eastward into Manchuria and Korea, and southward into Yue and the territories of the tropical tribes and kingdoms in many parts of Southeast Asia. Most of these expansions resulted in the abolition of noble and barbarian kingdoms as well as the founding of administrative jun.26 By Wu Di’s reign, the Chinese world had extended from Zhou territory into the lands of previously excluded barbarians. This world’s boundaries consisted of a coastal line beginning in Korea and stretching through the Eastern China Sea to the South China Sea; of inland mountains extending from Gansu to Yunnan and Vietnam; as well as the Great Wall. Both Qin and Han treated the world within these boundaries as all under Heaven. Their geo-astrologers knew how complex topographies of the world were. Yet they regarded these topographies as mere reflections of an inner order of the squared Earth covered by the spherical Heaven (Loewe, 2005, pp. 49–72). The Heaven-Earth correspondent perspective of Tianxia represented the imperial break with the classical tradition. The age of “combat” saw other-centric narratives of Tianxia. One such example was Shan Hai Jing (The Book of Mountains and Seas).27 This book describes races, products, animal species, geography, customs, and ritual practices in 135 countries (guo)28—or in fact enlarged descent groups—in the zones outside the center of civilization. Organized into three parts—the “book of the overseas” (haiwai jing), the “book of the inland” (hainei jing), and the “book of the great wilderness” (dahuang jing)—each part is divided according to the directions of South, West, North and East. Of the places depicted, around three to seventeen countries (or enlarged descent groups) are included. Each of the eighteen chapters focuses on a specialized area defined in terms of a direction. Some of the countries described are those that nurtured the “three royal dynasties” of Xia, Shang, and Zhou in which many institutions and concepts emerged. Shan Hai Jing is said to be a mythological and legendary history of classical China (Mathieu, 1983).29 In Shan Hai Jing, the locations of mountains and seas (lakes) serve as cardinal points for the mapping and descriptions.30 Though all the countries, products, animals, and mines are mapped in terms of geographic distance from the center and its surrounding points of

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spatial reference, the emphasis is not the centricity of the “Central Kingdom” but what oriented it toward the peripheral worlds of humans, semi-humans, and non-humans. Compared to Greek writings on “barbarians,” Shan Hai Jing is not only “more detailed and elaborate” (Needham, 1986, p. 240), but is also a more sophisticated reflection on the self-other relationships in “civilization.” The classical text celebrates the “ethnic,” the marginal, the demonic, and the divine in its own “centering” of cosmology. In Han, ethno-centrism ascended together with imperial unification, and Tianxia achieved its “civilization” in the expansion of its own imaginaries of alterity. Around A.D. 121, the Han compiler Xu Shen finished Shuowen Jiezi (Interpretations of Writing and Characters), the first Chinese work on philology. According to Xu Shen (1982 [100]), the Chinese character for “self” (ji) “refers to the central palace” and “the iconography of the character is a human stomach,” which “shows an image which encompasses ten thousand kinds of things” (p. 309). Throughout the whole lexicon of Shuowen Jiezi, there is no appropriate character for human others. Nonetheless, an entry for non-human others (ta) can be discovered. The shape of the character for ta (others) looks like a curled body and hanging-down tail (p. 285). The author states that the character originally refers to “insects” (chong) such as snakes. As what conveys “others,” ta is represented by the way in which any reptile creeps. The idea of “creeping” represented a certain way of conduct that was different from “the normal way.”31 Selves were thus seen as stomachs, as “containers of the world,” and others as snakes which creep behind human beings.32 The distinction between what a human stomach symbolized and what a snake signified seems to be the contrast between a part of the human body and a harmful but edible animal.33 In one of the world conceptions of Tianxia, cosmology became approximately the world-scape of the “colonial situation.” However, not all classical cosmologies were abandoned. In the Warring States period, there were individual thinkers within the shi class who produced individual works that later inspired the emperors. In their attempts to “transcend the subject-object dichotomy and achieve a total union of subject and object, in which all objectness vanishes and the I is extinguished” (Jaspers, 1961, p. 33), the shi made certain different world conceptions in the name of Tianxia. Sharing the

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ideal of immanent transcendence, the “axial age” thinkers remade classical world conceptions into the “confusions” of persons and things (Douglas, 1966, pp. 88–92). They produced works that had the potential of becoming kingly political ontologies, honoring the Son of Heaven as the “Great One” “alone benefitting from the triumphal expiation which makes victory consecrated by Heaven” (Granet, 1930, p. 388). At the latest by Wu Di’s time, these conceptions had become profoundly influential: the new syncretic theory “admitted as a fundamental principle that the action of Heaven and that of the Emperor on the people were exercised on parallel lines, and both in a beneficent way—the first in maintaining the order of the world, the second in maintaining the order of society” (Granet, 1930, p. 400).34 In the process, “Easternized Western myths” changed again. The Qin empire expanded westward during this period. Yet because the Xiongnu had by then become a threat, the Qin did not undertake any expeditions into the West. Alternatively, the Qin became ever more interested in exploring the East. Apart from sending several “recipe gentlemen” (fangshi) to the islands (which are believed to include Japan) (Wood, 2007, pp. 115–117), the First Emperor turned the tradition of “inspecting expeditions” into Feng and Shan sacrifices. Mount Tai in the East, far away from the imperial capital Chang’an in the West, became the mediating peak between the Emperor and Heaven. Feng-Shan refers to two sacrifices. “Feng” is the building of an altar with the earth from Mount Tai so as to make sacrifices to Heaven; “Shan,” similar in pronunciation to shen (god), means a sacrifice to Earth on the top of a small hill below Mount Tai. Regarding Feng and Shan, Granet (1930) gives the following explanation: The word shan is, according to Chinese tradition, equivalent to the word jang [rang] (=to drive out and hand over).... This last term designates the act by which a sovereign, before assuming power to himself alone, begins by handing it over to a dynastic herald—taken, it appears, from his wife’s group and sometimes guardian to the son and heir, but sometimes also, sacrificed. The sacrifice shan, a preliminary condition to the sacrifice fong [feng], is a sacrifice to the Earth. It is performed on a low hillock, in the midst of a lake surrounding a small mound. We know that for the ceremonies performed at Fen-yin [Fenyin] in honour of the Sovereign Earth, the

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place chosen had the form of a human rump. The hillock in the form of a rump (shuei [shui]) is designated jang, a word (which the written form as well as the pronunciation relates to jang, to sacrifice, to hand over, but) which conjures up one of the inaugural games of the year as well as a wellworked earth. On the other hand, the word fong conveys the double idea of a cairn of broken pebbles and of a high stone set up as a sign of victory. (p. 386)

Qin had already conquered Qi before it held its first Feng-Shan. Thus, the emperor went on to take Qi’s Mount Tai as a holy mountain and sought to link himself to Heaven directly from it. The Feng-Shan sacrifices, conducted during the Qin and Han periods, marked the beginning of a new era—“the Westernization of the East.” Though seemingly ruling a secular state, the First Emperor was devoted to creating great spectacles of sacrifice. Immediately after the empire was established, to celebrate his taking possession of the throne and to expiate the consequences of his victories, the emperor performed all the sacrifices and rituals of the six states he conquered. He also went on “long marches” to the East.35 According to Shi Ji, three years after he assumed the supreme title, the First Emperor made a tour of the eastern prefectures and counties.36 He performed a sacrifice at a local mountain where he set up a stone marker lauding the achievements of Qin. The emperor was already thinking about asserting his greatness to all people in Tianxia. For the purpose of organizing a large Feng sacrifice, “[h]e then summoned seventy Confucian masters and scholars from Ch’i [Qi] and Lu to meet with him at the foot of Mount T’ai [Tai].” But these Confucian masters and scholars did not trust him. Hoping to delay the sacrifice, they endlessly discussed and debated what the proper procedures for the Feng and Shan sacrifices were. One of them even suggested wrapping the wheels of the carriages in rushes so as to avoid doing any injury to the soil, stone, grass, and trees in the mountains. This annoyed the First Emperor, who began to hold a grudge against the Confucians. [H]e dismissed the whole lot. Eventually he had a carriage road opened up, ascending from the southern foot of the mountain to the summit, where he set up a stone marker praising his own virtue as First Emperor of the Ch’in [Qin]. This he did to

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make clear to all that he had succeeded in performing the Feng sacrifice. From the summit he descended by a road leading down the northern slope and carried out the Shan sacrifice at Liang-fu [Liangfu]. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:23)

From then on, the First Emperor made several trips to the East. Around 210 B.C., he carved records onto a big stone in Kuaiji and then traveled along the seacoast, reached the Langya Mountains in Shandong after passing through the land of Wu and across the Yangtze River (Sima, 2006 [91 B.C.], p. 165). From King Mu’s journey to the West to the First Emperor’s march to the East, the myths about Kunlun and the three immortals’ mountains were seamlessly conjunct. The search for the “Elixir of Life” began from the land of Xi Wangmu and ended in the fairy Penglai Islands, a transition realized by the First Emperor, who expanded his expedition to the whole of Tianxia. He performed the Feng and Shan sacrifices and looked for the “Elixir of Life” during his trips from the West to the East. But by then, the First Emperor’s mind was already controlled by magicians who told fantastic stories of immortality. As Shi Ji tells us: [W]hen the First Emperor of the Ch’in [Qin] united the empire under his sway and journeyed to the sea, a countless throng of magicians appeared to tell him of these wonders. The First Emperor decided that, even though he were to set out in person on the sea, he would most likely be unable to reach the islands, and so he ordered his men to gather together a number of youths and maidens and send them to sea to search in his stead. The sea was soon full of boats, crisscrossing this way and that, and when the parties returned without success they all used the wind as an excuse. “We were unable to reach the islands,” they reported, “but we could see them in the distance!” The following year the First Emperor again journeyed to the sea, going as far as Lang-ya [Langya]; then passing by Mount Heng, he returned to the capital by way of Shang-tang [Shangdang]. Three years later he made a trip to Chieh-shih [Jieshi] [Brown Rock] on the coast, at which time he cross-examined the magicians who were supposed to have gone to sea to look for the islands. He returned to the capital by way of Shang Province [Prefecture]. Five years after this he made a trip south to Mount Hsiang [Xiang] and

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from there went to climb Mount K’uai-chi [Kuaiji]. He followed along the sea coast on his way back, hoping to acquire some of the wonderful medicine of immortality brought from the three spirit [immortals’] mountains in the sea. But his hopes were in vain. When he had gone as far as Sandy Hill, he passed away. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:26–27)

Though the death of the First Emperor should have terminated fantasies of immortality, it nevertheless did not stop later emperors from continuing the quest for longevity. Journeys that combined Feng and Shan sacrifices—their “search for immortals” which linked the seas to the land in Tianxia—continued to excite rulers in the Han Dynasty. In 110 B.C., the ambitious Wu Di, who, unlike the First Emperor, was not solely fascinated with the illusionary ambitions of becoming an immortal, and was, alternatively, becoming “in all things eclectic and a patron of religious syncretism” (Granet, 1930, p. 391), followed in the footsteps of the First Emperor. Shi Ji says the following about his trip to the East: From there the emperor journeyed along the seacoast, paying his respects and sacrificing to the Eight Spirits on the way. The men of Ch’i [Qi] who came to the emperor with tales of supernatural beings and magical powers numbered in the tens of thousands, but none of them were able to offer any proofs. The emperor then dispatched a number of boats, ordering several thousand of the men who had brought him tales of the mountain of the gods in the middle of the sea to set out in search of the spiritual beings of P’eng-lai [Penglai]. Kung-sun Ch’ing [Gongsun Qing] in the meantime had been proceeding in advance of the emperor, bearing the seals of an imperial envoy and looking for signs of the spirits at the various famous mountains. When he reached Mount Tung-lai [Donglai], he reported that he had encountered a giant man at night who measured several chang [zhang] in height. When he approached to speak to the being, it disappeared, but its footprints were still visible, he said, being very large and like those of an animal. One of the emperor’s ministers also reported that he had seen an old man leading a dog. The man had said “I am looking for the Great Lord!” and had then abruptly disappeared. The emperor had in the meantime gone to see the large footprints reported by Kung-sun Ch’ing, but was not yet persuaded that they were genuine. When his ministers told him about the old man with the dog, however, he became firmly convinced that it had actually been an immortal being. He therefore lingered for a little while on the

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seacoast, providing his magicians with post carriages so that they could get about quickly and sending out several thousand men to search in secret for immortal beings. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:57–58)

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FIVE

Chaos and the West

Legendarily Yu the Great put all his efforts into serving the Heavenly Supremacy (Tiandi). He descended to the human world so to survey the nine prefectures (jiu zhou) and the four quarters of the country (si ye). Why would such a great person then capture the woman from Tu Mountain? And why did he commit adultery (sitong) at Taisang? After a sad intercourse, they conceived their descendants. Why did they enjoy temporary pleasure without a serious consideration of mutual belonging? (c.f. G. Lin, 1983, pp. 98–99)

Q

u Yuan reflected on the world by drawing from the liturgies of the shamanic dances of his country (Chu).1 In Tian Wen (Questions of Heaven), a text consisting of 178 sentences, Qu Yuan brought into question histories of the cosmos, the mandate, and the sovereigns. Among these 178 sentences, 44 are about cosmology, geography, and mythology; 72 are about the history of the three classical dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou; and 24 are unclassifiable (Su, 2007 [1964], p. 1). The above are likely a few lines in which Qu Yuan implicitly questioned the moral virtue accorded to Yu the Great (Da Yu)—the mythical builder of the Mandate of Heaven. Under Zhou, many institutions of civility were installed; but they were attributed to the great ancient sovereigns. King Wen’s establishment of Zhou as an inter-cultural polity or a “civilization” was later re-asserted as Yu’s achievement.

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Yu the Great supposedly realized the alternation of history in his victory over Ku, the warrior king, and was authorized by Heaven to reign with its mandate. As Granet puts it, “Yu the Great, the founder of the Hsia [Xia] Dynasty, has all the characteristics of a Sovereign; and indeed no sovereign more resembles a demiurge than this creator of Royalty” (Granet, 1930, p. 16). As the father of royalty, Yu was mythically autochthonic. However, the actual line along which he achieved his royalty ended in the termination of his own sacred autonomy. As soon as Yu became the Great, to continue his own bloodline, he was in need of the woman from Tu Mountain. In Qu Yuan’s representation, Yu the Great was simply the paradox of the sovereign itself.

Qu Yuan’s Conscience Qu Yuan lived in the middle of the “axial age”; born in 340 B.C., he committed suicide in 278 B.C. As elsewhere at this time, civilization was fragmented. The rivalries within the kingdoms of the Chinese world were harmful to the unitary order of All under Heaven, but it stimulated the “paradigmatic individuals”: “Socrates, in the world, goes the way of thought, of human reason…. Buddha strives to annul the world by extinguishing the will to existence. Confucius aspires to build a world. Jesus is the world’s crisis” (Jaspers, 1962b, p. 93). As one of the greatest Chinese artists and thinkers of the age, Qu Yuan was extremely creative and open-minded. Su Xuelin (2007 [1964]) argued that Questions of Heaven was a synthesis of the Occidental mythology of genesis and Chinese cosmological and historical ideas. Although Su’s perspective may not be acceptable to most Chinese scholars, it points to the possibility of mutual influences between the great civilizations of the Eurasian landmass, and to differences between Qu Yuan’s thought and the Confucian ideal of civility prevalent at the time. As legend has it, Qu Yuan was devoted to high moral pursuits. As a model of virtue, he “emerged out of mud without being polluted” (chu yuni er buran). He had a special kind of “patriotism,” one that integrated his personality with his country’s integrity. His “patriotism” was, however, eroded by the king he served. In great despair, Qu Yuan isolated himself, escaped from the corrupt world of officialdom, and joined the realm of the shamanic. He sang songs to bring the sounds of

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Heaven down to Earth and to plunge himself into the worlds of the archaic sovereigns. Trying to rescue himself from total disillusionment, he embarked on a form of mental travel. He discovered traces of the virtuous sovereign Shun in the mountains and near the rivers, traces to which King Mu once made sacrifice. While King Mu was a leader accompanied by his imperial army and ritual masters, Qu Yuan was alone. Unlike King Mu, Qu Yuan had doubts about the political efficacy of travel. Disappointed by divine sovereigns who tricked and humiliated him, he imitated the kings and looked for the Lady, but no Lady was to be found. No perfect ladies existed, even in the remote lands. He journeyed back. Being a solitary mental traveler, Qu Yuan was able to identify the paradox in the enchanting legends of divine sovereigns. Seeking to extend their knowledge of the other—the barbarians and the remote mountains and rivers—the sovereigns like Yu the Great indulged themselves in conjunctures with the opposite sex. Travels involving such conjunctures were seen as useful for the enlargement of the Central Kingdom. “Adultery” was a necessary and important aspect which made the Son of Heaven a Great Man who embraced alterity. The relationship between the king and his “mistresses” was practiced to bring to life the ideal of “alliance theory”—a means to expand the king’s “spheres of influence.” But paradoxically, the Central Kingdom also had a moral boundary: “descent theory,” which was what held the kingdom together as a hierarchical entity. Descent theory took the absence of intimacy as a dominant principle. Relations between husbands and wives and fathers and sons followed the rule of “respect” instead of emotion. “Dominated by ideas of respect, domestic morality seems in the end … mixed up with a ceremonial of family life” (Granet, 1930, p. 427). The king’s “floating freedom”—including his “temporary pleasure”—challenged the principled integrity of the family and, by extension, “civil unity.” In his travels—be they mental or physical—Qu Yuan did not just reflect on Yu’s deeds. In one of the Questions of Heaven, he even questioned King Mu, a part of whose career was devoted not only to “colonialization” but also to travel, escape, or renunciation. As I have emphasized, in Biography of King Mu the king’s journey to the West is narrated, through the Seven Sages’ persuasive discourse, as a great inspecting expedition that was inspired by Heaven and the traditions

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established by the divine sovereigns. However, in Qu Yuan’s Questions of Heaven, it is instead depicted as inducing “internal chaos.” To Qu Yuan, if King Mu did not go on his journey to the West, the East would not have experienced so much unrest.2 Qu Yuan went on: What was the purpose of King Mu’s journey? Was it really for the sake of the kingdom? Or was it simply a manifestation of the king’s love of “temporary pleasure”? (c.f. G. Lin, 1983, pp. 78–79) As a loyal Chu thinker, Qu Yuan might have pursued a different theory of kingship from Zhou’s All under Heaven. In Qu Yuan’s mind, the king should ideally be the sole sovereign who represents and ensures the integrity of Chu. Magician-scholars like himself should be the bearer of conscience. The people should in turn lead their lives under a good government (made up by the king and the magician-scholars). However, the Zhou model was by Qu Yuan’s time fragmented and different. Qu Yuan’s model, more or less akin to Shang’s ideal of the king’s mythical oneness, was a vertically integrated society whose other was the Absolute—a union of intellectual conscience and God. Comparatively, the Zhou ideal, as we noted in the preceding discussions, was both horizontal and vertical. Qu Yuan perceived his own mission as to become, by way of poetic floating, the medium of the other. This kind of self-assigned mission was similar to the shi’s task as defined by the Zhou court. The Zhou court combined two different “gestures” of mediation—encompassment and integration—and situated the other in between the above and the outside. The other—better described as an assortment of different others—is here “beyond” instead of either above or outside the Central Kingdom. Xi Wangmu is a perfect example of this kind of intermediary. Blending human and animal outlooks, she was superior to the king because she was exterior to his realm. She was herself a deity living among beasts. In Zhou, the role of the shi was also that of a medium, but one who mediated between Here (as the inferior) and There (as the superior), not simply Up and Down. As Elvin (1985) notes, “Chiu [Qu] Yuan’s ‘Inescapable Sorrow’ (Li sau [Li sao]) is a psychological self-portrait. Liberally sprinkled with

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the word ‘I’, unlike much of later Chinese verse, it evokes the isolation felt by the egoistic type of suicidal personality” (p. 159). If Qu Yuan’s disillusioned ideal could be described as a notion of perfect integrity, then the Zhou model could not. Ideally speaking, unity in the Zhou model would encompass an assortment of diversity existing both inside and outside the confines of the kingdom. Qu Yuan’s questions concerning the “temporary relationship” between the king and his “mistresses” thus mirror the imperfection of the Zhou model from the standpoint of the Chu model. The Zhou model, as I have tried to convey, was conceptualized in terms of Tianxia—a synthetic world-scape combining the principles of “alliance” and “descent.” Enough has been said about “the collapse of rites and the destruction of music.” Qu Yuan’s critique can be seen as one of the many reactions to the predicament of the dual model of kingship in Zhou. Unlike Confucius, who reacted to it by way of calling for “sacrificing the Self for the sake of the revitalization of rites” (keji fuli), Qu Yuan chose to respond differently. Having toured through historical locations, an act which itself became a “religion,” he decided to renounce the ceremonial and engage in the remaking of intellectual conscience from Above.

Emperor and the Sorrow of Woman Wang The issue of Tianxia, which engaged Qu Yuan, seemed to be solved by Wu Di’s reign: Han learnt from both “the collapse of rites and the destruction of music” and the quick fall of the Legalist Qin, and turned itself into a “mature civilization,” a great mixture of the Confucian “rule of rites,” Legalist bureaucracy, sage-kingship, and so forth. But whilst the first Emperor protected, at one and the same time, his work and his majesty by a strict isolation, Emperor Wu kept an ostentatious court. He sought less to create a religion of the imperial person, than to become the high priest of a syncretist worship, abounding in splendid ceremonies. He called to him the scholars and magicians of the north-east as well as the sorcerers of the country of Yue, while he had brought into his palace the golden idol which the king of Hiu-ch’u [Xiutu] worshipped, and into his stud the celestial Horse taken from the Prince of Ferghana. He consulted the fates by means of chicken-bones after the methods of the Barbarians of the south-east, and in the Chinese manner by using the shells

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of tortoises. He sacrificed on the flat hillocks as well as in high terraces. He spent great sums on alchemy, spiritualism and traditionalist literature. He had hymns composed, classic in form and inspiration, and patronized the poems in which Ssu-ma Siang-ju [Sima Xiangru] imitated, it is said, the poetry peculiar to the country of Ch’u.” (Granet, 1930, p. 123)

By means of dynastic consolidation, “wars of prestige” against the Western barbarians such as the Xiongnu, economic centralization, and a colonializing civilization (Granet, 1930, pp. 105–122), Han became an extensive polity with a Heavenly spirit. Wu Di, having re-patterned the world-scape of Tianxia, did not cease to be fascinated with a mystic ambition. When he went to make the Feng sacrifices to the great mountains in the East, he at once ascended from this world and subordinated himself to Heaven. In order to save the religious dignity of Heaven, it was admitted, at last, in the constitutional rhetoric, that a natural calamity was a sort of “reproach” expressed by the supreme divinity. But, in fact, the order of the Universe cannot be in any way troubled, and Heaven remains passive while the Sovereign is in a position to make the moral order prevail; that covers all that remains of the mystical element in a conception which is presented under the guise of a theory of pure morality.” (p. 400)

However, Wu Di was not an unlimited tyrant. He remained constrained by the principle of duty—the emperor’s own particular obligation to respond to the petitions of his subjects. Upon becoming emperor, he ceased to be simply a king. He was closer to Heaven, and he became ever more mystic and moral. Wu Di embodied an alternative theory of sovereignty, a Chinese conception of majesty which absorbed all the elements of the social into his body. As Granet notes, In this conception the idea of Majesty proper to the Sovereign is not absent, but it is transposed; it passes from the mystic to the moral plane. The reservoir of all the moral (and no longer the mystic) energies, the Emperor determines (always by means of an immediate effect, due to an irresistible ascendancy) a satisfactory conduct of the universe, whose good physical order is “one and indivisible.” In this kind of governmental college formed by the Emperor and Heaven, Heaven has only a subordinate role. The imperial Majesty remains the first power.” (p. 400)

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That is, the emperor embodied a “virtuous model” for the world, a “center of moral radiation” (p. 401). If we conceptualize the emperors’ sacrifices at Mount Tai as being either the project of the “Easternized West” or that of the “Westernized East,” then we may also argue that such ceremonial politics inevitably altered the relationship between the Sovereign and Heaven. Much of this change was bound up with what Chinese historians have called “the subordination of the hegemony of Dao” (daotong de qufu), or specifically the change of the role of the shi—the interpreters and “legislators” of Dao’s orthodoxy. In Biography of King Mu, the king searched for his Heavenly Fate (tianming) through several kinds of interactions with Xi Wangmu, Heaven’s Daughter. To do that, he had to be inspired by the shi. Han’s official cosmography continued to be managed by the shi, but the Son of Heaven was no longer willing to be led by the all-capable magicianshi into the wild West. No longer was he willing to conduct “illusional interactions” with the “Supreme Female.” The Son of Heaven still had to commit what Qu Yuan called “adultery” in order to know his Heavenly Fate. But he determined alternatively to directly listen to the voice of Heaven on top of Mount Tai. Xi Wangmu was still worshipped as a life-giving Mother, a container of the plenty, a producer and harvester of diversity among the people. For instance, in 3 B.C., a great drought occurred, and a special, apparently riotous, procession was made in honor of the mythic Queen Mother. Devotees carried stalks of millet as a symbol of the goddess who was associated with agriculture or fertility. In 111 B.C., the goddess was also believed to have visited the Han emperor Wu Di and given him seven peaches of immortality. Thus, it seems that Xi Wangmu was still respected as one who held the medicine of immortality during the Han Dynasty (Irwin, 1990). However, such “folk religious” practices did not stop Xi Wangmu from becoming the partner, as opposed to the mother, of King Mu. The Son of Heaven no longer treated her as the Whole who embodied multiple roles such as the Mother, the Older Sister, and the mistress. In the court, the Son of Heaven authorized the notorious concubinal institution. Outside the court and beneath Heaven, he successfully re-vitalized the Zhou tradition of the five zones. With a perfected cosmography of the five zones in hand, he transformed the duality of the East and the West into a square-shape concentric system of

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radiating zones. He placed the various sorts of tribes, chieftains, and kingdoms in a map of quarters surrounding the center. Man, Yi, Rong, and Di—the four sorts of “barbarians”—who had migrated in different areas now found their fixed positions in the imperium of pentology (J. Gu, 1998b [1955]). Historians and astrologers including Sima Qian were thus assigned to the mission of remaking stories of their origins.3 Necessary to all these re-inventions, the shi enjoyed a great expansion and transformation of their role. Throughout Han, the shi continued their efforts to inspire the emperor. During Wu Di’s reign, as I (M. M. Wang, 2009b) have shown in another work, Sima Xiangru— the famous “roaming shi” (youshi) and highly respected writer in the fief of Liang—luckily became the chief adviser to the emperor. Like Qu Yuan, he wrote poetically. He conveyed his ideal model of the Great Man (Daren) in his poetic narratives. Sima Xiangru patterned out his ideal model of the Great Man to “upgrade” the personality of the emperor, to push him onto the level of a true sage-king, in the way in previous stages only the philosophers such as Zhuangzi or Qu Yuan followed: In the depths below there was no Earth, In the expanse above there was no Heaven. Looking about confusedly and with closing eyes, he sees nothing. Listening indistinctly and uncertainly, he hears nothing. Riding emptiness and nothingness, he ascends above Transcending, without friends, he resides alone. (c.f. Puett, 2002, pp. 241–242) Like the Group of the Seven Sages who inspired King Mu, Sima Xiangru inspired Wu Di and was liked by the emperor. But later in his life, Wu Di listened to his other bureaucrats who, like Qu Yuan’s colleagues, spoke only to please the ruler. In turn, Sima Xiangru resigned. His resignation needs to be further contextualized. At the time, the shi class was downgraded under the great emperor. No longer independent, the majority of the shi turned themselves into a “class” dependent of the emperor’s body politic. In the Han Dynasty, the shi consisted of two kinds—magicianscholars (fangshi, or necromancers) and Confucian scholars (rusheng). With different knowledge and skills, both became servants of the emperor, respectively bearing the political burden of connecting the

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emperor with Heaven and advocating imperial morality (J. Gu, 1998b [1955]). Their core missions became theorizing and legitimating emperorship, as well as coping with matters of bureaucratic order (including organizing bureaucratic spectacles). Nonetheless, the greatness of the emperor was not infinite. It is certain that Wu Di’s syncretism itself had an origin. It was during Wu Di’s reign that certain subtle changes of rites occurred within the court. Perhaps induced by critiques expressed by many of the shi, including Sima Qian, the new ceremonial system worked toward limiting the emperor’s autonomy. As Puett (2002) outlines, The new system put in place at the end of the first century B.C. involved a rejection of any claims to self-divination or theomorphism on the part of humans. Humans and Heaven were posited as normatively correlated with each other, but they were also distinguished, with each given its proper sphere of activity. Divine kingship was rejected; the ruler was defined as human. Thereafter, self-divination and ascension came into be associated with millenarian movements opposing the imperial court. (p. 28)

Meanwhile, on another front, the emperor was faced with a different challenge. Ideally, the emperor should be the Great Man residing above all the others: to put it in other words, ideally, the West as a whole was to be included in the empire as a part of an “inter-cultural polity.” Nonetheless, the ideal was not the reality. While the Chinese world had changed into an “inter-cultural polity” during Han, certain places beyond it continued to be just as superior. “Mystic adultery” of Yu’s kind was replaced by a policy of intermarriage. Unable to defeat the Xiongnu, the Han turned itself into a “wife-giver.” In Chinese history, such a policy of intermarriage is known as “the policy of peaceful kinship” (heqin zhengce). The founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, was also the inventor of the tradition. Near the end of Qin, Liu Bang and his rival, Xiang Yu, made an oral agreement that they would marry their children to each other. In the end, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu and overthrew Chu, terminating this “contract.” But soon he was faced with an empire on horseback from the West. The Xiongnu had 400,000 cavalrymen and assaulted the northern frontiers frequently. Han was not strong enough to resist the Xiongyu

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invasion. The emperor’s advisor, Lou Jing, proposed that he offer a princess to the chief (Chanyu) of the Xiongnu. Lou Jing argued, “If the Chanyu has a Chinese princess as his wife, he will respect Han as his relatives. In the future, if the couple have a son, the son would become the prince, and in the further future, the prince will replace the Chanyu to become king. If the Chanyu does not die, the prince is still the grandson of the emperor. He will not wage war against his own grandfather.” Liu Bang listened to Lou Jing and decided to adopt “the policy of peaceful kinship.” But Liu Bang only had one daughter, whose mother (Lü Hou) refused to give her away. After careful study, Liu Bang decided to adopt a lady into his family. He in turn offered her, as his own daughter, to the chief of the Xiongnu. The strategy was effective, for the Xiongnu indeed stopped “disturbing” the Han borders for a period of time. And so this “policy of peaceful kinship” was deployed by the court many times (P. Chen, 1990, pp. 32–36). “The policy of peaceful kinship” benefited the empire at the cost of the legendary lady—Wang Zhaojun—who almost replaced Xi Wangmu as a mythological figure. Wang Zhaojun, a child of a prominent family of Zigui county (now in Hubei province), was selected to become a member of the Lateral Courts (a court lady) around 40 B.C., but was never visited by the emperor. In 33 B.C., as part of the tributary system between the Han and the Xiongnu, Huhanye visited Chang’an and took the opportunity to ask to become an imperial son-in-law. Instead of honoring the Chanyu with a princess, Huhanye was presented with five women from the imperial harem, one of them being Wang Zhaojun. Wang Zhaojun went on to become one of Huhanye’s favorites and later gave birth to two sons. When Huhanye died in 31 B.C., Wang Zhaojun requested to return to China but Emperor Cheng ordered that she follow the Xiongnu custom of levirate and become the wife of the next Chanyu—the oldest brother of her husband. Though depicted as a woman of sorrow in official histories and popular operas, Wang Zhaojun was nonetheless honored as a great self-sacrificing lady. She was later granted the title of Ning Hu yezhi (“Hu-Pacifying ChiefConsort”),4 her greatness being manifested in her courageous journey away from home.5 By the beginning of Han, the East-West contrast had thus transformed into the following:

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Emperor

Barbarian King

East inside male wife-giver civilized higher

West outside male wife-taker wild lower

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The relationship between the East and the West underwent a drastic change. Compared to perceptions during Zhou, the East during Han was perceived as higher and the West lower. The East was still imagined as an inside and the West outside, but both sides became “masculine.” While the Han became wife-givers, the barbarian kings were in turn promoted to wife-takers. The East, represented as the grandfather of future barbarian chiefs, remained civilized; the West, satisfied with the gift from the emperor, was “downgraded” and stayed on the empire’s outer fringes and remained savage. The nature of the relationship continued to be tributary in nature, but it became more “dialectical”: the self-upgrading of the East (Han) was coupled with its own “degradation,” while the West, by becoming “sons-in-law” of the Son of Heaven, progressed into a challenging career. In Biography of King Mu, the Central Kingdom’s linkage with the “beyond,” or the wonderland of Xi Wangmu, was constituted through the king’s symbolic intercourses with the Daughter of Heaven. Along with the Xiongnu conquest of the West, the West became a rival imperial power which signified a masculine imaginary. An imperial cultural politics of “romance” continued to be practiced by the emperors, but it was no longer the exchange of love and songs between the king and Xi Wangmu. A new sort of hierarchical relationship was established. The West gradually ceased to signify a wonderland of jade, women, mountains, and rivers.

Chaos, Neo-Daoist Selfhood, and Buddhism It is true that “during the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, the fusion of the East and the West was more and more profound; thus, the rivalries between the two sides became less important compared to the

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Three Dynasties of Antiquity” (Fu, 1996, p. 236). However, the “fusion” was not that simple; it came along with another set of relationships which emerged by the time of Eastern Han. At the core of the Han change was the conceptual turn from an East-West duality to a North-South duality. The transitioning of directionology has been examined from the perspective of Chinese material life. For instance, Fu Sinian argued that the southward movement of Chinese metropolises was driven by economic factors. In Eastern Han, the economy was advancing in the areas surrounding the lower Yangtze Delta. Prosperity gradually changed the overall pattern of China’s political geography (Fu, 1996, p. 237). In his 1936 study of economic areas, Ji Chaoding likewise explained these changes as induced by the overall movement of key economic areas. However, the “dynasty-bound economic histories” of Fu and Ji fail to acknowledge a “supra-dynastic” dimension which continued to exert influence upon Chinese history. As Lattimore (1967) showed in his Inner Asian Frontiers of China, the Central Kingdom, like any society, did not exist on its own. To truly understand China, we should pay attention to the ways in which particular human groupings and societies formed relations along the “frontiers” between them. Like other societies, the Central Kingdom and its other—the grassland in Lattimore’s perception—formed, grew, declined, and interacted with each other along the “frontiers” marked out by the Great Wall. But we should not easily consider the Central Kingdom, and the grassland “barbarians,” as simply making up two human societies. Human societies affected the environment and were changed by it. Agriculture to the south of the Great Wall along with the grassland livelihood to its north and west, constituted a pair of different society-environment relations. By depleting its game supply and wild crops, the agricultural side changed the environment. The other side reacted to the South or the East (the Central Kingdom from the perspective of grassland) just as the environment reacted to a farming civilization. Lattimore’s model does draw out a more realistic portrayal of interaction between the barbarian and the civilized, or what Chinese scholars call Yi Xia zhi bian (the differentiation of barbarians and Chinese). However, as a history, like all others, it is not a perfect interpretation. One of its shortcomings is its environmentalism. Although

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his depiction of interactions between agriculture and grassland livelihoods is marvelous, it does not adequately account for other equally important kinds of interactions working to re-orient the Chinese world to an opposite direction. Environmentally, militarily, and economically, the pressure of the West and the North indeed drove the Central Kingdom eastward. Yet culturally, the tension between the East and the West did not result in the fall of “Occidentalism” in Chinese worldviews and religion. Due to the “importation” of Buddhism, “Occidentalism” began to revive in Eastern Han in spite of the sorrowful legends of Wang Zhaojun. Ji Chaoding, who focused on analyzing the southward movement of key economic areas, categorized Chinese history from 255 B.C. to A.D. 1842 into the following phases: 1. The first phase of “unification and peace” (including the Qin and Han Dynasties). During this phase, the key economic area included the valleys of the Jing, Wei, Fen, and the lower Yellow Rivers. 2. “The first phase of splits and struggles” (including the Three Kingdoms period [A.D. 220–280], the Jin Dynasty [A.D. 265–420], and the Southern and Northern Dynasties [A.D. 420–589]). During this period, an important agricultural production area formed around Sichuan and the lower Yangtze River Delta. As a result, the ascendance of the South as an important economic center began. 3. “The second phase of unification and peace” (including the Sui and Tang Dynasties) and “the second phase of splits and struggles” (including the Five Dynasties [A.D. 907–960], the Song Dynasty [A.D. 960–1279], the Liao Dynasty [A.D. 915–1125], and the Jin Dynasty [A.D. 1115–1234]). During this period, the economic position of the South continued to rise.6 Appling the theory of economic geography, Ji did not analyze the changes of directionology in these three phases. As we have argued, in fact, from the perspective of imperial cosmology, “the West” was already Easternized by the first phase. In the second phase,7 the contest between the South and the North had emerged. “Chaos” (luan) induced by wars in the North and the establishment of the central position of the South in the economy pushed a large part of the shi to migrate southward. The shi, however, did not free themselves from the conventional dual world-scape of the East and the West, be it those who had

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moved to the South or those who had stayed on in the North. By the end of this period, “the Easternized West” had already been dualized into the South and the North politico-economically. However, in the cosmological world of the shi, the duality of North-South was still overshadowed by that of East-West, which was eventually re-conceptualized in terms of dualities between China and India, and between Chinese schools of thought (for instance, Daoism) and Buddhism. As Chang Naihui summarizes, in the second phase: [Chinese] thought was in its dark age during the Eastern Han Dynasty. The demonic mentalities of magicians were widely accepted by the commoners and deeply influenced them. It caused the Yellow Turban (Huangjin) rebellion, a disaster that marked the beginning of the fragmenting of the unified empire that had just enjoyed four hundred years of peace. In such a state of chaos, society was full of agitation and social thought was changing quickly. Social and cultural changes nurtured a certain skepticism in which traditional thought was radically critiqued. Kong Rong of the late Han, He Yan and Wang Bi of the late Wei, and “the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove” (Zhulin qixian) in the beginning of Jin are all representative of that particular era. However, it was only the beginning of skepticism, for there were unlimited numbers of groups that held dubious perceptions. While ancient ideas were critiqued, hardly any new ones were generated. It was an age of chaos, and people living during that time all led a hard life. Because of this, decadent forms of thought easily prevailed. In Liezi, a superficial philosophical work, there is an article called “Treatise on Yang Zhu” which is very typical of such decadent thought. However, the situation did not change much, ideas did not remain the same. Creativity would have been possible, had the thinkers associated their decadent ideas with the theories of Laozi and Zhuangzi, whose concepts and theories were mature. But the thinkers were allowed little time. Time moved on quickly. Soon, the roads linking China to the Western territories (Xiyu) were paved by mobile groups. Buddhism was imported from India, exhilarating thirsty and decadent minds in China. (2005 [1928], p. 5)

Tang Yongtong (2001 [1957], p. 120), a thinker active in the first half of the twentieth century, held a more positive view of this age of “chaos” than did Chang Naihui. He categorized the history of ideas in the Wei and Jin eras into the following four periods: 1. The period of Zhengshi (A.D. 241–249), in which Chinese thinkers such as He Yan and Wang Bi continued to rely on Zhou Book of

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Changes (Zhouyi) and Laozi to create their own systems of thought. 2. The period of Yuankang (A.D. 266–289), in which Chinese thinkers who were deeply influenced by Zhuangzi created a popular “radical school” (jilie pai). 3. The period of Yongjia (A.D. 308–313), in which a few thinkers began to revive the spirit of the “moderate school” (wenhe pai), which had originated in the period of Zhengshi, so that “neoDaoism” of Zhuangzi’s kind (Xin Zhuangxue) was developed. Thinkers such as Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang became dominant. 4. The period of the Eastern Jin (A.D. 317–420), in which Buddhism became so dominant that the era itself can be called the “period of Buddhism.” “Buddhism did not cause the development of Neo-Daoism (Xuanxue). Rather, it was influenced by Neo-Daoism and became accepted by the Chinese and indigenized. To a great extent, Buddhism not only updated Daoism but also upgraded Neo-Daoism to a higher philosophical level” (Tang, 2001 [1957], p. 120). In other words, Buddhism and Neo-Daoism were interwoven, and Buddhism played the role of an impetus in the expansion of Neo-Daoism. As Tang argued, though there existed huge differences between Buddhism and Chinese culture, there were also many commonalities. From the perspective of ontology, traditional Chinese culture valued life; hence, Chinese philosophy was mostly about life. Indian culture also emphasized ontology and held an attitude towards life similar to that of Neo-Daoism. The Buddhist notion of “emptiness” and the Daoist notion of “inaction” (wu-wei) were basically the same, both being concerned with the nature of life. Han people preferred the theories of yinyang and wuxing (Five Elements), advanced legendarily by the Yellow Emperor and Laozi. Buddhism actively adapted itself to and engaged itself with Chinese philosophies and bodily techniques. In the end, it evolved into a Daoist-style Buddhism. However, let us say that like Daoism, Chinese Buddhism was uniform. From Han to Wei, Buddhism became bifurcated. Two systems, Zen and Prajna, emerged. Zen combined the dhyana theory of Indian Buddhism, Chinese theories of yinyang and wuxing, and the Daoist theory of “nurturing life” (yangsheng). Prajna combined the dharmakaya theory of Indian Buddhism and Neo-Daoism. These two

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systems adapted to the North-South structure of confrontation and branched off into the “Southern Tradition” and the “Northern Tradition” in China. From the Wei-Jin period onward, Neo-Daoism was dominant in the culture and thought of the South, while the theories of yinyang and chenwei (political augury) were popular in the North. The Southern Tradition focused on “truth” discussed through conversations among official-scholars, while the Northern Tradition concentrated upon good conduct, self-cultivation, meditation, and social roles, more easily followed by commoners (Fig. 5.1). Figure .

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi (rubbing of the original brick portrait of the Southern Dynasties, A.D. – , made by Nanjing Museum)

Although China’s contact with India began earlier, Buddhism, primarily in its Theravada form, only came to China in Eastern Han and did not become widely accepted until late in the dynasty and in the early Three Kingdoms.8 The monks were mostly from South and Southeast Asia. Around the time when the Eastern Jin court retreated to the South, Buddhism spread into the circles of the shi. Many Chinese

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thinkers began conversing closely with eminent monks. Thus, by the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhist thought had become extremely popular among the Han and the “five kinds of barbarians” (wu Hu).9 The bifurcation of Chinese Buddhism along the boundary line between the South and the North added a complication to the conventional East-West distinction between the civilized and the barbarians. Fitting itself into the newly emerging North-South distinction, in the North, Buddhism drew from Daoism in order to become indigenized. Gradually, it charmed many Daoists, some of whom later became monks. Having learnt a great deal about Buddhism, the Daoists used it to reform their own philosophy and religion. “Indigenized” Buddhism, being an effective means of mobilization, was involved in various contests and struggles. In “the first phase of splits and struggles,” many Chinese monks in the North (originally gentry-scholars) sought to gain material profits through Buddhism. Some of them practiced Buddhism with the purposes of “establishing their own reputations for virtue” (jian gongde) and gaining religious lands. Erecting statues and building temples became means through which such goals were achieved. They directly triggered contestation not only between Buddhism and Daoism, but also between different Buddhist monasteries.10 By the time of Wei and Jin, many shi had settled in the South. Living far from the warring North, they enjoyed relative peace. Many of them chose a different form of Buddhism from that of the Northern Tradition. The other-worldly Buddhism in the South and the thisworldly Buddhism in the North divided the ideological worlds of the shi roughly along the frontier.

Fa-hsien: Monks’ Adventure Romance However, that does not mean that Chinese Buddhism(s) during the age of chaos was perfectly situated in politico-economically divided regions. On the one hand, within the Chinese world, the North-South division exerted its effects on the formulation of “schools of religious thought.” On the other hand, there was another movement which transcended the North-South boundary and linked both the South and the North to the “cradle” of Buddhism in the West—India.11 Through this movement, Chinese Buddhism(s) elevated the West, yet again, to the supreme

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position. Chinese monks’ journeys to India linked the East to the West. Such journeys became highly-regarded practices between the fourth and the seventh centuries. Among them, the most well-known example is that of Fa-hsien (A.D. 334–420). Fa-hsien’s travels are described in his autobiographic narrative, The Travels of Fa-hsien (alternatively translated as Records of Buddhistic Kingdoms). According to the book, Fa-hsien’s “exploration of the Far West” began on the inland routes of the North, after which he crossed over the frontier and came back from the South. “Among those who crossed the faraway sands and oceans to learn the Truth and have returned with records of their experiences, Fa-hsien was the first” (Cen, 2004 [1962], 2:741). Fa-hsien’s ambition was to make his journeys a practice of renunciation in an age of chaos (wars and disintegration) by exhibiting an other-centric perspective of the world. Fa-hsien strove to embody the fusion of the West and the East in his own person. Fa-hsien, whose family name was Gong, was born in Shanxi. He had three brothers, but they all died when he was three. To prevent further misfortune, the parents held a ritual to “convert” the remaining child into a monk. They hoped that this would help the child receive blessings from Buddha and overcome life-shortening forces. After the ritual, the child stayed at home for several years. But all of a sudden, he became seriously ill. His parents dared not keep him at home and thus sent him to a monastery. In the monastery, Fa-hsien developed a firm faith in Buddhism and a deep contempt towards the “filial piety” (xiao) of Confucianism. He even refused to see his mother. When he was ten, his father passed away. His uncle tried to persuade him to take care of his widowed mother, whose life was difficult, but Fa-hsien was pious and courageously declined his uncle’s proposal. His mother passed away not long after. He returned to his monastery immediately after her funeral. When he was twenty years old, Fa-hsien underwent the ritual to become a bhikku (a monk who has taken full vows of poverty and abstinence). Fa-hsien “had a firm ambition and enough agility to clarify the Monastic Rules and Regulations” when he found the theories and rules of Buddhism in China to be imperfect. He “vowed to accomplish his mission” and thus in the third year of the Long’an reign of Eastern Jin (A.D. 399), he set out for India at the age of 65, with

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Huijing, Daozheng, Huiying, and Huike (J. Yang, 1987, p. 87). Fa-hsien departed for his journey to the West from Chang’an with the plan to return by landing in Shandong from the sea. He traveled for fourteen years, covered more than 40,000 miles, documented his travels across thirty kingdoms on the way to India, and edited all the materials into one volume—The Travels of Fa-hsien.12 This book, belonging to the genre of autobiography, records the history, geography, religions, and folklores of different countries in the Western Territories (Xiyu), South Asia, and Southeast Asia (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], p. 21). The beginning of his travels was marked by an oath-taking ritual joined by the “comrades” (tongzhi) going with him 13—Huijing, Daozheng, Huiying and Huike—as well as other six monks. With the determination to go West at any cost, Fa-hsien and his team arrived at Xicheng (currently the Yuzhong area of Gansu) after one month’s tiring journey. Then they headed to the Northwest through Lanzhou, arriving first in Ledu, and later in Biandu. From Biandu, they traveled through the Qilian Mountains and reached Zhangye, where they were warmly received by the king of the Northern Liang, Zhangye Gong. They later arrived at Dunhuang, and by half way, they met the “Sand River.” This was where the book begins to describe their adventures. The “Sand River” was where Fa-hsien met evil spirits and a burning wind which killed everything, including flying birds and running animals. Fa-hsien and his followers walked in the “Sand River” for seventeen days and finally arrived at Shanshan, where they stayed for one month. Then they traveled to the Northwest where Yanqi was located. After arriving at Yanqi, they continued to cross the Taklamakan Desert. After a month, they reached the end of the desert where the holy land of Mahayana Buddhism, Yutian, appeared in front of their eyes. From here, the book turns to descriptions about the Buddhist holy land. Fa-hsien stayed in Yutian for three months and witnessed the local ritual of xingxiang (exhibiting the statue of Buddha outside the temple). They later journeyed further west, arriving at the kingdom of Dazihe (currently Yecheng in Xinjiang) and staying there for half a month. Then they traveled south. After a twenty-five day journey, they arrived at the kingdom of Ganhui (the Qilingka area southwest of Yecheng) in the Congling mountain range. Then they continued south for another twenty-five days and arrived at the kingdom of Yecha (Jiecha). In order to attend the “grand ceremony held every five years with monks from

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every corner,” they stayed there until the second year. Then they traveled from Tuoli to the Congling Mountains and arrived at the kingdom of Wuchang in the north of India after crossing the Indus River. They went to the kingdom of Jiantuowei (present-day Pakistan) to see the alms-bowl of Buddha and then went to the city of Xiluo in the kingdom of Jie (present-day Jalalabad of Afghanistan) to witness the shade, teeth, and skull of Buddha. They eventually reached their destination, Motouluo, located in the middle of India (currently Mathura to the southeast of New Delhi). They visited all the relics of Buddhist history and learned Sanskrit for three years in the county of Balianfu in order to record Buddhist rules and theories. Later, they traveled east along the Ganges and arrived at the kingdom of Zhanbo (present-day Bargarh in India); continuing along the Ganges, they went south and arrived at Duomoli (an old kingdom, currently the site of Tamluk on the western bank of the Hugli River, a branch of the Ganges). He stayed there for two years, copying Buddhist sutras and drawing portraits of Buddha. Fa-hsien usually uses dialogue in narrating his experience in India. His conversations with local monks form the core of his autobiography. For example, Fa-hsien writes: From here they journeyed westward to North India, taking one month to cross the Pamirs…. They traveled southwest through the Pamirs for fifteen days, meeting many obstacles on the road, which is very hard to travel, and full of dangerous precipices. The crags rise sheer to a formidable height. If a man looks down, he becomes dizzy, and if he wishes to go forward he can find no foothold. Below flows a river by the name of Indus. The ancients hewed a path here out of the rocks like a stairway with seven hundred steps. After passing this stairway, we crossed the river by a rope suspension bridge. The banks of Indus are nearly eighty paces apart. This place is so far from China that they had encountered nine different languages on the way. Even Chang Ch’ien [Zhang Qian] and Kan Ying [Gan Ying] of the Han Dynasty never went as far as this. The monks of this country asked Fa-hsien, “Do you know when Buddhism was first introduced to the East?” “I have asked people there,” replied Fa-hsien, “and they all agree that it was introduced long ago. Since Maitreya’s image was set up, Indian monks have continuously crossed this river with Buddhist scriptures and books of

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monastic discipline. The image was set up about three hundred years after Buddha’s Nirvana, which corresponds roughly to the time of King P’ing [Ping] of the Zhou Dynasty. So we may say that the spread of the Great Religion dates from the time of that statue. If Maitreya Bodhisattva had not succeeded Sakyamuni Buddha, who else would have caused the Three Precious Gems to spread and enabled the frontier peoples to understand the Law? We may be sure that the beginning of this mystery was not the work of men, and there must be a reason for the dream of Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty.” (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], pp. 22–24)

A link between the spread of Buddhism to China and legends in China is here presented. Fa-hsien speaks of Sakyamuni as a person living in a “frontier” Buddhist kingdom. In the winter of 410, Fa-hsien bent his way back alone. After fourteen days and nights on the sea, he arrived at the “Country of Lions” (Sri Lanka) and looked for Buddhist sutras and Vinaya texts. He stopped off on Java when passing Indonesia. In A.D. 411, he boarded a commercial ship and departed for home. Soon, the ship got lost at sea because of storms and fierce winds. After around two months and ten days, everyone on the ship started to drink sea water when all the food and fresh water were gone. In the ninth month of 412, the ship floated to the Lao Mountains in the county of Changguang in Qingzhou (currently southeast Qingdao in Shandong) and landed there. Originally, Fa-hsien headed for Chang’an, but he turned south to Jianye (Nanjing) after hearing that monks like Baoyun were shunted aside by the indigenous monks of Chang’an. There were other factors that dictated his decision to head south. Soon after he arrived in Shandong, he had heard that certain monks in the old imperial city were jealous of him and were planning to exclude him from their circles. Besides this, Fa-hsien had another consideration. In his time, the South (including the Southeast and the Southwest) had become a system of prosperous regions where Northern-origin gentryscholars settled. To Fa-hsien, who was born in an unfortunate family in the North, the South was marvelous. While the remote holy land of India was the place where his soul belonged, the South was for him a place of well-being. Having been to India and Southeast Asia, he also saw more resemblances between Southern School Buddhism and “the authentic Buddhism” he encountered on his journey (Fig. 5.2).

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Figure .

James Legge’s Sketch Map of Fa-hsien’s Travels (source: Legge, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. ͹ͿͿ–ͺͷͺ) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline, )

In his fourteen-year adventure from the East to the West, Fa-hsien risked his life in the quest for Truth—the wisdom of India. His journey to fetch the scriptures of Truth from other places became a model followed by later monks. For instance, in “the second phase of unification and peace” (including the Sui and Tang Dynasties), Xuanzang went on an equally heroic pilgrimage to India. Xuanzang was born into a poor

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gentry-scholar’s family, the Chens, in Henan. After becoming a monk, he visited many monasteries in China and studied with several famous monks. Having learned many different theories, he made up his mind to clarify the confusion he felt by traveling to India to find authentic Buddhism. In the third year of the Zhenguan reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang (A.D. 629), he started from Liangzhou, traveled to the West through the Yumen Guan (Jade Gate Pass), and arrived in India after having undergone countless difficulties and dangers. He studied with the monk Jiexian in the Nalanda Temple in India. Afterwards, he visited famous temples in India, reasoned with local scholars, and gained a high reputation. Seventeen years after his departure, in the nineteenth year of the Zhenguan reign (A.D. 645), he returned to Chang’an with 657 volumes of sutras. Emperor Taizong required him to write down what he saw during his journey to India, which in its complete form became the book Gazette of the Western Territories (Da Tang Xiyu Ji). Xuanzang describes the geography, political organization, folklore, customs, and produce of 138 kingdoms in the book (X. Ji, 1995, 1:1–138).14 Xuanzang’s writing also worked to glorify the foreign as the source of Truth. An example would be his correction of the Chinese translation of “India” (Sindhu, Hindhu, or Indus). He said, “Previously, the Chinese term for ‘India’ was always uncertain and much debated, and [it] finally was called ‘Shendu’ [which means ‘body poison’],” but the “correct pronunciation should be ‘Yindu.’” While “Yindu” was initially Fa-hsien’s translation, to Xuanzang, it was perfect. But what did “Yindu” mean? Xuanzang argued that it meant “moon.” To him, “Yindu” “guides the people just as the moonlight shines on the darkness” (p. 162).

Other-centrism From the second century B.C., another route leading to the West called the “Shu-Indian Path” ran in the Southwest, parallel to the route between Chang’an and India. The southwestern road connected China and India through Yunnan. The road was more often taken during the period from the Warring States to the Han through Jin Dynasties and was used for commercial trade. During the Northern Wei period (A.D. 386–534), Songyun, Fali, and Huisheng went to India in 518. They also visited Buddhist holy

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lands, but their mission was to show off the power and cultural wonders of Northern Wei—a dynasty established by the Tuoba (considered “barbarians” by the Han), who unified North China in the fifth century and adopted Han institutions of civility and model of “the Great Unity” to assert the greatness of its own imperium. The journey was also diplomatic; more specifically, it was considered a part of the imperial Wei “tributary diplomacy.” It was authorized and supported by the imperial court, and consisted of many gift-giving ceremonies (J. Yang, 1987, pp. 41–61). In spite of the evident existence of trade activities and the journeys of “tributary diplomacy,” in what the Chinese have perceived as an age of “chaos,” Fa-hsien’s kind of travels attracted more attention. Fa-hsien’s pilgrimage team was initially formed by several volunteer monks who sponsored their own trips. They shared the same ideal: to search for the authentic source of Buddhism. Their travels displayed an “other-centric” imaginary of the West—the hard-to-reach yet wonderful homeland of Buddha. Starting from the Jin and continuing through the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the early Tang, such a sense of the West became a remote mirror in which the moral flaws of “local cultures” were reflected. Dao wei wang—“the Way does not die”— seems to have been an important teaching that the monks brought back from the remote. India, a remote country, an imagined holy land which was different from China, appeared as a Kunlun-style wonderland in the minds of Chinese “men of letters.” It was the place from which the Truth came, the center from which civilization radiated to the East.15 Buddhism indeed spread to China, and for good reasons. Until the fourth century A.D., the upper class was the main “social basis” of Buddhism. With alternative institutions of “education,” such as monasteries, Buddhism offered a way for some members of the expanding shi class to escape from the rigid system of bureaucratic class-division (Zürcher, 1997, p. 13). Although monks were differentiated under the Buddhist hierarchy, they were not differentiated to fit into fixed locales of bureaucracy. Instead, they were differentiated according to their closeness to the Truth that Buddhist scriptures conveyed. By the time Fa-hsien departed for his long journey, making pilgrimages to India was considered a sign of a good monk. Alternative to the usual Chinese ontology of self-centrism, good monks were proud of their

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other-centricism. This kind of other-centrism had its precedents. Similar notions of good personhood had existed as early as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The Book of Rites states: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own States. Wishing to order well their States, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. (Legge, 1991, pp. 357–359)

In Eastern Han, the above theory of cultivation did not lose ground, but a major part of it was substituted with Buddhism. Some of the shi who failed to be admitted into the imperial system of bureaucracy ceased to cultivate their persons according to the Confucian ideal. As Qian Mu, the modern Neo-Confucian thinker, notes, the shi had had a special social status and significance ever since the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. In Xia, Shang, and Zhou, the shi constituted a middle class, situated between aristocracy (lords, ministers, and high officials) and the “hundred families” (peasants, artisans, and merchants). The ideal shi was modeled after famous political scholars. In reality, the gentry-scholars gradually formed in the Warring States period, during which social mobility significantly accelerated. The shi, the old middle class, stood outside their original positions. They differentiated themselves from both the aristocracy and the hundred families and formed a new class. The social status and public appearance of this new class was bound up with the concept of “travel.” Traveling or “roaming” scholars began to develop their own theories and took the elaboration of theories as their main practice. While respecting the sages and feeding the scholars were in fashion, most civil and military service positions in the court were taken up by the shi. As

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a result, the shi took the place of the noble class and exerted profound influence on politics. However, as Qian continues to argue, a change happened in Qin and Han. The shi changed from “traveling scholars” to “scholar-officials” and became bureaucrats. A kind of “literati government” (wenzhi zhengfu) appeared, especially in the Han Dynasty. The ideal of “literati government” was partly realized between the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, as well as later in the Tang and Song, but it was soon abandoned. Aristocracy was revitalized in the age of “disintegration.” The imperial examination system was established in the unified dynasties of Sui and Tang and helped the emperors select officials. In this long history, Neo-Daoism was only a by-product of the new politics of the Wei, Jin, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, during which “the famous scholars and the noble families led private and peaceful lives in the fast-changing society.” To overcome alienation, “they had to also live their lives seeking relief through theory and spiritual support” (Qian, 2006 [1940], pp. 358–359). In a study of Shishuo Xinyu, a collection of Wei and Jin narratives related to “character appraisal” (the observation and evaluation of people, including their physical appearance, innate abilities, moral qualities, psychological traits, and emotions emerging from their political and social contact with others), Qian Nanxiu (2001) illustrates the dramatic change of the spirit of the shi from the Han to the Wei-Jin period: The focal point of this intellectual interaction was character appraisal, which started in the Later Han era as the basis of selecting officials for bureaucratic posts, when leading local scholars evaluated and recommended candidates according to Confucian moral criteria. During the WeiChin [Wei-Jin] period, character appraisal gradually shed its political emphasis and evolved into a comprehensive study of human nature. Character appraisal incited intense competition in gentry society, nurturing in turn the growth of self-awareness that had resulted from the collapse of the Han Confucian moral codes. Self-awareness furnished character appraisal with a profusion of personalities, moving the development of this practice in the direction of psychological and aesthetic concerns. In addition, both character appraisal and self-awareness sought their theoretical basis in Hsuan-hsüeh [Xuanxue], hastening the systematization of this new scholarship, which involved a rereading and reevaluation of Han Confucianism in terms of Taoism and newly imported Buddhism. (pp. 6–7)

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The transformation of “character appraisal” from an imperial bureaucratic mechanism (a Confucian means of “official-selection”) to the “Wei-Jin spirit” of Neo-Daoism (Xuanxue) was bound up with the change of Tianxia. During the Wei-Jin period, Tianxia disintegrated and “chaos” induced misfortunes for the family. Conflicts between different states, ethnic groups, areas, classes, and families became a “normal phenomenon.” Han civilization collapsed in the North. In turn, various barbarians emerged to replace it with their own cultures. Many Han shared in the moral panic over the encroaching barbarians, and the disintegration of families, states, and Tianxia (the three levels of Chinese ontology) also urged the Chinese to find “savages within.” The deeper the gaps between family (jia), state (guo), and Tianxia, the harder it seemed to achieve “Great Unity.” India became the West, the place where the Great Unity was. Narratives of pilgrimages to India by Fa-hsien and other great monks were thus appealing to the commoners. They had ventured to the country of “Great Harmony”— a remote wonderland outside the Central Kingdom, which seemed magical at a time when the Central Kingdom was a fragmenting “heap of loose sand.” In their travels to India during the later period of unification and the first phase of splits and struggles, the Chinese monks can be seen as discovering Buddhist rules and theories (Tang, 2006 [1938], 1:335). The eminent monks went to India with the dual purpose of finding authentic versions of Buddhist classics and paying tribute to the historical relics of Buddhism. Other monks went to invite the great monks from India. “Different Chinese monks went West for different purposes, but they were all erudite scholars who absorbed the philosophies of India and developed profound understandings of the essence of Buddhism.” Tang Yongtong argues that “After they came back, they continued to promote Buddhism and by doing so, made great contributions to Chinese culture” (p. 335). What is the difference between the monks’ travels, the kings’ inspecting expeditions, and the emperors’ Feng-Shan sacrifices? During “the first phase of unification and peace” (Qin and Han Dynasties), the king’s expeditions and the emperors’ sacrifices were tributary and ceremonial. From the Seven Sages who accompanied King Mu to Kunlun, to the magician-scholars and Confucians and necromancers who assisted the First Emperor in his Feng-Shan sacrifices, the shi changed

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their roles. As we have pointed out earlier, in Biography of King Mu, the shi are represented as ambiguous linkages: they were on the one hand inferior to the rulers, serving in his “ceremonial troops” as advisors, and on the other hand superior to them, with all their important inspirations for the Son of Heaven. By the time of the First Emperor’s “travel” to Mount Tai, the shi had been subordinated to the emperor; they had to re-conceptualize their cosmological theories into what was useful to the self-divination of the emperor. In narratives about monks’ journeys to the West, the imaginary of the “Western Heaven” (Xitian) in India replaced the holy mountains of Kunlun. In turn, the monks became a new type of shi—a kind of “scholar” living on the outer fringes of the bureaucracy. They replaced the rulers’ position and became the “heroes” who underwent the ordeals of travel. Like the rulers, the monks transgressed the boundaries between the inside and the outside, the political world and the ethicocosmological world, and became “pilgrims to Truth.” The monkpilgrims traveled to India where the Truth was.16 On their way, they had to overcome numerous difficulties and bear much suffering. India was seen as a wonderland which housed the source of marvelous scriptures and moral order, which was good for the realization of the Great Unity of Tianxia—a “utopian” imaginary for the disintegrating Central Kingdom. Before we continue to analyze the changing role of the shi, let us emphasize that from King Mu’s journey to the West to the great Qin and Han emperors’ sacrifices at the Eastern Peak (Mount Tai), from the emperors’ sacrifices to the monks’ travels, Chinese directionology shifted at least twice. It switched from Western-centric to Easterncentric and back to Western-centric. The metaphorical significations of the mountains and rivers also changed at least twice. They changed first from the residence of the King’s Mother to the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas, then to the ordeals experienced by the monks on their way to the “Western Heaven.” In the classical and early imperial periods, the mountains and rivers were perceived and ceremonially treated as divine. They were considered integral parts of the king’s body and majesty. By the time Chinese “minds” were largely influenced by Buddhism, such mountains and rivers had become obstacles on the way to the West. They had turned into rites of passage which needed to be undergone by those monks who were predestined and determined to go

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to the West. Between the two different phases of the transformation of the meaning of “natural symbols” was a sequence of events that altered Chinese conceptions of the world. These events were bound up with the transformations of the percepted interrelationship between humans and their natural surroundings manifested in the alternations of the key concept of xian. The character xian, composed of the radical for ren (human, placed on top, or on left) and that for shan (mountain) or qian (distance), has been translated as “immortal.” The character had been in use in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. In pre-imperial times, the Shi Jing applied xian to mean “dance lightly and frivolously,” as in shamanic dance (Needham & Wang, 1954, p. 134). Zhuangzi employed the imagery of xian in the sense of flying in the clouds to describe individuals with superhuman powers but without fame (B. Watson, 1968, pp. 122–123, 130). Qu Yuan’s Chu Ci used xian to refer to “those of past ages who had become Immortals./ They departed in the flux of change and vanished from men’s sight,/ Leaving a famous name that endures after them” (Hawkes, 1985, p. 194). It thus becomes apparent that in its original usages, xian expressed different political ontological approaches to the wisdom of the world—the festive, mystic, and poetic ways of Oneness. However, by Han, xian was undertood quite differently. While the early texts used xian immortals and magic islands to express their ontological perspectives of being, beginning in Han, as Xu Shen was fully aware, xian has more often referred to esoteric alchemical techniques for physical longevity, including “internal alchemy” (neidan) techniques of breath control, meditation, visualization, and so forth, and “external alchemy” (waidan) techniques of alchemical recipes, magic plants, rare minerals, herbal medicines, and so forth (J. Zhang, 2009). Thus, in Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen defined xian as “persons on mountaintops” and as “persons who live long and move away [from society]” (S. Xu, 1982 [100], p. 167). It thus seems to be true that, by Han, an “official” interpretation of xian, deriving its conceptual force from previous interpretations, made itself a different category from its possible counterparts in other cultural worlds of Eurasia. For instance, in the Greek world, as Vernant (2001) informs us,

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only the gods were “immortal”: Men are not self-sufficient; they must draw energy from resources in the surrounding world, and without them they perish. What defines humans is that they eat bread and sacrificial meats, and that they drink the wine of the vine. The gods have no need to eat. They know not bread, or wine, or the flesh of sacrificial animals. They live without nourishment, and take in only pseudofoods, nectar and ambrosia, the foods of immortality. (p. 51)

Moving between the immortal deities and mortal humans, there was a third category—that of heroes. Did this category mean the same as xian? In describing one of the heroes, Achilles, who established the model for every warrior, Vernant says: At the same time he is a tragic figure: not a god, yet unable to live or die like an ordinary man, as a simple mortal; but escaping mankind’s common condition does not make him a divine being guaranteed eternal life. (p. 85)

Immortals of the xian category were those situated between Heaven and Earth, moving in the clouds on mountaintops (Campany, 2002). Like humans, they ate; but unlike ordinary humans, in order to obtain the bliss of youth and longevity, they “ate” the essences of the universe, offered by Heaven in the planes distant from the human world, on mountain tops. Thus xian were not heroes. They were not tragic figures whose glories and sufferings all stem from their condition of being in-between gods and humans. Rather, they were happier than ordinary men precisely because they had become ambiguous beings. After all, from Chinese cosmological perspectives, only Heaven is the true plane without time. Getting closer to Heaven, by means of ingesting its “superfoods”—for instance, vital energy known as qi—only available on mountaintops, even humans could become xian, a radically ambiguous category of the person that totally blurred the conceptual boundary between humans and other beings, subject and object, self and others, mortals and immortals, the timeless and the temporary. In making their own immortal lives, the early emperors of both Qin and Han dreamed of becoming xian. It is thus not surprising that they not only made sacrifices on the tops of the divine mountains but also sought the medicine of immortality in the mountains.

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However, not long after, they were informed that a fatal boundary between the divinities and the humans could not be crossed: even though the emperors had supreme power in this world, they were after all human beings, not immortals. Those who could approach the plane of immortality were perhaps only those who, as Qu Yuan’s example implied, had an afterlife in the writings that endured after them, or who, as the Neo-Daoist poetics implied, renounced mortal life and withdrew to the mountains or the clouds. Let us point out that Neo-Daoism, or the philosophical force “driving” Chinese outward again from their own world, simply emerged in the “aftermath” of the failed self-immortalization of the emperor. It was Neo-Daoism that revitalized the “axial age” meanings of xian. The way of Neo-Daoism in “the age of chaos” deserves a further note. The legendary Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin qixian), a group of Neo-Daoist scholars, writers, and musicians, saw the Confucian dynasty of Jin as a threat to their lives. They came together in the third century as a group to escape the intrigues and stifling atmosphere of court life. They gathered in a bamboo grove to compose poems, expressing their political sadness and developing forms of mysticism. Their writings, characterized by fusions of the poetic state of scenery and objects and the structure of feelings of pleasure and anger, sorrow and joy, heavily influenced later Chinese literature. One of the poems by Ruan Ji, a member of the group, is illuminating: The bright sun is setting in the West. Its light lingers on my clothes. The wind blows round and round the walls. Birds huddle together against the cold. The Zhouzhou bird needs a mate to hold him when he dips and drinks, The Qiongqiong beast needs another to help him feed. But those men in power! O! They forget their way out of the labyrinth! How could I strive for vainglorious fame, weakening my body, depressing my heart?

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I’d rather flutter with the sparrow than soar with the crane: The crane may traverse the ocean, But which is my way home, once I fly out from its heart? (F. Wu, 2006, p. 17) The enjoyment of ale, personal freedom, and spontaneity were the pursuits of the Seven Sages. If transcending refers to the becoming of the Absolute Other (God), then this was not the process the Sages sought. Rather, becoming immanent in Nature, by means of remaining in the realms of the mountains and rivers, was what the Sages sought to do. As Xu Fuguan (2001) points out, partly because of the influence of the Seven Sages, landscape paintings substituted anthropocentric art works to express the Neo-Daoist ideal of the fusion between Man and Nature. In such artistic expressions, mountains and rivers were conceptualized as natural substances, and they were shaped as things useful for the (re-)inculcation of the self. The Neo-Daoists perceived such substances and shapes as images (xiang) to be “played with in order for the sages to become fused with the Way (Dao)” (pp. 140–142). By the time of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, the idea of xian had changed from the immanent transcendence of mountains to the self-divinized “Great One,” and from the “Great One” to the heroic self-sacrifice of Qu Yuan and self-divination of the reclusive. The other also changed from the female Xi Wangmu to the male Eastern Peak, and then to the One beyond gender (Buddha). The Chinese character for the other (ta), as we have explained in the previous chapters, means “other things”—the harmful snakes which are “medicinal tonics.” One aspect of the other in the time of King Mu was jade, found near the King’s Mother’s residence. During the early empires of Qin and Han the other was the medicine of immortality that could be discovered in the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas. The other in the time of Buddhism was the cure for moral decay. In constitituting Zhou’s hierarchy, different kinds of jade, with their varied transparency and colorfulness, marked the differences between classes. The king needed the “elixir of life” to prolong his own life, but he needed jade to mark his own majesty. While jade from the Kunlun Mountains was “nutrition” for society, the “elixir of life” was “nutrition” for the king. The medicine of immortality was no longer jade but

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similar to the “elixir of life.” The medicine of immortality was imagined to be good for the emperor and for the empire—the longevity of the emperor meant prolonged peace for the empire. The medicine of immortality was the “elixir of life” from overseas and served as a cure for human death, a prescription for fatal “illness.” Classical sacrifices nourished the immortality of the heavenly divinities, while the elixir of life in the Qin and Han Dynasties nourished the life of human emperors. There were thus two different kinds of “prolonged lives”: the divinities of the classical kind, which were the prolonged lives of the Eyes that watched the world from above, and the never realized longlived emperors, who strove to transcend ordinary lives and divinize themselves. But what did the new “cult” of Buddha convey? To Chinese Buddhists, “the West” meant “taboo of wrong food,” and thus this food-taboo signified the other. Similar to jade and the elixir of life, the taboo also had magic powers. If jade was important to King Mu and the emperors of Qin and Han, the medicine of immortality was crucial for the monks, who were, in fact, the shi turned priests of Buddhism (Yu, 2003, pp. 251–356). The “taboo of wrong food” (such as taboos on wine and meat)—the ingredients of “the heat of life”—was critical. “Taboo of wrong food” helped Chinese Buddhism draw a line between inside and outside and maintain the boundaries of the body.

The West and the Food Taboo The shi living in the pre-Qin period also practiced austerity by maintaining a vegetarian diet (sushi). However, until the sixth century A.D., the vast majority of people in the Chinese world still had no moral preference for vegetables, unlike Southeast Asian Buddhists, who were aware that “animals are good to prohibit because they are good to eat” (Tambiah, 1985a). Instead, wine and meat were the best offerings for the transcendent divinities. Kings, generals, and ministers as well as the noble families took the consumption of wine and meat as the expression of happiness and the display of honor (Yi, 1935). At the beginning of the Buddhist conquest, the Indian Buddhist regulations over wine and meat were not well followed in China. However, after King Wu of Liang (A.D. 502–549) set a rigid rule on wine and meat in the Southern Dynasties, the “taboo of wrong food” began to be accepted.

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King Wu’s real name was Xiao Yan; his courtesy name was Shuda. He was from south of Lanling and was born in a place called Zhongduli (present-day Wujin county in Jiangsu province). He did not start out as a Buddhist. Instead, he studied Confucianism and Daoism. In his childhood, he was familiar with the thought of Zhou Gong and Confucius. He changed to Daoism when he was around 20 years old. In the second year of his reign (504), though he still “secretly” kept his Daoist beliefs, he not only cultivated himself with Buddhism but also politically supported Buddhism (Tang, 2006 [1938], 1:416–421). An example of his contributions in spreading Buddhism is his “Announcement of the Prohibition of Wine and Meat.” The “Announcement” was issued in the fifth month of 523. To publicize it, he called as many as 1,448 monks to a conference, ordering them to carefully read the regulations on wine and meat in the Buddhist scriptures. King Wu invited a senior monk to explain “why those who eat meat and drink wine have no mercy on others.” At the conclusion of the conference, he declared the “Prohibition of Wine and Meat.” The “Announcement,” which was written by King Wu himself, reads like something between a “vow” and an imperial law. It stipulates that if a monk consumes wine or meat, he will “be convicted in accordance with the Imperial Constitution.” By erecting himself as a model, King Wu successfully established a “vegetarian custom” in his Buddhist kingdom. King Wu not only punished those who ate meat and drank wine but also limited his own consumption to vegetables. A story suggests that he only ate beans and coarse grain once a day when he was older. Those who broke the dietary law were punished as criminals (Kang, 2005, pp. 128–172). Soon after he publicized the “Announcement,” King Wu issued the “Announcement of the Prohibition of Religious Sacrifices with Wine and Meat in Deity Shrines and Ancestor Temples.” No matter what one thinks about King Wu’s “vegetarian policy,” its historic influence has nonetheless been tremendous. After that, Daoism, Confucianism, and Manichaenism, all accepted—in different degrees—vegetarianism as a kind of virtue (pp. 155–172). King Wu’s ban on wine and meat in both religious regulations and imperial laws broke Chinese rules of rites with a foreign “taboo.” Thus it can be said that King Wu drove “other-centrism” to its extreme. In King Wu’s world, he was a center, a center of power that subdued everything around him, and also a paradigmatic center which

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maintained social order through his own exemplary behavior. Around this paradigmatic center were moral monks and mandatory laws. The former civil power and the latter military power worked together to maintain the moral paradigm. The center could be the center, not because it occupied the center, but because the center was occupied by a moral paradigm which in legend came from the West/India/the Heaven of Buddha. The vitality of the center came from its exclusion of all that contains or reveals the vitalities of life, and from its inclusion of Other Life. The power to repel these things was the moral calling of Buddhism, which equalized the king with everyone else. It was a morality that transcended social hierarchy in a disintegrating kingdom. By “de-vitalizing” human life, King Wu introduced the possibility of new life to the Chinese through Buddhism, a transcendental Truth which existed in the remote “Western Heaven.”

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SIX

“Western Territories” (Xiyu), India, and “South Sea” (Nanhai)

In Qin and Han, certain cosmological rethinkings guided the imperial

directional orientation to move from the West to the East. Slightly later, some of the shi, having adopted Buddhist doctrines and mixed them with Neo-Daoist perspectives, countered this trend and re-directed the “holy” to the West, or India. In the first period of unification and the first period of partition, Chinese Occidentalisms experienced great changes, and the West thus gained new connotations. In “folk religion,” it continued to be associated with the mountains occupied by Xi Wangmu. To the imperial court of Qin and Han, it was mixed up with strong neighbors such as the Xiongnu. But soon, the imperial concern with the Xiongnu was “eased” through efforts to push the frontier further west to cover Xiyu. Gradually, the West was re-organized as what could be reached through the maritime world and the mountainous areas of the southwestern “barbarians,” and became associated with the world of the South.

Xiyu The concept of “Xiyu” appears frequently in a series of dynastic histories, including Shi Ji, Han Shu (History of the Han), Hou Han Shu (History of the Later Han), Sanguo Zhi (Record of the Three Kingdoms), Jin Shu (History of the Jin), Wei Shu (History of the Wei), Bei Qi Shu (History of the Northern Qi), Zhou Shu (History of the Zhou), Sui Shu (History of the Sui), and Bei Shi (History of the Northern

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Dynasties). “The Treatise of Dayuan” in Shi Ji and its later counterpart, “The Treatise of Xiyu” in Han Shu, form the main records of Xiyu (Fig. 6.1). Figure .

Map of the Kingdoms in the Western Territories (made between kept in the Archive of Ancient Maps, Beijing Library)

–

,

In the concluding lines of “The Treatise of Dayuan,” Sima Qian commented: [T]he Basic Annals of Emperor Yü [Yu Gong] records that the source of the Yellow River is in the K’un-lun [Kunlun] Mountains, mountains over 2,500 li high where the sun and moon in turn go to hide when they are not shining. It is said that on their heights are to be found the Fountain of Sweet Water and the Pool of Jade. Yet, since Chang Ch’ien [Zhang Qian] and the other envoys have been sent to Ta-hsia [Daxia], they have traced the Yellow River to its source and found no such K’un-lun Mountains as the Basic Annals records. Therefore, what the Book of Documents [Classic of History; Shang Shu] states about the mountains and rivers of the nine ancient provinces of China seems to be nearer the truth, while when it comes to the wonders recorded in the Basic Annals of Emperor Yü or the Classic of Hills and Seas [Shan Hai Jing], I cannot accept them. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:288–289)

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While Sima Qian remained keenly interested in exploring both myths and histories when relating Zhang Qian’s journey to the kingdom of Daxia with the “illusional geographies” of Kunlun in the archaic books of history and geography, Ban Gu, the author of Han Shu, seemed much greatly more “logo-centric.” This official history of the Former Han Dynasty includes the traces of pre-Han and Han communication with “the Western Territories” during the 150 years starting from the reign of Wu Di to that of Wang Mang (140 B.C.–A.D. 23). Ban Gu recorded divisions between different countries within the vast Western Territories. Ban Gu was also able to more accurately document its rivers, mountains, local products, and customs. In Sima Qian’s book, geographic knowledge of the Western Territories is linked to Zhang Qian’s travels, whereas in Ban Gu’s history, it is related to the “political and diplomatic trips” led by Ban Gu’s brother, Ban Chao. Both characters were tied to events related to the “Xiongnu problem.” The “Xiongnu problem,” which emerged during the period of the Warring States, was further aggravated in the Han Dynasty. When Emperor Wu journeyed to the East, trying to get closer to Heaven and the isles of immortality, the Xiongnu blocked China’s road to the West. Xiongnu power even extended to the East, for they constantly waged wars against the Central Kingdom (H. Lin, 2006). “In general, these wars were waged for the gaining of political sovereignty…. The slave owners of the Xiongnu aimed their campaigns to obtain people, gold, silk, cotton, rice, and brewer’s yeast. The feudal emperors of Han aimed to expand their land, to ban markets and trade between the Chinese and Xiongnu, and to induce the Xiongnu to surrender to the Han court” (C. Ma, 2006, p. 3). In the histories written by Sima Qian and Ban Gu, Zhang Qian and Ban Chao were heroes whose greatness was appropriately indicated by their imperial titles. They contributed enormously to the extension of the Chinese “imperial eye” into the Western Territories. Both Zhang Qian and Ban Chao were “warrior-diplomats.” The diplomatic relationship they helped forge between the Han and the Western Territories was comparatively smaller in scale than the battles happening at the same time in the Western Territories. Neither of them led large numbers of troops. Zhang Qian went to the West almost alone and was trapped there for many years. Ban Chao fought the Xiongnu with his

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intelligence—he was more or less like a spy. Zhang Qian and Ban Chao, the lone riders, became legendary heroes. They are praised in stories as courageous men who possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the Western Territories, territories which at the time were causing problems for the Chinese emperor. Both were authorized by the emperor to break down barriers set by the Xiongnu to China’s tributary relationship with the Far West. As men of equal wisdom, they were also able to subdue the Xiongnu to the Han court through their accurate geographical knowledge rather than their achievements in war. Sima Qian used the term “chiseling through” (zao kong) to describe Zhang Qian’s heroic deeds. “Chiseling through,” in this sense, can be understood as “penetration by way of knowing.” Hence, to say that Zhang Qian “chiseled through” the Western Territories is to say that he developed accurate geographical and ethnological knowledge for the Han empire, with which the court’s “Xiongnu problem” could be solved. The “foreign countries,” to which Zhang Qian and Ban Chao’s imperial “missions” traveled, had products the Han empire badly needed. Farm land and horses were both extremely important for the Han—one for agriculture and the other for military defense. In turn, gold, silk, cotton, rice, and brewer’s yeast from the Han territories were used to trade with the peoples living in the Western Territories. Zhang Qian’s adventures to “chisel through” a route of communication and trade brought invaluable knowledge about such materials and possibilities of “exploiting” them. The “chiseling through” activities led by warrior-diplomats such as Zhang Qian and Ban Chao went very far. Europe was discovered by Eastern Han at the latest (Hirth, 1885). In the “Xiyu Zhuan” of the Hou Han Shu, it is recorded that Gan Ying was sent by Ban Chao to lead an embassy to the “country of Da Qin (Haixi or west of the sea)” [Ancient Rome] in the ninth year of the Yongyuan reign of the Eastern Han (A.D. 97): “When he arrived at Tiaozhi, he tried to cross the broad sea.” But he was stopped by “a sailor in the west of Anxi [Parthia].” The “Si Yi Liezhuan” [Accounts of the Four Barbarians] of the Jin Shu says of Gan Ying’s being stopped, “… Seawater is salty and bitter; it is undrinkable. Merchants who cross [the sea] take three years’ worth of supplies on board. Thus those who go are few.… [As to] (Gan Ying) going to sea, the sailor said, ‘On the sea are creatures [things] which [cause] feelings of longing; those who go all come to grief. If you [lit.: the

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envoy of the Han] care nothing for your father or mother, wife or children, you can go [to sea].’ [Gan] Ying was unable to cross [the sea].” (Zhong, 2000, pp. 4–5)

Da Qin refers to the eastern part of the Roman Empire, especially the Mediterranean coastal kingdoms. “The sea” at which Gan Ying stopped is called “the Western Sea” (Xi Hai) in the Hou Han Shu. In actuality, it did not belong to the Roman Empire, but to the western part of Parthia where Gan Ying gathered information about Europe. Among historians it is also agreed that the “creatures [things] which [cause] feelings of longing” are likely to be the sirens. “‘The sailor from the west of Anxi’ did not necessarily intend to deceive Gan Ying; he may truly have seen many people take to the sea in ships and not come back and have believed they had been lured [to their deaths] by the ‘creatures of longing on the sea’” (Zhong, 2000, p. 5). The Xiongnu, emerging in the Warring States period and evolving in the Qin and Han Dynasties, accelerated the increase of “realistic elements” in the Chinese synthetic texts of illusionary and realistic geographies. These elements were particularly significant in the explorations of the landforms, resources, and ethnic diversity of various locales. Such knowledge was also critical to the security of the Chinese empire. Its practicality was highlighted in Shi Ji and Han Shu. The “Treatise on Geography” (Dili zhi) was created as a genre in the Han Dynasty. Such treatises always begin with an outline of the bigger prefectures (zhou); continue with more detailed descriptions of the lower prefectures and counties—their historical settings and their contemporary situations, their famous mountains and shrines, rivers, water resources, and mines; and end with a conclusive remark on the general situation of Tianxia and the relative position of each prefecture and county in the scheme of Tianxia. Such treatises on geography restate the potential powers, local customs, territories, and histories of each county and prefecture as depicted during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The “Treatise on Geography” as a genre framed later geographic and ethnological narratives. Though the form remained, its content changed over time. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the “Western Territories” and the Buddhist kingdoms became interwoven. It is worth noting that the road leading to the source of “authentic Buddhism”

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(India) was precisely the path the many imperial Chinese warrior-diplomats took to “chisel through” the West. While such “chiseling” activities accelerated the development of “realistic geography,” the convergence of the two “roads”—the Han world-exploring road and the Buddhist pilgrimage road—in turn induced the increase of illusions in the synthetic texts. In Han, a new world-scape was formed on the old basis of the East-West dualism. Along with the refining of Feng-Shan sacrifices, the extent of religiosity in the East was growing. At the same time, the political importance of the West was also increasing. The “Xiongnu problem” contributed to the politicization of the West. Despite such changes, the new world-scape did not make clear distinctions between the holy mountains in the East and the political landscapes of the West. What is more, the two often evolved toward the direction of the other. The act of “chiseling through” the western route was supposed to forge the relations between Han and the “foreign countries” (this “modern” word appears several times in Shi Ji) and to build a new “world system” of hierarchy, a new tributary system. However, what resulted was a reorientation of “the Western Territories” to connote India. That is, the vast and ambiguous imaginary of the “Western Territories” turned into a singular West, India, during the time of the “Buddhist conquest.” India became the House of All Sages. Like Kunlun, it radiated from afar a mysterious attraction to the emperors and the shi, who faced too many issues in their political East—which, from the Eastern Han onward, had become an entity containing the South and the North.

The Southwest Bronze trees are often discovered in the Han- and Wei-period tombs found along the southwestern road to India. These are known as “money trees” (yaoqian shu). Larger money trees are made of two sections: a sculpted pottery base and a bronze tree. In the earlier periods, the bronze trees were decorated with coin motifs, mythological animals, and images of Xi Wangmu. While the coin motifs and mythological animals remained significant in later bronze trees, from late Han to Wei, along with the “Buddhist conquest,” the image of Xi Wangmu was replaced by that of Buddha.

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There have been heated discussions in the field of Chinese archaeology concerning the history of money trees. Some trace their origin to the civilization of Sanxingdui in Sichuan, which can be dated back to the age of Shang. In Sanxingdui, spirit trees which do not have the coin motifs, mythological animals, and the image of Xi Wangmu, have been excavated (D. Zhao, 2006). Others argue that money trees emerged during the Han Dynasty when “the spirit of commerce” was prevalent in the Southwest. There are yet others who associate money trees with Daoist ideas of immortality, which the Qin and Han learnt from the East. A periodization of the available money trees instead indicates that the images of the goddess are foreign and that from the beginning they were borrowed from India (He, 2007, pp. 7–20). In my opinion, money trees seem more like “fused symbols” containing all the elements of the Sanxingdui spirit tree, Han coins, archaic mythological animals, and combined images of Xi Wangmu and Buddha. The excavated money trees indicate a cultural area whose northern boundary reached the rural areas in Shaanxi (where the Han imperial capital was); whose core was located in the old Ba and Shu kingdoms; and whose southern border reached Yunnan. This cultural area matches the geographic region which links China to the Western Heaven (India). Thus, it validates the existence of the southwest road to India. Beginning in early Han (prior to the “Buddhist conquest”), a directionological imaginary associating the West with India had begun to emerge in in-between regions such as the Southwest. In his “Account of the Southwestern Barbarians” in Shi Ji, Sima Qian projected a synthesis of the “Western Territories” (Xiyu) and the “Western Heaven” (Xitian): In the first year of yüan-shou [Yuanshou] [122 B.C.], Chang Ch’ien [Zhang Qian], the Po-wang [Bowang] marquis, returned from his mission to the land of Ta-hsia [Daxia] [Bactria] and reported that while he was there he had seen cloth produced in Shu and bamboo canes from Ch’iung [Qiong]. On inquiring how they had arrived in Ta-hsia, he was told, “They come from the land of Shen-tu [Shendu] [India], which lies some several thousand li west of here. We buy them in the shops of the Shu merchants there.” He was also told that Shen-tu was situated some two thousand li west of Ch’iung. “Ta-hsia, which is situated southwest of our country,” Zhang Qian reported to the Emperor with enthusiasm, “is eager to open relations with China and is much distressed that the Xiongnu are blocking the road in between. If we could find a new route from Shu via the land of

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Shen-tu, however, we would have a short and convenient way to reach Daxia which would avoid the danger of the northern route!” The emperor therefore ordered Wang Jan-yü [Ranyu], Po Shih-ch’ang [Bo Shichang], Lü Yüeh-jen [Yueren], and others to go on a secret expedition through the region of the southwestern barbarians and on to the west to search for the land of Shen-tu. When they got as far as Tien [Dian], Ch’ang-chi’ang [Changqiang], the king of Tien, detained them and sent a party of ten or twelve men to the West to find out the way to Shen-tu for them. The Chinese party waited over a year, but all the roads to the west had been closed off by the inhabitants of K’un-ming [Kunming], so that none of the men who had been sent ahead were able to reach Shen-tu. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:293–294)

Sima Qian related several important happenings along the southwestern road to India which passed through the region of Shu (Shu Shendu dao) to other parts of the empire. The opening paragraph of the “Account of the Southwestern Barbarians” is one of the most frequently cited materials in the study of southwestern “nationalities” (minzu): There are dozens of chiefs ruling among the southwestern barbarians, but the most important is the ruler of Yeh-lang [Yelang]. To the west of Yehlang live the chiefs of the Mi-mo [Mimo], of which the most important is the ruler of Tien [Dian]. North of Tien live numerous other chiefs, the most important being the ruler of Ch’iung-tu [Qiongdu]. All of the tribes ruled by these chiefs wear their hair in the mallet-shaped fashion, work the fields, and live in settlements. Beyond them to the west, in the region from T’ung-shih [Tongshi] east to Yeh-yü [Yeyu], are the tribes called Sui and K’un-ming [Kunming], whose people all braid their hair and move from place to place with their herds of domestic animals, having no fixed homes and no chieftains. Their lands measure several thousand li square. Northeast of the Sui live twenty or thirty chiefs, the most important being those of Hsi [Xi] and Tso-tu [Zuodu]. Among the numerous chiefs northeast of Tso [Zuo], those of Jan [Ran] and Mang are most important. Some of their people live a settled life on the land, while others move about from place to place. Their territory is west of the province of Shu. Northeast of Jan and Mang are numerous other chiefs, the most important being the ruler of Po-ma [Boma]. All of them belong to the Ti [Di] tribe. These are all the barbarian groups living in the area southwest of Pa [Ba] and Shu. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:290)

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Sima Qian’s definition of “Southwest” seems to be much larger than contemporary definitions. It roughly covers the western, northwestern, and southern territories surrounding the Ba and Shu prefectures. Ethnologists who cite this paragraph emphasize how “minority nationalities” in the Southwest are classified. To these ethnologists, the “western barbarians” in Shi Ji belong to the Diqiang while the “southern barbarians” belong to the Baiyue. The geographical center of their habitation was “in the Liangshan area encompassing the Yun Gui highland and Sichuan” (Song, 1998, p. 92). This area’s culture can be seen as the extension, collision, and integration of the “three cultural zones”—the midstream of the Yellow River, the northern and northwestern steppes, and the Yangzi River—beginning in the late Neolithic age. Since this area was an “intermediary zone” of cultural encounters, its culture bore multi-ethnic characteristics. Shi Ji does not only provide a way for us to understand how the ancient Han described the various “ethnic groups.” It also carries a message: Sima Qian’s classification emphasizes the status of the “chief” (junzhang) along with ethnic customs and costumes. The chief was the headman of the tribe. In Shi Ji, one of the features that distinguished the southwestern barbarians is the multiple and uneven nature of political power, with centers of power scattered all over the southwestern frontier of the empire. In the late 1970s, Fei Xiaotong (1999) noted that the Zang Yi zoulang (Zang-Yi corridor) was the exact border between Han and Zang, and between Yi and Zang, along which several political stalemates emerged during different historical periods. This was also the region where the Qiang, Di, and Rong were active historically. There were also various local political powers of different scale and duration. Now the eastern side of the corridor has become a Han habitation and the western side a Tibetan region. But one can find that many dialects used by the local “Tibetans” are different from the modern Tibetan spoken in Tibet (p. 215).

In the second and third paragraphs of the “Account of the Southwestern Barbarians,” Sima Qian talks about the relationship between the southwestern barbarians, the Chu state, and the Yue state. He first describes the relationship between the southwestern barbarians and the state of Chu. During the reign of King Wei of Chu, General Zhuang Qiao was sent to lead an army along the Yangzi River to invade Ba,

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Shu, Qianzhong, and the regions to the west of Qianzhong. He subdued the region and intended to head back to Chu to report his victory. However, the Qin army attacked Chu and seized Ba and Qianzhong. Unable to get through, he returned to Lake Dian and made himself the ruler of Dian. Sima Qian also provides an interesting account of the relationship between the southwestern barbarians and the state of Yue. In the sixth year of the Jianyuan reign (135 B.C.) in Han, the grand messenger Wang Hui attacked Eastern Yue. In turn, the men of Eastern Yue killed their king, Ying, to prove their willingness to submit to Han rule. Wang Hui dispatched Tang Meng to persuade the king of Southern Yue to be loyal to the Han. After learning that Southern Yue had extended its power with the aid of Yelang, Tang Meng suggested that the throne open communications with Yelang and establish officials in the region. The emperor approved of Tang Meng’s plan and appointed him general of palace attendants. After this, Tang Meng led an army into Yelang. He presented the marquis of Yelang with generous gifts while intimidating him with stories about the Han Dynasty’s might. The small towns in Yelang all coveted silk from the Han. The marquis considered the road between Yelang and China too perilous to be invaded by the Han, so he agreed to Tang Meng’s demand and let him send Han officials to Yelang. Tang Meng returned to the capital to report his success. In turn, the emperor established the commandery of Jianwei in the area and sent troops from Ba and Shu to build the road. The system of prefectures and counties was thus introduced. In his history, Sima Qian emphasizes the trade route connecting the Southwest and the outside world. He mentions that the people of Ba and Shu often crossed the frontier defenses set by the Han along the border of Shu to bring back horses from the state of Zuo, as well as slaves and yaks from the state of Bo. These unofficial trading activities brought great wealth to Ba and Shu. Sima Qian notes that the Southern Yue court treated Tang Meng with ju berry sauce brought from Shu. When Tang Meng inquired how it came through, he was told that “it was brought down the Tsang-ko [Zangke] River from the northwest. The Tsang-ko River is several li wide and flows past P’an-yü [Panyu], the capital of Southern Yüeh” (B. Watson, 1961, 2:291). Tang Meng questioned a merchant of Shu after he returned to Chang’an, and the merchant told him that “Shu is the only place that makes chü [ju] berry

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sauce. Large quantities of it are exported in secret to the markets of Yelang” (pp. 291–292). To concentrate its force against the Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty was generally lax about the management of the Southwest. The area surrounding Dian (currently Yunnan), however, attracted much attention. It was an area which had a prosperous economy. People in the area were proud, and the rulers of Dian and Yelang regarded the Han with little respect. What strategy and policy should the Han take toward the southwestern barbarians whose sphere of influence spread over a large area? Some officials suggested abandoning plans for developing the Southwest in order to defend the Northwest with full resources. Others argued for pacifying the Southwest by opening a new route and setting up administrative systems, because the Northwest would be easy to curb if the Southwest was stabilized. In the end, the expanding territory and strong might of the southwestern states alerted Emperor Wu. In turn, he raised an army from Ba and Shu to wipe out Southern Yue; forced the marquis of Yelang to pay his respects to Emperor Wu and to accept the title of king of Yelang bestowed by him; set up counties in Qiong, Zuo, Mang, and Baima; and compelled the king of Dian to surrender to the Han by accepting the title of king of Dian and adopting the Han administrative system. Stressing the art of imperial governance, Sima Qian discusses the Han strategy of “divide and conquer” (fen er zhizhi): At the founding of the Chou [Zhou] dynasty, one of them [the ancestors of Chu] served as a general under King Wen and his descendants were enfeoffed in Ch’u [Chu]. Even when the glory of the Chou had waned, the state of Ch’u still boasted an area of five thousand li. The Ch’in [Qin] dynasty wiped out all of the other feudal families; only the descendants of Ch’u continued to rule as kings of Tien [Dian]. (B. Watson, 1961, 2:296)

In other words, the Southwest “frontier problem” during the Han was in fact rooted in Zhou “feudalism.” Sima Qian’s chapter shows that the Han did not apply an “extermination policy” towards the southwestern barbarians, but a combination of feudalism and imperial centralization. When modern ethnologists began to study the Southwest, they only paid attention to the classification of the “barbarians” and ignored the complicated political relationship between the empire and its

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“periphery.” Sima Qian’s “Account of the Southwestern Barbarians” is useful for our understanding of the “intermediary.” He talks about the ludicrous pride of the southwestern barbarians, but also shows that such mentality was well grounded in reality. On the one hand, the existence of numerous “chiefs” proves that the extension of imperial sovereignty was greatly hindered in this area. On the other hand, the system of chiefdom did not mean that the area was isolated from the outside world. Quite to the contrary, the southwestern barbarians maintained close political, economic, and cultural ties with Chu and Yue in the East, as well as with India in the “South.” From the Han perspective, the “chiefs” were scattered within an “intermediary region”—between the “inner” and the “outer.” The situation of the Southwest that Sima Qian describes is similar to the history that Edmund Leach mentions in his book, Political Systems of Highland Burma. Leach (1954) talks about the historical relations between highland Burma and the larger region: One of the facts that can be taken as established for certain is that the Chinese were familiar with various routes from Yunnan to India as early as the first century A.D. We can not be quite certain what these routes were, but, since there are only a very limited number of passes through the main mountain ranges, routes cannot have differed very greatly from those we know of today. It is not unreasonable to see the original Shan colonisation of the river valleys as a process associated with the maintenance of these trade routes. There is evidence that communications were maintained by establishing a series of small military garrisons at suitable staging posts along the route. These garrisons would have had to maintain themselves and would therefore need to be sited in a terrain suitable for rice cultivation. The settlement thus formed would provide the nucleus of an area of sophisticated culture which would develop in time into a Shan type petty state. (p. 38)

According to Leach, most groups which settled in highland Burma were tribesmen. The existence of routes from China to India resulted in a complex of local cultures. “The extent to which any particular state would develop would be conditioned by local circumstances,” and the scale of polity and the establishment of a state did not guarantee the transformation of society from tribal to more sophisticated forms (pp. 38–39). The Kachin type of social system remained highly unstable

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compared to the Shan type, and this contrast continued for a long period (p. 40). From Sima Qian to Leach, ethnological accounts state that the so-called “southwestern barbarians” are components belonging to a larger zone between the Chinese and the Indian civilizations that have existed for two thousand years. This zone has two features: habitation (ju), which involves a history of indigenous people’s maintenance of “prototypical” settlement patterns against the tides of civilization; and hybridity (you), which refers to the process through which local societies become sophisticated by contact with the people and materials which flow along ancient trading routes. Leach has insightfully observed the paradox within the “habitation-hybridity” pattern: the settling society of the Kachin type became highly unstable because of the external impact of the migrating Shan (due to the opening and maintaining of the ancient routes). On the contrary, the political organizations of different scales of hybrid development could be relatively stable because of the emergence of a judicial system.

The Southern Sea During the Han and Wei periods, China was connected to India not only by land but also by sea. Fa-hsien’s journeys combined both a land route and a sea route. Fa-hsien went through the Western Territories to India. He returned by sea. Attempting to connect the “Western Heaven” with the “illusionary geography” of the East, Fa-hsien started off from Chang’an, arrived in the middle of India after six years, stayed there for another six years, and returned to Qingchou [Qingzhou] after three years. He visited around thirty countries, among which the Sand River was west of Tianzhu [India], where the solemnity of the monks and the majesty of Buddhism were never known to the monks in China. Seeing this, Fa-hsien decided to make the trip back at any cost in order to publicize what he saw. Thanks to the grand Buddha, he floated on the sea and met many difficulties but finally got back. (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], p. 27)

He stayed in the “Country of Lions” (Sri Lanka) for two years,1 “and obtained a copy of the Rules of the Mahisasakas. He also procured a copy of the Dirghagama, the Samyuktagama, and the Sannipata, all of

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which were unknown in China” (Y. Li, 1957, p. 87). After he got all the valuable scriptures, he returned to China by ship. Fa-hsien’s return journey was recorded in A Record of the Buddhist Countries: Having obtained these Sanskrit books, he set sail on a large merchant ship which carried about two hundred passengers. A small boat trailed behind, for use in case the large vessel should be wrecked, as sailing on this sea was most hazardous. They had sailed eastward with a fair wind for two days only, when they were caught up in a typhoon and the ship sprang a leak, through which the water rushed in. The merchants wanted to take to the smaller boat; but the men in it had already severed the cable, for fear lest they be swamped. Then the terrified merchants believed their end was at hand, and in an endeavour to stop the ship from sinking they threw their coarser merchandise into the sea. Fa-hsien also cast overboard his pitcher, wash-basin and some other possessions. Afraid that the merchants would throw his sacred books and drawings of images into the sea, he, invoked Avalokite vara in all sincerity, as well as the monks of China who had embraced the faith. “I have come so far to search for the Law,” he prayed. “Carry me back with your spiritual power to my destination!” The hurricane lasted for thirteen days and nights, but finally they reached the shore of an island. When the tide ebbed, they found the leak and repaired it, then sailed on again. The sea was infested with pirates, and none who meet them can escape alive. The great ocean stretches on every side without end, and one cannot tell east from west. Only by looking at the sun, the moon and the stars, can mariners tell their direction. On dull or rainy days, their vessel simply drifted before the wind. On dark nights, all they could see were great billows beating one against the other and shining like fire, with huge turtles, sea monsters and other amazing creatures in them. The bewildered seamen did not know in what direction they were sailing, but since the ocean was unfathomable there was nowhere to cast anchor; so not until the weather cleared could they distinguish the direction and set the right course. Had they happened to strike a reef, they would have been lost. After voyaging in this way for about ninety days, they reached the country call Yavadvipa. In this country heretical Brahmanism flourishes, and there are very few

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Buddhists. After staying here for five months, Fa-hsien embarked on another great merchant ship which also carried about two hundred men. They provided themselves with fifty days’ provisions and set sail on the sixteenth day of the fourth month. Fa-hsien observed the summer retirement on board this vessel, which sailed towards the northeast, bound for Kwangchow [Guangzhou]. After sailing for about one month, at the second watch one night it suddenly blew a black squall, and the rain pelted down. Sailors and passengers alike were terror-struck. Once more Fa-hsien in all sincerity invoked Avalokite vara and the monks in China, and thanks to their protection he was able to live through that night. When day broke, the Brahmans took counsel together. “It is because we have a Buddhist monk on board,” they said, “that we have been so unlucky and suffered so many hardships. We should put him ashore on an island. Why should we risk our lives for the sake of one man?” Then Fa-hsien’s patron spoke up. “If you want to put this monk ashore,” he said, “you will have to put me ashore too, or kill me first. If you leave him on an island, I shall certainly report it to the king when I arrive in China. And you know the king of China also believes in Buddhism and respects monks.” On hearing this, the merchants hesitated, and did not dare to set Fa-hsien ashore. Owing to the continuous rain, the pilot charted a wrong course. Thus they sailed for more than seventy days till their provisions and water were nearly exhausted. They had to use salt water from the sea for cooking, and each man’s ration of fresh water was two pints. Soon the fresh water was nearly used up, and the seamen took counsel together. “Usually,” they said, “it takes only fifty days to reach Kwangchow. But we have been sailing now for many more days than that. We must have been off our course.” So they steered towards the northwest to look for land. After twelve days and nights, they landed at the southern shore of Laoshan in Changkuang [Changguang] Prefecture, where they obtained good water and vegetables. After so many dangerous and difficult days accompanied

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by so much anxiety and fear, at last they had reached the shore where, seeing the li hao [sic] [lihuo], they knew that they were in China! They did not know their precise whereabouts, however, for they saw neither inhabitants nor any trace of man. Some said that they had not yet reached Kwangchow, others that they must have passed it, but no one knew exactly where they were. Accordingly, some sailors rowed into the harbour in the small boat to look for someone to tell them what place this was. They brought back two hunters to the ship and asked Fa-hsien to act as an interpreter. Having reassured the hunters, he questioned them slowly. “Who are you?” he asked. “We are Buddhists,” they replied. “What are you looking for in these mountains?” “Since tomorrow is the fifteenth day of the seventh month, we are trying to find some peaches to offer to Buddha.” “What country is this?” “This is Changkuang Prefecture in Chingchow [Qingzhou]. It is under the rule of the House of Liu.” When the merchants heard this, they were delighted, and they begged some men to send their goods to Changkuang. Upon learning that a monk had arrived from across the sea with sacred books and images, Li Yi, the prefect of Changkuang who was a Buddhist himself, sent men to the shore to carry the scriptures and images to the prefectural city. Then the merchants returned to Yangchow [Yangzhou]. Meanwhile Liu Tao-lien [Liu Daolian] had arrived at Chingchow, and he entertained Fa-hsien for a winter and a summer. After the summer retirement, Fa-hsien, who had long been away from his fellow monks, desired to return to Changan [Chang’an]; but since his business was of such importance, he traveled southward to Chienkang [Jiankang], the southern capital, where he met a fellow monk to whom he showed the books of monastic discipline. (Y. Li, 1957, pp. 87–92)

The narrative of Fa-hsien’s return journey is a story of several “characters” interacting on the ship. These “characters” are: 1. Fa-hsien; 2. sacred books and drawings of images that Fa-hsien never gave up;

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3. the dangerous sea; 4. the traders, Brahmans, and other monks on board. These four categories can be again classified into two types: 1. humans: Fa-hsien and others (the traders, Brahmans, and other monks); 2. things: sacred books and drawings of images and the seas and oceans. Fa-hsien claimed that he recorded what he witnessed and experienced to “make what he heard and saw known to all the other sages in China.” On his way home, Fa-hsien fought against “vulgar men” (including the traders and Brahmans) throughout the journey with the help of the Buddhism and showed his sincere faith in Buddhism. Even though he traveled from the West to the East on the same boat as these “vulgar men,” they had very different intentions. The traders traveled for profit, and the Brahmans for their own well-being. By contrast, Fa-hsien (and other anonymous monks accompanying him) traveled to glorify the “authentic Buddhism spirit” by way of fetching “authentic things” (such as the sacred books and drawings of images that he collected in India) from the West. Those who took the transcendant Buddhism spirit as their other, such as those “vulgar men” who pursued only their own well-being, mirrored each other and pushed the story to another level. A battle was fought between two types of things—the sacred books and drawings of images, and the seas and oceans. From the perspective of the “vulgar men,” no matter how deeply these sacred objects were related to Buddhism, they were a burden when the sea threatened human life. From the perspective of the eminent monk, the books and drawings were the carrier of the spirit of Buddhism. Since human life is composed of body and spirit, and spirit is the essence of life, to protect the carrier of the Buddhist spirit is to protect human life, because human life ends with the end of spirit rather than that of the body. Moreover, for the eminent monk, the body is merely a grain of sand floating in the Sand River. Its vitality comes from spirit, so that the meaning of life safeguards the transcendence of Buddhism, and the value of body is to be devoted to spirit. Through the protection of Buddhist “things” and the communication with Buddha, humans gain

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the chance to survive in dangerous situations. This invisible power functioned throughout the journey to insure the safety of the ship against the threat of the sea. After Fa-hsien had successfully crossed the sand and reached the “Land of Truth,” India, he had to drink sea water on his way home— the place he tried to redeem spiritually. The departure and the return of this determined, or even predestined, monk, changed the sense of direction that had prevailed throughout the Qin and Han dynasties. The emperors of Qin and Han searched for the medicine of immortality in the East and in turn made the East an efficacious holy direction. However, Fa-hsien went West in his pursuit of authentic Buddhism, and through his travels revitalized the divinity of the West. Contrary to the Qin-Han magicians, astronomers, and Confucians who were sent out by the emperor from the West to the East to find “the elixir of life” in the Immortality Mountains, Fa-hsien returned from the West to the East via a sea route with the self-assigned mission of rescuing the Chinese world from chaos. In turn, the West signified the sacred direction while the East in which the Chinese monks lived was seen as the secular world. To have a faraway foreign country be considered a source of truth can be understood as the Buddhist shi’s attempt to reassert order amidst the chaos of the fragmented empire.2 The sense of direction was invested with much “illusionary geography,” but it drew from and reflected “realistic geography.” Fa-hsien not only investigated the spread of Buddhism along his journey to the West, but also compared the situations of the kingdoms in the Western Territories which were originally discovered in the “chiseling through” activities of the Han Dynasty. He described the Gupta Dynasty of India, Yutian, and Shanshan in detail. Such documents were scarce and precious in his time. Fa-hsien recorded religious and historic events. He documented the situations of local monks when passing through their countries. He even detailed the various traders’ relations with Buddhism. Fa-hsien’s records have a high value—they can be read as important contributions to the Chinese “realistic geography” of the world. Besides providing complementary data about Chinese knowledge of the Western Territories, Fa-hsien recorded a maritime route that connected South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. He stated that all manner of “vulgar persons,” such as traders and non-Buddhists, were traveling along the same route.

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Once knowledge in the category of “realistic geographies” was gained and transmitted, it resulted in unintended consequences. Fa-hsien’s pilgrimage led to the merging of the West with the East and South, as well as the connection between the land and the sea. Maritime explorations had begun in legendary travels to the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas in Qin and Han, and were further developed in the state of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period.3 Between the activities of Wu and Fa-hsien’s return, there was a time gap during which merchants active in the “grey economy” had mastered the knowledge of the maritime world. To make products and materials flow over the sea, they fabricated a maritime communication network among China, Southeast Asia, India, and Persia. The monks of Wei, Jin, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties built their pilgrimage roads around this communication network and sailed on ships owned by merchants. In turn, the records kept by monks such as Fa-hsien added more “realistic geographical” knowledge to what was available and objectively facilitated further development of commerce. During “the second phase of unification and peace” (Sui and Tang), the agricultural centers moved to the South. In the meantime, Chinese knowledge about the sea and places overseas accumulated further. The power of the interlopers on the sea (the merchants and monks both) grew so fast that maritime activities were banned by the court.4 As Shi Nianhai (1988) puts it, during Sui and Tang, “knowledge of foreign areas among the people of the Central Plains was well-rounded. It ranged from locations of mountains and rivers, to populations and military power, to customs and cultures. Even seemingly trivial information, such as that of local products, was also recorded and reported in detail” (p. 105). Soon after Emperor Yang of Sui was enthroned, he began to recruit “those who can make contact with remote places (foreign countries),” as had Zhang Qian, Ban Chao, and Gan Ying. He thought of these men as those who had the ability to reach the end of the world. For the Huaxia people in ancient times, the phrase “remote place” referred to Kunlun in the West. For people in the Han Dynasty, it meant the East, or the area near the isles in the sea where Earth and Heaven could supposedly connect. Between Eastern Han and Sui, the discovery of the overseas regions changed the legends of the Immortality Mountains and reoriented the “remote place” to the Western

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Heaven (India). As a result, the Sui court planned to send envoys via the sea route. In the beginning of the seventh century, Chang Jun, the minister in charge of agriculture, was sent to establish tributary relationships with overseas countries by giving out gifts. Chang Jun started from Luoyang on a mission to the “Country of the Red Earth” (probably Kelantan or Pahang state in the Malay Peninsula, or Songkhla and Pattani provinces in southern Thailand). They arrived at Guangzhou first and then took a boat. Arriving in the “Country of the Red Earth,” they were welcomed by the Brahman Kum raj va and his large imperial fleet of more than thirty boats and were feted ceremonially by the local king. Giving and taking gifts were the main activities (Z. Wei, 1973 [636], 6:1832). In the “Treatise of the Southern Barbarians” in Sui Shu, the encounter between the Sui imperial embassy and local kingdom is vividly described: After more than a month, Chang Jun arrived at the capital (of the Country of Red Earth). The king sent Prince Na-ya-jia to meet with Chang Jun. The prince ordered servants to send a golden basin with fragrant flowers in it, cleaning tools such as a mirror and tweezers, two golden boxes of fragrant oils, eight golden bottles of perfume, and four folded white towels for Chang Jun and his assistants to take a bath. In the afternoon, the prince rode on two elephants under a peacock feather canopy and took the letter of invitation from the king on a golden plate [decorated] with golden flowers. Meanwhile, a hundred men and women were playing drums in the surrounding [areas]. With two Brahmans guiding the way, Chang Jun arrived at the imperial palace. Chang Jun read the diplomatic letter from the emperor of Sui in the court and the king listened to it on his knees. After reading, Chang Jun seated himself. The king ordered Indian style music to be played. After the meeting with the king, Chang Jun returned to his room. The prince ordered a Brahman to send food to his room. The food was placed on a huge leaf. The Brahman told Chang Jun, “You are from the grand [state of] China, not from our little country. The food here is coarse. I hope you can enjoy [it].” Later, Chang Jun was invited to the court several times, and every time he was received in the same ceremonious manner as the first time. There were two big divans in front of the king. On the divans were huge leaves with yellow, white, purple and red colored candies, and hundreds [of kinds] of meats such as beef, mutton, fish, turtle, pork, and hawksbill turtle meat. Chang Jun was invited to sit at the table, and his assistants sat on the floor with golden cups of wine.

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The ladies were dancing to the music. The prince paid tribute to Chang, giving him a golden throne and camphor. The prince wrote to the emperor of Sui on the golden leaves and sealed it in a golden envelope. Then the prince ordered the Brahman to play the drum. (Z. Wei, 1973 [636], 6:1832)

In the Sui and Tang, “to take Tianxia as [the court’s] own responsibility” (yi Tianxia wei jiren), to re-constitute tributary relationships with “remote places,” and to include “foreign countries” into the hierarchy of empire were the official purposes of what is now called “maritime communications” (haiwai jiaotong). With the expansion of the empire, “the West” in “illusionary geography” was gradually combined with the direction of the sea which was itself conditioned by the empire’s pursuit of “realistic geography.”5 The re-established imperial tributary system allowed more and more non-Huaxia peoples and cultures6 into the Central Kingdom, and encouraged more and more outward-bound religious travel. In such an imperial situation, the monk Yijing made his journey to the West, while the monk Jianzhen traveled to the East. They marked a transition in the sense of direction. Yijing, with the family name of Zhang, was from Qizhou (now Licheng in Shandong). He was initiated as a monk at the age of fourteen. He decided to travel to India to obtain authentic Buddhist scriptures at the age of thirty-six. According to the Tales of the Hierarchs Searching for Buddhist Scripture in the Western Territories of the Tang Dynasty, Yijing started his journey in the second year of Xianheng (A.D. 671). At that time, Tubo (ancient Tibet) had the power to block the land route which allowed for China’s communication with the West. Therefore, Yijing had to take the maritime route. Yijing went by sea to Yangzhou. In the autumn of the second year of his travel, he boarded a Persian merchant’s boat in Guangzhou and went south, arriving at Sumatra. With the help of the king of Sumatra, he went on to the western coast of Malaysia. Then he continued west, heading for India. After having passed through many countries, he arrived in India and stayed in N land Temple for ten years. In the first year of Guangzhai (A.D. 684), Yijing took 500,000 copies of Sanskrit sutras with him and set out on his return journey. On his way back, he passed through Sumatra and decided to stay there for four years and translate the sutras. Around the third year of Tianshou (A.D. 692), he left for

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Guangzhou, arriving at Luoyang in the first year of Zhengsheng (A.D. 695) where he was ceremoniously received by the ruling empress, Wu Zetian, at the Upper East Gate of the city. Yijing had spent twenty-five years and visited more than thirty countries and brought back 400 sets of sutras, Vinaya, and Sastra (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], pp. 49–50). Yijing traveled to import the truth of Buddhism into China. Soon after, China began to export Buddhism. Jianzhen, surnamed Chunyu, was from Yangzhou. He became a monk at the age of fourteen, underwent the grand ritual of abstinence at the age of eighteen, and went back to the Great Bright Temple (Damingsi) in Yangzhou as its abbot at the age of twenty-seven. He devoted himself to the promotion of Buddhism. In the first year of Tianbao (A.D. 742), two Japanese scholar-monks, Y oer and Fush , went to the Great Bright Temple, asking for recommendation of an eminent monk to “travel Eastward to teach Buddhism.” At that time, Jianzhen was already fifty-five years old, but he still accepted the invitation and set out for Japan six times. Five out of his six attempts failed. Only on the sixth attempt did he finally arrive at Japan. In the twelfth year of Tianbao (A.D. 753) Jianzhen, accompanied by twenty-three people, arrived at Akimeya in Ata district (present-day Kagoshima prefecture) on the twentieth of the twelfth lunar month after traveling for over a month. He was then brought to Dazaifu by Master Enkei. After this, he went to Nara, where he stayed in T daiji (the Eastern Great Temple) of Anju and held the grand ritual of abstinence for the retired Emperor Sh mu, his wife (former Empress K my ), and the reigning Empress, K ken. He then performed the ritual of abstinence for Sh sh and another 440 novices as well as for Ry fuku, D en, Ninki, and some other eighty monks who had been ordained under the old system. Jianzhen initiated the religious ritual of abstinence as performed on the ordinational platform in Japan. These legendary Buddhist monks, Yijing and Jianzhen, who successively journeyed to the West and to the East, re-defined the East and the West. They traveled in opposite directions with different purposes. Yijing, who went to India to fetch authentic Buddhist scriptures, remained a sage of the old ideal—the Occidentalism of the Western Heaven. Jianzhen visited Japan by the invitation of Japanese monks and marked a great transformation in directionology. By the Tang Dynasty, China had become the center of the Buddhist world, spreading

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Buddhism to the East. Yijing traveled to the West by sea, partly because the tensions among “ethnic groups” in the Western Territories blocked the overland Silk Road, and partly because the maritime route had already opened up. It was no accident that Yijing took a Persian merchant boat. In Yijing’s time, Persian and Arabic forces had created a “world system”— a maritime route linking Europe, Africa, the Islamic world, Southeast Asia, and China. This system extended its scope to cover southern China. Commerce along the route was highly prosperous. Gradually, the maritime route replaced the land route. Trade and commerce flourished along the “Islamic corridor on the sea.” In the Tang Dynasty, the court set up a Maritime Trade Supervisorate (Shi Bo Si) in Guangzhou to receive the Persians and Arabs and to levy taxes on overseas trade. Yijing traveled west along this “corridor.” For him, the “remote place” in the West remained the wonderland of India, but the maritime route brought another “West” into view—a West referring to the Islamic world, and its Extreme West referring to Europe. Following Yijing but going east, Jianzhen faced another dilemma concerning direction. Japan, the country to the east of the Central Kingdom, should have been related to the Immortality Mountains of Penglai, but with the growth of Tang civilization, the Central Kingdom had become “holy” to the Japanese. Japan, the eastern end of the East, was so attracted to Tang as to consider it the source of Buddhism. To spread Buddhism to Japan was what Jianzhen was “invited” to do. Eastward journeys such as Jianzhen’s induced a great “confusion” in Chinese directionology. Somehow Tang, which treated India as the West, had itself become “the West” to another part of the East—Japan. As China became the source of Japanese Buddhism, Chinese “enthusiasm over India” became less intense (M. Qian, 1994 [1948], p. 206). Gradually, the previous East-West division was applied to the directionology of the indivisible sea. As Feng Chengjun pointed out decades ago, the division of the “Eastern Ocean” (Dongyang) and “Western Ocean” (Xiyang), which since the mid-nineteenth century have referred respectively to the advanced civilizations of Europe and Japan, first appeared in The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles (Daoyi Zhilüe). The division became prevalent in the Ming Dynasty. But during Yuan and Ming, between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, “Western Ocean” and “Eastern Ocean” were still closely related to India. The

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Western Ocean referred to the ocean to the west of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. In this division, the Indian continent belonged to the Western Ocean, but the eastern coast of India belonged to the Eastern Ocean. In the past, the Arabians also took this line as the division of India and China. In fact, the original demarcation between Eastern and Western Oceans was drawn with the concern of getting to, and coming back from, India. As Feng also noted, prior to the thirteenth century these two oceans were called “Southern Sea” (Nanhai) or “Southwestern Sea” (Xi’nan Hai) (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], p. 1]. To clarify, Feng’s argument implies the following: 1. Prior to the Yuan Dynasty, the division between the Eastern and Western Oceans was related to the division of India and China. This division was not only a result of the contrast between the sacred West and secular East, but also a separation of East Asian and South Asian regions paradoxically induced by the maritime route of communication paved by the Persian-Arabian “world system.” Nonetheless, before Chinese geographers had developed new terminologies of “East Ocean” and “West Ocean,” such division and separation were not clear. In the Chinese archives compiled before Yuan, the East and West on the sea were together called the “Southern Sea” or “Southwestern Sea.” 2. The division between the Eastern and Western Oceans first appeared in The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles, compiled during the Yuan.7 3. Yuan divisions of oceans were not widely accepted until Ming. In Ming, the Western Ocean referred to the area to the west of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, which is present-day India. The area to the east of the line was the Eastern Ocean. The critical transition thus occurred during the Yuan. The “social structure” of the Mongol-ruled Yuan was founded upon a four-fold racial class divisions of Mongols, Semu (mainly Persians and Arabs), Northern Han, and Southern Han. To a great extent, such social restructuring reversed the hierarchical order of the concentric squares of Chinese civilization. The Chinese shi contributed a great deal to the Sinification of the “barbarian” empire and a great number of “men of letters,” merchants, and officials from the Western Territories became “Sinified” (Y. Chen, 2006 [1923]). However, the

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“progressive adaptation to Chinese institutions did not prevent the Mongols from remaining distrustful of former Chinese officials” (Gernet, 1982, p. 368). In terms of “official religion,” Tibetan Buddhism took the place of Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism (Lattimore, 1967, pp. 81–86). As for political organization, “posts of command were kept for Mongols and the administration of the finances was entrusted to men from the Islamic areas of central Asia and the Middle East. Moslem merchants, grouped in associations known as ortaq, practically acquired a monopoly in the profitable business of collecting taxes, in which they were assisted by Mongol military detachments” (Gernet, 1982, p. 368). The eastern reach of the Islamic world system had covered a part of China long before the Mongol conquest. But its great expansion in the Far East was bound up with the “entrusting” of positions of influence in the Yuan to Moslems by the Mongols. The East-West distinction as applied to the ocean appeared in Yuan and was inseparable from the upsurge of the Moslem traders. The Moslem traders should not be mistaken as the inventors of this East-West differentiation. As previously mentioned, the original division had been designated to map the sea between China and India. Nonetheless, it is likely that the Moslem traders, who were just as capable of classification as the Christians, turned the vague divisions between the East and the West into a clear line. Since the time Fa-hsien wrote his autobiographic travelogue, tensions between “the universal kindliness of Buddhism” and the Moslem “incapab[ility] of tolerating the existence of others as others” (Lévi-Strauss, 1997, p. 493), had been a core issue among those who traveled along the maritime route between China and India. If we may say that the idea of the “Southern Sea,” which was prevalent in the long period of Chinese Buddhism prior to Yuan, was more or less a Buddhist derivative, then we can say that the emergence of the EastWest dualism in Chinese “maritime geography” was made possible in Chinese travelers such as Wang Dayuan who were obviously influenced by the Moslem classifications. Neither the “Western Ocean” nor the “Eastern Ocean” had clear definitions until the mid-nineteenth century. Although the Yuan EastWest dualism had become prevalent by the Ming Dynasty, different definitions were applied in different documents. Ma Huan, who

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accompanied Zheng He to sail the world, wrote about the division of the Western Ocean and Eastern Ocean in his Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (Yingya Shenglan). Yet, he defined it as a short line running between the Northwest of Sumatra Island and Java.8 From the “Southern Sea” (“Southwestern Sea” before the Yuan Dynasty) to the “Western Ocean” in the Yuan and Ming periods, Chinese concerns were centered around India. The self-chosen “spiritual subordination” of the monk-sages from the Central Kingdom to India, and the role of the Persians in “international trade” between India and China were undoubtedly two rival “mental forces” that affected the pattern of history of “maritime communication.” The image of the “Western Ocean” was never separated from India and thus never related to the world of the Moslem traders. It was instead always part of another image, that of the “archaic” “Southern Ocean.” Before any notions of a “Western Ocean” were developed, the Central Kingdom had experienced a great change in directionology during the middle of the Tang Dynasty. Before the An Lushan Rebellion (A.D. 755–763), the world-scape was a theory of “round Heavensquare Earth” and “the four directions.” As discussed earlier, in this system of directions the contrast between the East and the West was emphasized. After Eastern Han, the contrast between the East and the West gradually changed. The An Lushan Rebellion9 was a transitional point, turning the original contrast between East and West into that of South and North. When the Central Plains fell into further chaos, more migration of shi and gentry families to the South took place. The South further prospered. The Northerners in the South gradually formed their cultural identity in relation to the South. Looking into the distance, they considered themselves as the whole of Huaxia, and saw the North as the land of the barbarians. As documented in history, the “Western Ocean” of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties was called the “Southern Ocean” or the “Southwestern Ocean” just because the Northern noble families were “Southernized.”

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SEVEN

Beyond the Seas: Other Kingdoms and Other Materials

“Pre-modern” Chinese historians related what is seen by their

modern counterparts as the re-centering of “key economic areas” with the oscillations of “order and chaos” (zhiluan). This pair of concepts, as Liang Qichao (1998 [1921–1926], pp. 137–144) pointed out long ago, formed a kind of temporality, neither cyclic nor linear; it was applied in traditional historiography to compare different dynasties and reigns from ethical and political standpoints. In these “order and chaos” historical narratives, history was a sequence of constant inversions constrained by the pentological framework of “quarters surrounding the center.” Partly following this “native line,” and partly following its modern reifications in the works of Fu Sinian, Gu Jiegang, and Ji Chaoding, I have sought in the previous chapters to recast the pasts of China. In the early imperial period of Qin and Han, the Central Kingdom turned away from the Westernism of Kunlun and faced itself toward the Easternism of the Immortality Mountains. However, in the phase of partition or “chaos,” Chinese Westernism regained its vitality. India as the West became a sacred direction, and in some areas (such as the Southwest) the imaginary of Buddha became mixed with that of Xi Wangmu. No matter whether the re-orientation of the “Western Heaven” was a reaction to the rigidity of imperial bureaucracy or a response to the hardships induced by partition, it added a Buddhist dimension to the religious life of the Chinese. By the eighth century at the latest,

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Buddhism had become mixed with popular Confucian ethical principles such as filial piety (xiao) (Teiser, 1988). The long-term result of this fusion of religious civilizations was, as Granet (1975) observed, In a courtyard next to yours you hear a Buddhist mass being sung for a dead man: do not imagine that the dead man had faith in the Buddha or that someone among his kin is a Buddhist, or even that the family is more or less vaguely tied to the Buddhist faith by its traditions. You will soon hear the music and voices of a Taoist [Daoist] mass and, if your neighbours are the sort of people who do things on a grand scale, bonzes and tao-shih [daoshi] will take turns at their masses night and day. When the moment comes to dot the dead man’s tablet, it is a literatus who will be called in. The service asked of him is a religious service, quite different from that which we ask of a scholar in giving him the task of composing an epitaph. His stroke of the writing brush will give the tablet all that makes it a sacred object and the centre of the ancestor cult. It all happens as though the literatus, acting in the name of the body of officials, in the name of the State, authorized the family to possess an Ancestor. At the very moment when he makes the dot he is, we might say, a priest; the moment after, he is nothing but a layman: his position in society, it is true, makes him at all times respectable, but nothing would be more deprived of sense than to consider the body of literati as a clergy. (pp. 144–145)

Beginning as early as in A.D. 25, one further pair of directionological concepts came to influence Chinese conceptualizations of history and geography—the North and the South. Ji Chaoding (1936), who explained the emergence of the North-South dualism in terms of the post-Han movement of key economic areas from the North to the South, deliberately or unconsciously played down the directionology he in fact applied. Many “pre-modern” Chinese historians described this shift as the southward movement of civilization. In their eyes, during the age of partition, the “Central Plain” (zhongyuan) was “chaotic”; its “original peace” was disrupted by the invading “Northern barbarians.” Because of that, many of the aristocratic (jinshen) and shi families were pushed South. The kind of migration was called yiguan nandu. The phrase was a vivid description of how the aristocrats and shi in their good “hats and clothes” crossed the river and went South. This movement of the “civilized classes” to the South took place mainly in two periods of “chaos”—that of Yongjia (Yongjia zhi luan) and that of Anshi (Anshi

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zhi luan, or An Lushan Rebellion). The former occurred in A.D. 311, beginning in the Xiongnu seizure of the Chinese capital of Luoyang, while the latter refers to the eight years of unrest between A.D. 755 and 763 and was caused by the rebellions of Tang generals. Both events resulted in large-scale southward migration by aristocratic and shi families (Ge, 2002). The southward shift of the center surely meant the re-assertion of the imperial apparatuses and civic forms in each of the towns established in the “frontiers” by the joint efforts of the imperial government and newly settled shi. But it also meant something else: a renewed NeoDaoist romanticism. It was during this period of the “Southerning” of civilization that tea—a very “Chinese” kind of drink—became what expressed the oneness of the good person and good nature. Previously, such oneness was associated with mountains and rivers. Tea began to be used during the Three Kingdoms in the Southeast in guest rituals (X. Jiang, 2009 [1943]). By Tang, tea-drinking had changed into a stylized ceremony, serving to gather together the “men of letters” in certain “symposia.” In today’s China, Lu Yu (d. 804), the author of the monumental Classic of Tea (Cha Jing), is still commemorated as the “Sage of Tea” (cha sheng). The dynastic history of Tang discusses Lu Yu in its “Biographies of the Hermits” (Yinyi zhuan). The biography of Lu Yu is quite short. It says that he was “born out of ‘unknown parents’” (buzhi suo sheng) in present-day Hebei. As an orphan, he was almost as autochthonic as the classical mythical king of Shang. He was raised by a Buddhist monk who accidentally picked him up on the bank of a river. In his youth, he trained himself by reading the Classic of Changes (I Ching [Yijing]) and became a self-educated astronomer and magician (wu). Lu Yu spent his childhood in the Dragon Cloud Temple, where he learnt Buddhism. Ji Gong, the senior monk who raised him, advised him to take the monastic robe, but Lu Yu refused. He chose to stay a servitor in the temple. Later, he became known to the court for his talents. The court sought to recruit him, but Lu Yu rejected the offer. To escape the heavy labor assigned to him by Ji Gong, Lu Yu ran away and joined an operatic troupe, where he took on the role of clown. At age fourteen, Lu Yu was discovered by the local governor Li Qiwu,

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who offered Lu Yu the use of his library and the opportunity to study with a master. After having completed his studies, Lu Yu lived as a “wandering scholar” (youshi). During the An Lushan Rebellion, Lu Yu retired to Shaoqi (now Wuxing County, Zhejiang). Deeply attracted to its scenic beauty and fine academic environment, Lu Yu made a long sojourn there. By Tang, Huzhou had become one of the several places where numerous scholars gathered to meditate on the beautiful mountains and plants. It was also where tribute tea for the court of the Wu Kingdom was produced. Whenever time permitted, Lu Yu would often go to the countryside to gather tea leaves and herbs. Legend has it that Lu Yu found Huzhou quite attractive, and it was there that he advanced his art of tea. In one of the trips he made to the countryside, Lu Yu came across an extremely clear and clean spring. Lu Yu brewed tea with water from this spring and found that the tea would usually taste good. From then on, Lu Yu realized the importance of water quality in brewing tea. Lu Yu made friends with many literati in Huzhou, including the calligrapher Yan Zhenqing and the poet Huangpu Zheng, whose inspiration and encouragement were important to the completion of his Classic of Tea (Jiang, 2009 [1943], pp. 107–109). Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea (2009 [760]), the earliest treatise on tea in the world, is divided into ten chapters. The main bulk describes tea tools, manufacture, history, and the regional diversity of tea production. The first chapter is written in a more theoretical manner; Lu Yu expounds on the mythological origins and etymological implications of tea. For Lu Yu, tea symbolized the harmonious and mysterious unity of the universe. Mirroring his own character, tea blended different streams of religious thought—Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian. This synthesis was correlated to the scenic beauty and the congregation of the shi in the Shaoqi countryside, where mountains and trees formed the “natural intermediary” between the wild and the civilized. Lu Yu saw the natural products of the mountains—tea and spring water, for instance—as themselves expressions of the hermits’ union with nature.1 As Lu Yu (2009 [760]) puts it: In most cases, tea plants which grow naturally in their wild habitat are in better condition than those cultivated in gardens.… The refreshing nature

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of tea makes it a good choice of beverage. It is especially suitable for people who are virtuous in nature and content with a simple life. (pp. 6–7)

Two critical episodes of the history of tea unfolded within the first cycle of partition and reunification, which, as Ji Chaoding defines it, was “the first phase of splits and struggles” (including the Three Kingdoms, the Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties) and within “the second phase of splits and struggles” as well as “the second phase of unification and peace” (including the Sui and Tang dynasties). The Three Kingdoms and the unified empire of Tang were radically different, but to hermits such as Lu Yu, they were similar periods of disorder: both Wu and Shu’s Southern resistance to the “unsuitable unification project” of Cao Cao in the North, and Lu Yu’s Southerncentric perspective of universal civilization, as contrasted with the chaos of the An Lushan Rebellion in the North both made the South the center of civilization, and the opposite of the politicians in the North. However, the South, as the new center of civilization, referred not only to places like Huzhou and Hangzhou, but also to those kingdoms surrounding the South Sea (Nanyang). In this case, it was more ambiguously significant. As I have indicated, starting from Fa-hsien’s journey to the West, the South was associated with maritime linkages which differentiated India from China and in turn related them. The ambiguity of the South in such a context could be seen in its synthesis of religiosity and colonialization. In The Southern Expansion of the Chinese people, C. P. FitzGerald (1972) argues that the expansion of the Central Kingdom into the countries surrounding the “South Sea” (Nanhai) took two major forms: pilgrimages to India and state-organized or spontaneous migration. Fa-hsien’s return trip from India and Yijing’s pilgrimage to India via maritime routes were two classical examples of maritime sacred passages. Regarding the “colonialization” aspect, the South Sea was bound up with the Chinese discovery of the maritime world. Many historians have associated this primarily with Zheng He, the great Ming eunuch who led seven voyages “down to the Western Ocean” (xia Xiyang), from the third year of the Yongle reign (A.D. 1405) to the eighth year of the Xuande reign (A.D. 1433).2 Yet in fact, the maritime world had started to become important to Tianxia as early as the latter

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part of Tang. In the eighth century, the East-West dualism was not applied to the oceans related to the East. The division between the East Ocean and the West Ocean remained Buddhist. It continued to be used to describe the maritime spaces surrounding the Buddhist world. Hence, the division was perceived as trivial when seen against the more traditional perspective of the “Southern Sea.”3

Maritime Linkages In Fa-hsien’s travels, we have seen an episode of interactions on the sea between Persian traders and Chinese Buddhist monks. If the “maritime Silk Road” refers to a sea-based linkage between China and the outside world, then this had existed long before Yijing sailed through the South Sea to India. However, it is true that the dramatic increase in its importance had to do with the decline of the “continental Silk Road” in midTang. As is widely known, the most prosperous period of the “continental Silk Road” coincided with Tang’s “Golden Age” (shengshi). As Hopkirk (1980, p. 17) points out, though one of the oldest of “the world’s great highways,” the Silk Road as concept acquired its evocative name as recently as the nineteenth century, through the writings of German scholar Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. The Silk Road had several routes, along which gold and other valuable metals, woolen and linen textiles, ivory, coral, amber, precious stones, asbestos, and glass came from the West; and in turn silk, furs, ceramics, iron, lacquer, cinnamon bark, rhubarb, and bronze objects went westward. The Silk Road also carried another “commodity,” which was by far the most powerful—Buddhism, which revolutionized art and thought in East Asia (pp. 19–30). In the mid-Tang Dynasty, the Silk Road was a set of linkages that integrated a part of Europe (the Eastern Roman Empire), the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia into a panEurasian region. From the perspective of the Central Kingdom, the Silk Road’s heyday was around the Kaiyuan (A.D. 714–741) and Tianbao reigns (A.D. 742–756), when “Westernization” (Xihua) was popular in the capital city of Chang’an. As Xiang Da (2001 [1957]) describes this phenomenon:

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During the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns, the whole country was affluent and peaceful. Emperor Xuanzong used foreign equipages and entertainments to comfort and control the lords. He also employed many non-Han army commanders (fanjiang). Hence, crowds of foreign people rushed into Chang’an, leading the trend of “Westernization.” Fashions, food, buildings, dances, songs, paintings and so on were full of Western characteristics. Every aspect of social life changed subtly under this “Westernizing trend.” Those who followed this trend included the members of the imperial court and the aristocratic families. (p. 42)

Xiang Da states that “Emperor Xuanzong used foreign equipages and entertainments to comfort and control the lords.” This implies something subtly implicating: those who led the “Westernizing trend” were the “lords,” namely, the aristocratic families, who highly valued foreign products, artifacts, and performances, treating them as superior to local products. They marked their own “class distinctions” with symbols from afar. As the trend-leaders, the aristocratic families not only influenced the commoners but also affected the culture of the court. But the “Golden Age” did not last long. In early Tang, the “Western Territories” were not only occupied by nomads, but also “chiseled through” from the opposite direction as a result of the Central Kingdom’s Westernist orientation. They were also influenced by the Persian and Arab traders and partly occupied by tribes and chieftains that had adopted the great religions of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Much of the relationship between Tang and Xiyu affected Gao Xianzhi’s legacy. Gao’s father had been in command of Xiyu. Inheriting his father’s prowess at war, he became a general during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (A.D. 713–756). Gao Xianzhi took part in several military expeditions to conquer Xiyu. He and his troops went all the way to the Aral and Caspian Seas. In A.D. 751, he was promoted the commander of the Tang armed forces during the Battle of Talas, in which he fought against the Abbasid Caliphate. Gao Xianzhi and his troops fought bitterly for many days and were crushed; only several thousand survived out of the original 30,000 troops. The battle signaled the end of Chinese advances into Xiyu. Gao was then made a commanding general of the imperial guards (Bai, 2003, pp. 210–242). The defeat of Tang in Xiyu was followed by internal disorder. The Tang court, which implemented the “policy of peaceful kinship,” heavily relied on brave “barbarian army commanders” (fanjiang) like

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An Lushan. The “fusion” brought about by the alliance between the Emperor and the “barbarian” powers was a perfect method for extending the imperial horizon of Tang. But soon it induced a serious problem: the ascendance of the barbarians’ power within the court. Tang fell victim to domestic uprisings. These culminated in the famous An Lushan Rebellion. In A.D. 755, An Lushan, the military governor of Fanyang Circuit, rebelled against Emperor Xuanzong’s rule. In turn, Emperor Xuanzong commissioned his son Li Wan, the commander of the army, to fight against An. He then made Gao Xianzhi Li Wan’s deputy. Gao gathered 50,000 soldiers from the Chang’an region and made efforts to recruit more regiments. Embroiled in factional rivalry against another powerful general, Gao failed and was prosecuted by the Emperor. The court had by then lost control over the situation. In the end, it resorted to its “remote enemies” in the West—the Uyghurs and the Arabs. Recruiting some 150,000 Uyghur and Arabian soldiers, it made a final effort to wipe out the rebellious armies led by “barbarian generals.” Tubo (Tibet) seized its chance and moved northward (Xiang, 2001 [1957], pp. 7–10). The further failure of Tang troops in the battles against Tubo in the West and the worsening of “domestic disorder” resulted in Tang’s loss of control in the “Western Territories” (Bai, 2003, pp. 235–341). That is, the Tang ceased to be the “host empire” of the tributary trade along the Silk Road. Although exchanges along the Silk Road continued,4 they were no longer under Tang imperial purview. The Tang empire thus no longer had the power to police small kingdoms located along the Silk Road or have any means to ensure peaceful trade there. However, one place’s misfortune was another place’s good fortune: while the continental Silk Road was “blocked” in the North, the maritime Silk Road was opened in the South. In harbor cities such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou, trade paved the roads that were to link Southern China with the Near and Middle East, Europe, and other parts of Asia. Through the maritime routes of the “Southern Sea,” Chinese merchants reached many remote Western places.5 Once a trade route was paved, it outlasted the dynasty under which it was created. In the “Foreword” to Zhang Xie’s An Investigation of the Eastern Ocean and the Western Ocean (Dong Xi Yang Kao), Zhou Qiyuan (2000 [1617]) states:

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Since Gao Pian cleared the huge stone [obstacle] in the Southern Sea that blocked the sea road after the Tang-Song period, the Southern barbarians (Nanman) poured into Guangdong to trade. Since Wang Shenzhi encouraged the merchants to trade with the overseas kingdoms, more and more Fujianese people have swarmed into Guangdong to trade with the Southern barbarians. (p. 17) Figure .

Colonialized Island Kingdoms in the “Southeastern Ocean” (source: Y. Wei, Haiguo Tuzhi, )

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What is now called the “maritime Silk Road” replaced the “continental Silk Road” in late Tang (Fig. 7.1).6 Trade along the road became even more advanced during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (A.D. 907–960). During this time, China entered another era of partition. However, for the coastal kingdoms such as Min (Fujian), partition was not a bad thing. To strengthen its “national power,” Min encouraged maritime trade and benefitted from it a great deal. Zhou Qiyuan, a Ming scholar-official, was one of those who petitioned to incorporate the culture of Fujianese maritime traders. By this time, the Southeast had gone through three phases of expansion in maritime trade. As Eric Wolf (1982) puts it, links of trade and religion had created connections between the Heavenly Kingdom and its neighbors. Under the Tang (A.D. 618–906), there had been growing contacts with India, and China had opened its doors to the influence of Buddhism approaching from the south. At the time of the Sung [Song] (A.D. 960–1279), there had been a great expansion of trade with the southern seas. Under the Mongols (A.D. 1280–1367) China had made contact with the West by reopening the old silk routes and bringing Moslem, Christian, and Jewish traders into China. (p. 55)

However, the seizure of power by Ming reversed the processes that were tying China ever more strongly to the outside. Considering the bad effects of maritime trade—particularly how it “altered Chinese civilization with barbarian means” (yi Yi bian Xia)—the Ming court “prohibited maritime trade” (haijin). The Ming court’s new policy did not have a good outcome. On the contrary, it resulted in a great financial crisis. In Zhou Qiyuan’s view, the crisis was derived from the narrowness of the Ming court’s attitude to the barbarians. He argued: All the archaic emperors made sacrifices to the mountains and rivers. They did this for the purpose of creating a great fusion in order to extend civilizing rules (hunyi honggui). Hence, a good institution should be one that is inclusive, one that makes the best of both the Chinese and the barbarians. (2000 [1617], p. 17)

As Zhou noted, Emperor Muzong (r. 1567–1572) had abolished the rigid regulations on trade. As a result, merchants from all over the world gathered; the market grew and became a place where people found numerous dazzling treasures and wonders. Zhou said that the

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joint force of official and underground markets made the South “the main source of the imperial court’s financial income” (p. 17). Zhou’s take on the Ming Dynasty holds true in regard to the earlier Min regime. In the tenth century, maritime trade had contributed a great deal to the Min state’s financial reserves. Its “open-door” policy further expanded a maritime trade which had already been very active even prior to the establishment of the Min Kingdom. By the mid-tenth century, Min state policy and regional commercial traditions worked together and made Southern Fujian an important economic area where navigation technology was highly advanced. Local people were accustomed to traveling overseas and interacting closely with foreigners who came to Min. In Zhou Qiyuan’s words, [in Fujian], the merchants take the huge waves as little hills; [they] travel in foreign lands as if they are walking outside in their yards. They regard the kings and chiefs of foreign countries as [their] aides and staff. They come and go on the sea just as if [they were] farming their land by boat. (p. 17)

The period between the seventh century and the early fourteenth century was the heyday of the maritime Silk Road. During this period, the two great civilizations of Eurasia were those of Islam and China. As Gernet (1982) puts it, The T’ang [Tang] expansion into central Asia and Transoxiania coincided with the great Arab conquests which were to extend the Islamic empire to Spain at one end and Russian Turkestan at the other. The Chinese T’ang and Sung [Song] empires, the former continental and warlike, the latter maritime and commercial, were contemporaneous with the Ommayad and Abbassid empires, and belong to the same period of Eurasian history. East Asia and the Islamic world even seem to have evolved in the same way, military conquest giving way to mercantile activities, literature, science, and technology in a world in which urban centres were expanding rapidly. China and Islam both experienced at the same time the terrible trial of the Mongol conquest…. (p. 287)

The “Islamic world,” situated between Europe and East Asia, played a central role in the forging of inter-regional networks across the seas (Y. Chen, 1996, pp. 126–156). But unlike Buddhism, Islam did not become a “popular religion” in China. The size of the Moslem population in China was equal to that in India. In India, the Persians and

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Arabians who originally held the belief of “equalitarianism” were gradually “localized” as “ethnic groups” and integrated into the caste system (Dumont, 1980, pp. 205–208). In China, even though the process of “Han-ization” and “Mongol-ization” had begun long ago, the Moslem groups nevertheless always kept their religious identity. If such a religious identity meant “ethnicity,” then Chinese Moslems were likewise “localized ethnic groups.”7 For the Moslems, the archaic center of the world surely had a significance similar to that of the Western Heaven of Buddhism. But it never replaced the position India possessed outside of the Islamic fraternity. That is, it never became a new version of the Western Heaven. The different “Chinese fates” of Buddhism and Islam had somehow been predestined from the beginning of the eastward transmission of the two great religions. Buddhism came to China in the age of partition and moral crisis. Combined with Neo-Daoism, it, from the beginning, had more to do with reflexive considerations of “Selfhood.” By contrast, Islam came to China by means of mercantile activities and borderland military conquest. Its religious wonders were conveyed to those who were converted, but not conveyed as universal kindness or mercy. Though there were examples of “adventure romances” set in the remote center of the Islamic world,8 most Chinese records of the Islamic world are nevertheless less like “illusionary geographies.” In the eighth century, the great Chinese traveler Du Huan was one of a few Chinese captured in the Battle of Talas. He escaped and made his way back to China through many Islamic countries. He returned by ship to Guangzhou in 762 and later wrote his Jing Xing Ji (Record of My Passage). The book was almost completely lost, with only one surviving extract. Du Huan passed through Arab lands (Dashi) and later wrote a long paragraph about the religious and material life in the Islamic world. Du Huan (c.f. J. Yang, 1987, p. 129) was quite absorbed by the religious order of the local society. He even praised local material life by saying that it was “not different from the civilization of the Central Kingdom” (bu yi Zhonghua). He later traveled to Molin (North or East Africa) and observed that certain local customs were obviously Islamized. He describes such customs in a more negative light: We also went to Molin, southwest of Jerusalem, which one could reach after having crossed the great desert of Sinai and traveled 2,000 li. The

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people there are black. The customs are rough. There is little rice and cereal. The country has no grass and trees. The horses are fed with dried fish and the people eat Gumang. Gumang is a [kind of] Persian date. Subtropical diseases (malaria) are widespread. After crossing into the inland countries, we found a mountainous kingdom. The kingdom is full of religious activities. There exist three kinds of religious groups: the Arab (Islam), Byzantine (Christianity), and Zimzim (Judaism). The Zimzim practice incest, and thus can be seen as the worst of all barbarians. The Arabians have a justice system which does not involve the defendant’s families or kin in cases brought to trial. They do not eat the meat of pigs, dogs, donkeys, or horses. They do not respect their king and do not respect their parents. They do not believe in supernatural powers. Apart from performing sacrifices to Heaven (Allah), they do not honor anyone else. According to their customs, every seventh day is a holiday (Jumu’ah), on which no trade and no currency transactions are allowed. On this day, they drink alcohol and behave in ridiculous and undisciplined ways. The Byzantines are beneficent medical doctors who know diarrhea. They could either recognize the disease before its outbreak, or could remove the worms by opening the brain. (pp. 132–136)

Overseas Kingdoms and Their Products in Chinese Writings The rise of Buddhism provided not only a powerful motive for explorations of Southern Sea routes of communication, but also an incentive to record the voyages. The monks’ records were distinct from the official archives of tributary diplomacy and geography. Unlike the official archives, whose main concerns were political and ritual, these records were about the sacred journeys to and from the Western Heaven. In the middle age of empire, these religious records became a “realistic” literature of trading activities, which existed long before the Central Kingdom expanded its horizon of imperial coverage into the Southern Sea. As FitzGerald (1972) notes, even though many independent kingdoms had been established in southwest China and Southeast Asia during Tang, [t]he system used by the Chinese dynastic historians is to include sections dealing with foreign nations in a part of work detached from the main line of history. The foreign “nations” are described, their embassies to China noted, but only rarely are Chinese reciprocal embassies mentioned. It was

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proper for foreign “barbarians” to send “tribute-bearing missions” to imperial China. It was not seemly to suggest that China, for her part, had some purpose in sending embassies to them. (p. 10)

Unlike the dynastic historians, the monks who inscribed their sacred journeys “looked upon the island kingdoms as sources of Buddhism, hardly inferior to India itself” (p. 12). Unlike the Chinese court, which was interested in such “barbarian kingdoms” merely to boast their own prestige, these pilgrims were not only outward going but also receptive. For instance, Yijing stayed in the capital of Shrivijaya, a rising kingdom. He was obsessed with this flourishing center of Buddhism. And it was there that he found the many Buddhist Sanskrit texts he would later translate. As soon as China became the center of Buddhism in East Asia, records of Chinese monks’ journeys to the West became scarce and sacred. Dynastic historians continued to write histories of empire in the old way, depicting the “barbarian kingdoms” as tribute-paying tribes. Nonetheless, in the twelfth century, a new genre of writing emerged. Prior to the late twelfth century, descriptions of foreigners were found in dynastic histories, especially in the “Treatise on Geography.” In Northern Song, the court scholar-officials in charge of “hosting foreign guests” (zhu ke) occasionally wrote about the barbarians. For instance, Pang Yuanying, who was in charge of imperial guest rituals from 1082, wrote about the fifteen southern barbarian kingdoms (nanfang zhufan) in his collection of essays. But Pang, a proud imperial minister, was so careless that he located several continental Southeast Asian kingdoms “in the sea” (Q. Zhou, 1999 [1178], pp. 1–16). Zhou Qufei wrote specialized descriptions of foreigners in 1178. Born in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, he went to Guangxi to serve as a low-ranking official. He never went overseas, but he was extremely curious about foreign peoples and things. Zhou Qufei made friends with many traders and interpreters, was “diligent in asking extensive questions” (qinyu bowen), and gained extensive knowledge about foreign places. Meanwhile, as a regional scholar-official from a remote province, he was obsessed with the history, customary practices, folklore, and life-styles of the tribes in Guangxi and neighboring regions. In the end, he wrote Inquiries into the Land beyond the Southern Mountains (Lingwai Daida), in which he describes two sorts of “barbarians”—the internal ethnic groups and the external foreign peoples—in

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one text. Zhou Qufei divided the text into twenty men (categories). In the “category” of “foreign kingdoms” (waiguo men), he described more than forty kingdoms, half of which were clearly located (Q. Zhou, 1999 [1178], pp. 1–16). In modern Chinese history, Zhou Qufei has been studied as the one who created the genre of “specialized descriptions of foreigners.” Later authors indeed drew heavily from his writings, but Zhou’s book was not yet “specialized.” It still treated “foreign kingdoms” as merely a part of “barbarians” at large. Truly specialized descriptions of foreigners did not emerge until the early thirteenth century, the earliest example of which was Zhao Rugua’s The Gazetteer of Foreigners (Zhufan Zhi) (1996 [1225]). Zhao Rugua was an eighth-generation grandson of Emperor Taizong of Song. He sojourned in the famous harbor city of Ningbo in Zhejiang in his youth. He was later promoted to positions of middle rank in the court. From the Jiading reign (1208–1224) to the Baoqing reign (1225–1227), he worked in the Maritime Trade Supervisorate in Fujian. In the first year of Baoqing (A.D. 1225) he was promoted to become the director of the Supervisorate in Quanzhou city. Later in the same year, he served as director of the Foreign Affairs Office in southern China. In the Preface to Zhufan Zhi, Zhao Rugua traces the origin of the gazetteer of foreign kingdoms to the archaic Yu Gong. According to him, Yu Gong states that “the barbarians in the southern islands wore clothes made of the roots of trees.” Zhao Rugua (1996 [1225], p. 1) believed that the barbarians on the islands were those who later traded with the Chinese through sea routes. Some of the data on the basis of which Zhao Rugua wrote Zhufan Zhi came from his own interviews with foreign traders when he was in charge of trade and taxation. As Zhao tells us, he became interested in the geographic knowledge of foreign countries when he “took the emperor’s assignment of the chief commanding trade.” Whenever he had spare time, he “read the cartographies of foreign countries.” And in the end, he discovered that certain extremely dangerous places such as Shichuang and Changsha, and certain natural boundaries like Jiaoyang and Zhuyu, are marked on some of the maps. He spent time to cross check them with existing Chinese archives and failed to find any records of them. Hence, he decided to consult the foreign merchants. He asked them to list the names of their countries and

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describe “their customs, roads and paths, mountains and rivers.” From what was given to him by the foreign merchants, he chose the more credible parts and deleted the absurd and the exaggerated. He then translated their accounts into Chinese. Using the materials he gained from his interviews and information gathered from previous descriptions, Zhao Rugua completed The Gazetteer of Foreigners. The Gazetteer of Foreigners consists of two volumes. The first, titled Zhi Guo or “Recording the Kingdoms,” describes the situations of fifty-one countries situated in a variety of regions spanning the Far East (Japan) to the Far West (Morocco). The second volume, entitled Zhi Wu or “Recording the Things,” describes each country’s products, highlighting each product with reference to its places of origin, production procedures, usages, and transportation routes. “Recording the Kingdoms” consists of fifty-one entries, each of which contains a short introduction to the location of the kingdom and a synoptic ethnography of local people, local products, environments, customs, annual festivals, political situations, and kingship. “Recording the Things” consists of fifty-four entries concerning all sorts of special products in different kingdoms, especially luxurious items such as incense, spices, and ivory. Southern Song was overthrown by the Mongols. Unlike the “pacific regime” of Song, the new empire had the ambition to extend its power to overseas kingdoms.9 It planned to take Campapura (the southern part of today’s Vietnam) and Annam (ancient Vietnam), and to conquer Cambodia. Had the Yuan troops become accustomed to local landforms and climates, they would have accomplished this task. Having failed to do so, the Yuan court turned to tributary diplomacy. In the first year of Yuanzhen (1295), it decided to send an imperial embassy to various Southeast Asian kingdoms, including Cambodia. Its purpose was to subdue them to the empire. The embassy set sail from Wenzhou on March 24, 1296. They traveled on a compass-guided ship, passing the ports of Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Hainan and sailing past Taya Island, Annam, Qui Nhon, Baria, Poulo Condor, and Cantien. It then headed north on the Mekong River and reached the town of Kampong Cham in Cambodia. From there, the embassy boarded a small boat, sailed for a dozen days before reaching Tonle Sap Lake, and arrived at Angkor Thom, the capital of Cambodia, in August. The embassy remained at the court of King Indravarman III until late June

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or July 1297. The whole journey took one and a half years. Zhou Daguan (2000 [1311]) was one of the members of the embassy and wrote a detailed report on life in Angkor after his return— Zhenla Fengtu Ji (The Customs of Cambodia).10 In this “remarkable work of ethnography and travel writing” (G. Wang, 1991, p. 107), Zhou detailed the life and politics of Angkor and the Khmer Empire. A glance at its list of contents shows how the scholar-official had almost reached the modern height of ethnographic methodology: (1) The Walled City; (2) Cambodian Dwellings; (3) Clothing; (4) Functionaries; (5) The Three Religious Groups; (6) The Natives; (7) Childbirth; (8) Maidenhood; (9) Slaves; (10) Language; (11) Aborigines; (12) Writing; (13) New Year and Seasons; (14) Justice; (15) Sickness and Leprosy; (16) The Dead; (17) Agriculture; (18) The Configuration of the Land; (19) Products; (20) Trade; (21) Chinese Goods; (22) Trees and Flowers; (23) Birds; (24) Animals; (25) Vegetables; (26) Fish and Reptiles; (27) Fermented Drinks; (28) Salt, Vinegar, and Soy; (29) Silkworms and the Mulberry Tree; (30) Utensils; (31) Chariots and Palanquins; (32) Boats and Oars; (33) The Provinces; (34) The Villages; (35) Collecting the Gall; (36) A Prodigy; (37) Bathing; (38) Immigrants; (39) The Army; (40) The Sovereign Comes Forth (Paul, 1992 [1311/1902], pp. vii-viii). Apart from several focused decipherings of great temples such as the Bayon, the Baphuon, and Angkor Wat, Zhenla Fengtu Ji also offers in-depth information on the everyday life and habits of the Angkor inhabitants. The Gazetteer of Foreigners and The Customs of Cambodia were both written by imperial officials. Written in two different dynasties, the two books have quite different perspectives. In both Song and Yuan, China’s maritime communications with the “Southern Sea” were highly developed. But the Song court and the Yuan court had different attitudes toward the “barbarian kingdoms.” After a sequence of defeats in its battles against the North, the Southern Song court desired more revenue to support itself. In turn, it developed a high demand for luxurious foreign materials to enhance the quality of life at court. Compared to Song, the Yuan empire regarded the Southern Sea (or later, the “Western Ocean” in Zhou Daguan’s text) to be of more political significance. The different imperial concerns of Song and Yuan are reflected in the two descriptions of foreign kingdoms. In comparing The Gazetteer of Foreigners and The Customs of Cambodia, we can clearly detect

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a difference. The Gazetteer of Foreigners seems more like a continuation of the dynastic historians’ “Treatises on Geography,” while The Customs of Cambodia expresses more enthusiasm in knowing about other cultures. Zhou Daguan’s passion for other cultures did not all stem from his personal curiosity. It was related to the Yuan pursuit of Tianxia-ism. Unlike the Song court, which was deeply Sino-centric, the Yuan court (formed mainly by the Mongols) did not bother to present themselves as civilizers. The Great Unity of Tianxia remained their pursuit, but it was not defined as a civilizing project. The Yuan court welcomed foreign religions and entrusted the control of maritime trade to Sinified Persians (Y. Chen, 2006 [1923]). Compared to Zhao Rugua, Zhou Daguan enjoyed more freedom of mind, which enabled him to present the civilization of Angkor as an excellent order. In Zhao Rugua’s Gazetteer of Foreigners (1996 [1225], pp. 18–19), the orderly social life of the kingdom is objectively described without much evaluation. The Kingdom of Angkor seems to be just something “out there,” relevant to the Central Kingdom only as a collection of things, peoples, and customs. By contrast, when deciphering the royal city of Angkor, Zhou Daguan applies more evaluative vocabularies. In several places, he includes the term tili (rules of civility) to show that in his eyes Cambodian social life was perfectly in line with archaic Chinese rules of ritual. In Zhou Daguan’s reading, the explicit distinctions between the king, priests, the commoners, and the “wild men” seemed to be a perfect hierarchical order. The royal processions were like the “inspecting expeditions” of the Zhou king. The orderliness of Cambodian social life is contrasted with the life style of the Chinese sojourners. Zhou Daguan came across many of the Chinese living in Cambodia. These were known as “people of Tang” (Tangren). As “cultural outsiders,” these “people of Tang” did not follow local customs. According to Zhou Daguan, many of them dressed in luxurious costumes allowed only to officials and nobles, and thus in the eyes of the Cambodians, they were those who were andingbasha, which he translated as bushi tili or “ignorant of rules of civility” (p. 77). Zhou felt especially ashamed of his countrymen when he learned that many of them had sexual relationships with prostitutes from the tribal areas and peeped into the pools in which local women bathed naked (p. 110). Zhou Daguan was one of the two great Chinese scribes of foreign

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kingdoms in Yuan. The other was Wang Dayuan, the author of The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles (Daoyi Zhilüe) (1981 [1349]). Compared to Zhou, Wang was the greater traveler, pursuing discovery and adventure on his own. In the first year of the Zhishun reign (1330), Wang Dayuan started his first sea journey from Quanzhou at the young age of twenty. He passed through Hainan Island, Campapura, the Strait of Malacca, Java, Sumatra, Burma, India, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt. He then crossed the Mediterranean to Morocco, returned to Egypt, and later traveled from the Red Sea to Somalia and Mozambique. On his return trip, he went via the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Java, and thence, perhaps also, to Australia. He continued from Australia to Kalimantan and the Philippines. He finally arrived in the city of Quanzhou. The whole journey took five years. In the third year of Zhiyuan (1337), Wang Dayuan departed for his second expedition from Quanzhou, and traveled from the islands in the Southern Ocean to the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Mozambique Channel, and Australia. It took another three years for him to return to Quanzhou. In the “Epilogue to The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles,” Wang Dayuan (1981 [1349]) highly praised the ambition of the Yuan court to include the whole world into its world-scape. He said, “The imperial Yuan seeks the mixed oneness in the radiation of civilization, it includes all the remote in its territory, and it makes an extensive cosmic domain which was never achieved previously” (p. 385). Regarding his own travels, he said, “When traveling by boat in my youth, I recorded the strange wonders of the mountains, rivers, local customs, landscapes, and products in poetry. I observed and recorded the ridiculous, the surprising, the shameful, and the amusing” (p. 385). He correlated his interest in the quest of wonders with the empire’s ambition to broad inclusion. Wang Dayuan’s passion about things strange and different is expressed in the entry for the “Grand Buddha Mountains”: The Grand Buddha Mountains are located between Galle of Sri Lanka and Colombo of Ceylon. In the mid-winter of the first year of Zhishun (1330), on the 12th day of the 10th lunar month, after anchoring at the foot of a mountain, I got up at night to walk around when the moonlight was as bright as sunshine, and I saw the river. It was so clear and transparent that one could see its bottom. When I looked into the water, there was a tree

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underneath. I asked a sailor, “Is this a green gem or coral?” he answered, “No.” “Is it the Itsuki Sara tree in the moon?” “No.” I asked an assistant to get it. In the water, it is soft and smooth, but after having been brought into the air, it soon became as hard as iron. It is only one ch’i [chi] tall, and all the branches are twisted and entangled. There are two red flowers on top of the tree; one is in full blossom and looks like a peony; the other is in half blossom and looks like lotus. All the sailors crowded around with candles to see it, and cried out cheerfully, “It is the flower of the Jade Tree, which is very scarce in the sea. Really a wonder in China! We’ve traveled here many times in the past forty years, but never have we seen this. Now that you’ve gotten it, can this not be seen as destiny?” The second day, I wrote hundreds of poems to commemorate this experience. I harbored it in my sleeve so to take it back with me. Yu Zhangzhao saw it and composed a poem in memory of it as well. Now I’ve left it in the Hall of Superior Man to show it around. (pp. 311–314)

Wang Dayuan completed his Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles at the request of local scholar-officials in the city of Quanzhou, who were deeply attracted by his stories about customs and products overseas. This book contains a hundred entries and has a different structure from that of The Gazetteer of Foreigners and The Customs of Cambodia. Compared to The Customs of Cambodia, which is more like a singular-sited ethnography, Wang’s book is more like a travelogue. Based on Wang’s travel notes, The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles touches on some 220 countries and places. Compared to The Gazetteer of Foreigners, which is divided into two volumes on kingdoms and things respectively, Wang’s book merges depictions of various countries and products into combined descriptions of local cultures, politics and natural resources. Wang’s work was highly praised among the scholar-officials in the South. Evaluating Wang’s materials with high regard, Wu Jian asserts that “all the materials [in Wang’s work] are factual and concrete” (J. Wu, 1981, p. 5), and highly recommends Wang’s work, stating that “it can be consulted by the later emperors who want to make alliance with the kings” and that “it shows the emperors the right way to cherish the barbarians” (J. Wu, 1981, pp. 5–6). The three books by Zhao Rugua, Zhou Daguan, and Wang Dayuan respectively represent three different styles. Zhao’s book classifies the customs and products of each country. Comparatively, Zhou’s book is a more thorough ethnography. It details the religions, politics,

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and cultures in just one country—Cambodia. Wang’s book introduces local products and sees them as one aspect that reflects the propensity of the kingdom at large. His book values descriptions of wonders and emphasizes the passion of discovery. If we put these three books together in one lot, and compare them with the travels of Fa-hsien, we can see something they do share. In the genre of the “Treatises of Foreign Kingdoms,” which was developed during the Song-Yuan period, the image of the holy “Western Heaven” of India gave way to a more “pluralistic” perspective of the other. India now appeared in the texts merely as one of the many foreign kingdoms. Buddhist scriptures and statues continued to be respected and worshipped, but the kind of other-centric Chinese Buddhism we detect in earlier works, such as Fa-hsien’s text, had declined. The advancement of maritime trade and the tributary mode of exchange between the tenth and thirteenth century was the larger historical background which conditioned the composition of these books. To an extent, the three books can all be said to be about the transformation of the “Western Ocean” into the “new West,” the furthest part of which would be the Islamic world. Though denoting the most remote area of the “new West,” the Islamic world did not appear as a singular holy place as did India in previous dynasties. Unlike the travels of Fa-hsien, which reflect the author’s passion for the Western Heaven by its Occidentalism, the three texts proved to have much less religious enthusiasm. It would be wrong to say that the three authors lacked religious faith or “illusions” regarding faraway sacred centers. The three authors of Song and Yuan did not, however, see their outward going travels as sacred journeys to the Islamic world. Instead, the “illusionary geographies” seem to be buried in imaginations of materials and linkagemaking activities related to the tributary system. In these texts, vivid portrayals of exotic kingdoms and materials shadow the image of the religious other (e.g., Buddhism). The extensive Buddhist pilgrimages in the long period between Wei and early Tang are no longer practiced. Through the Chinese encyclopedia-like “gazettes” of remote countries in the Song-Yuan period, the meaning of Tianxia seems to have made a return to that found in Biography of King Mu. The genealogical continuum of three kinds of others—things, divinities, and humans— have now all rediscovered their places in the treatises of foreign

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kingdoms. However, Xi Wangmu’s image in this new genre has become more ambiguous.11 What attracted the Central Kingdom to this new genre of texts— whether it be Song or Yuan—was its depictions of differences in politics, customs, and products. In these texts, there were various remote places—they could be empires, kingdoms, tribes, or small villages—but in the eyes of the Chinese authors, whatever their patterns of social life were, they were the same: they existed merely as intermediaries for the Central Kingdom to reach the edge of its Tianxia. To them, the foreign peoples were very different from the Chinese in terms of their clothes, food, shelter, products, and transportation. Only a few of these, influenced by the rules of civility, were similar to the Chinese. But foreigners’ similarities to the people of the Central Kingdom were considered trivial facts. The values of foreign peoples were their particular differences, specifically their different customs and products. What the shi bore was not the burden of civilization; rather, it was the task of inscribing original differences. The interviews that the scholar-officials held with the foreign merchants, and the knowledge they gained from their expeditions, were thus in the service of the discovery of differences. Differences existed in order for the tributary exchange between the Central Kingdom and the “lesser kingdoms” to be enacted. The diversities and differences of peoples and cultures were good for asserting a world-hierarchy, as those of natural materials and local products were the preconditions of the exchange. Except for some rare parts in Zhou Daguan’s The Customs of Cambodia, most of the contents of the three texts are consistent with the “tributary mode of exchange.” For all three authors, the things— natural materials and products—are morphologies of elements of the world that are manifested in particularities of different “margins.” That does not mean that such marginalized “others” do not evaluate things produced in the Central Kingdom. As Zhou Daguan (2000 [1311], p. 148) describes in a chapter entitled “Desiring Products from Tang” (Yude Tanghuo), the Cambodians sorted products from the Central Kingdom into several classes, chiefly including (1) gold and silver; (2) silk; (3) tin from Zhenzhou; (4) lacquer plates from Wenzhou; and (5) blue porcelain from Quanzhou. Nonetheless, the texts maintain that the center of the world—China—is the kingdom which holds the magic of “world currency.”

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In the Song Dynasty, China exported fabric textiles, china, lacquer ware, wine, sugar, tea, rice, and imported spices, ivory, coral, beads, iron, turtle skin, hawksbill, huge seashells, crystal, foreign fabrics, ebony, and Brazil wood through maritime trade. The exchange between foreign spices and the “fine arts” of the Central Kingdom (see Shiba, 1997, p. 26; Y. Chen, 1996, pp. 38–39) characterized external trade. Just as King Mu of Zhou gave fine fabric to Xi Wangmu in exchange for jade, the tributary trade in the Song-Yuan period “exchanged gifts” between China and the “lesser” foreign kingdoms. Cultural contacts took place in the form of “giving and taking local products as gifts.” China’s silk and “special products” (techan) from overseas were luxuries exchanged. For the aristocrats in India, the Islamic world, and Europe, silk from China was a symbol of social status. For the “uncivilized peoples” with their naked bodies, fabric was a symbol of civilization (Y. Chen, 1996, p. 52). For the court of the Central Kingdom, spices, ivory, and other things from the Southern Sea or the Western Ocean were not only symbols of distinction among the upper class, but also things that connected Heaven and the human world (M. M. Wang, 2006, pp. 100–112). The connotation of the “West” in turn shifted to implying “Western Ocean,” which covered vast areas—the islands, peninsulas, and continents as well as the materials, products, animals, and humans habiting the land as well as “the sea.” The journeys to the “Western Ocean” were no longer pilgrimages. Instead, they were travels in the extensive space of the maritime world in which different societies collected, produced, and offered materials as “symbols of class-division” for the others to import as “special products.”

The “Empress of Heaven” The later half of the tenth century saw a major change in China’s relationship with the South Sea. Song, which came to power not by conquest but by skillful political manipulations, constantly felt menaced by the “northern barbarian kingdoms.” Being unable to fence off the northern barbarians beyond the line of the Great Wall, Song finally stabilized its authority and established Southern Song (A.D. 1127– 1280) in the territory roughly south of the Huai River. The court of Northern Song felt a lot of pressure from the North, and did not wish

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to extend their authority into the regions surrounding the South Sea where the population was more inclined to have independent kingdoms and be hostile to Chinese imperial rule. Southern Song was not a powerful empire. Hence, it continued the Northern Song line. Presenting itself as a pacific regime to the “island kingdoms” beyond the borderlands of southeastern coastal provinces, the Southern Song encouraged maritime trade. It in turn drew enormous revenues from trade and taxation, and became a wealthy state.12 The prosperity of maritime trade during Song and Yuan was accompanied by the widespread and continuous imperial promotion of the coastal folk cult of Mazu. Mazu, literally “Mother-Ancestor,” emerged in southern Fujian as an indigenous goddess of the sea who protected fishermen and sailors. In Southern Song, the goddess was given her first imperial title in 1155 by Emperor Gaozong. In Yuan, she became officially the “Protector of the Empire and the Brilliantly Outstanding Heavenly Princess” (Huguo mingzhu Tianfei) (J. Watson, 1985). In early Ming (1417), she was given the title of “Holy Mother of Heaven Above” by the Yongle emperor. During the same period, Buddhism and Taoism also borrowed the officialized popular cult of Mazu. Starting from Fujian, the cult of Mazu quickly spread to neighboring coastal provinces, and thence to all coastal areas of mainland China (Irwin, 1990). The myth of Mazu can be compared to that of Xi Wangmu. The two holy ladies are surely different: the “Empress of Heaven” resides beyond the oceans to protect those associated with the seas, while the “King’s Mother in the West” resides in the Kunlun mountains as the source of the king’s exterior authority and interior order. Though different, they also resemble each other in two important aspects. First, both Xi Wangmu and Mazu are depicted as “mothers of the king” or “lovers” of the emperors in popular legends and imperial entitlements. Secondly, they are both bound up with exotic materials demanded by the “internal”—jade from where Xi Wangmu lives, and “tributes” of exotic materials from the ocean kingdoms whose dangers were eliminated by the Empress of Heaven.

Tea and Horses The period from Song to Yuan saw a sequence of historical events in

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the extension of the “Imperial Eye” into the Southern Sea. Meanwhile, in the North, certain dramas of inter-cultural interactions were also performed. The “characters” in the dramas may have been numerous, but these roles seemed to “rotate” around the two core “actors”—tea and horses. Tea-drinking, having gone through the age of partition and reunification, changed its customs. Prior to Song, it was a stylish taste serving to distinguish the “men of letters” from their others. By Song, however, it had become a “popular” sort of drink, not only “fashionable” within the Central Kingdom but also widely adopted in the “exteriors” of the Central Kingdom. While the “civilized” Chinese gradually learnt the benefits of tea-drinking, the nomads in the North, especially those in the West and the North of China, also developed the habit of teadrinking. These peoples, perceived by Chinese as “Rong” (barbarians of the West), “Di” (barbarians of the North), or “Fan” (foreigners), ate primarily meat and milk, and they found tea to be a good grease reducer. By the time the Song empire faced military pressure from the nomads, the western and northern nomads had already become dependent on tea. It was thus important that the Song rulers keep a powerful army in order to fend off these nomads who were able to appear overnight at the gates of the capital on horseback. At a time when mechanized forces were underdeveloped, horses, in addition to metal weapons, were in every sense the most important means for the imperial court to ensure security. Tea thus became a precious good. For the Song needed horses from the nomads, and the nomads needed tea from the Song. In the beginning, the Song rulers purchased horses with copper coins. However, these nomads were so unfamiliar with coins that they simply melted them down to make tools. They preferred cloth, tea, and other material items. The Song court thus changed their policy in 983 into the “tea-horse trade” (chama hushi). As a recent study shows (C. Huang, 2002), tea was transported from the areas in which it was produced either to the horse fairs for trade. In early Song, the imperial court replaced the tea trade of the former Shu Dynasty (a regional regime) with a kind of free trade law, in order to assert its civilization. The law was in effect for 110 years, from 965 to 1074. Then the Song rulers suddenly changed its policy again. They decided to exercise direct control over the tea trade. The change

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of policy was closely related to the court’s high demand for horses from the barbarian lands. In 1071, the imperial court began to send troops against Tibet and Xixia. Its success was backed up by the enlistment of a large number of soldiers, which demanded an increase in military expenditures. In order to meet the rapidly increasing military demand for horses, the imperial court finally put into practice “Monopoly Regulations” (Jinque zhi) after years of trial and error. The Monopoly Regulations were the following: 1. The imperial government is the sole buyer of tea. 2. Dealers should buy tea from the government and deal with officially authorized certificates. 3. Relevant government departments should coordinate to give a geographic definition of tea produced in Sichuan, in order to ensure that the income from tea trade is used for the purchase of horses. 4. The smuggling of tea should be strictly forbidden. 5. In order to have tea produced in Sichuan be traded for horses in Shaanxi, the government should administer the network of transportation with military measures. (c.f. C. Huang, 2002, pp. 173–179) As tea became increasingly important in horse fairs along the borders, the tea trade administration evolved into a special type of administrative power. Because tea in Sichuan was managed by the Market Exchange Office (Shiyi Si) it was closely associated with the Tea-fair Department which exercised direct control over the tea trade. “Moreover, because Sichuan tea was mainly traded for horses in Xihe, the Tea-fair Department also developed a direct relationship with the Horse-purchase Department. The Tea-fair Department became a powerful office which could mobilize several governmental offices when needed. For this reason, it was Sichuan tea that insured the horse exchange so important to the ‘national defence’ of Song. The Tea-fair Department was endowed with far more power than other departments of local governance, it was even able to outstrip them” (pp. 180–181). As time passed, functional overlaps occurred in the Horse-purchase and the Tea-fair Departments. They finally merged into one—“The Teahorse Department”—which was where the names of “tea-horse trade” (chama hushi) and “Ancient Tea-horse Road” (Chama gudao) stemmed from (pp. 193–205).

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Southern Song enjoyed relative peace. The decrease of military action in the North did not end the nomads’ high demand for tea. A certain cabinet minister observed in 1205 that the Jin subjects, after conquering the Central Kingdom, still indulged in tea-drinking. He stressed that “tea houses multiplied on the streets,” and that both the upper and lower classes were eager to drink tea. As a result, “most merchants exchanged tea for silks, and the annual purchase value was no less than a million.” The Jin government thought business like this was “exchanging the useless for the useful,” and feared it might exhaust the wealth of Jin. Therefore, the court imposed a new regulation on tea-drinking. The regulation stipulated that “only the families of officials over the seventh rank are allowed to drink tea.” This regulation was suspended temporarily as a condition of the peace negotiations between the Jin and Song. When they were later at war, the Jin court prohibited tea-drinking again, but it was never able to keep its subjects from drinking tea. On the other hand, as tea was produced by the enemy Song, it was accessible to the privileged only when the Jin kingdom was powerful. From this aspect, tea’s ironic change in roles demonstrates that it was more powerful than weapons (pp. 206–207). In 1286, Kublai Khan issued a decree on the ownership of the horses that was once used to be exchanged for tea. He declared that “the color-eyed [Semu; Central Asians] should submit two third of their horses, and the Chinese should submit all of their horses. Anyone who hides or deals in horses will be prosecuted.” The Yuan court sought to “control all horses in the world” and to distribute them among the privileged aristocrats according to their rank: “[Those of the] first and second ranks are allowed to take five horses; third and fourth, three horses; fourth and fifth, two; under the sixth rank, one.” Kublai Khan’s decree reoriented a hierarchy based on tea, turning horses into the northern peoples’ “indigenous cultural resource.” This decree thus forms an interesting contrast to the policy set by the Jin Dynasty (pp. 221–230). After the collapse of Song, tea was rejected and prohibited by the northern conquerers. No longer rendered as tribute, tea became an illegal “drug.” The tea trade within China became much less prosperous. However, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it regained its vitality. Having been revived as a contrast to foreign merchandise, between the late seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, tea gradually

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constituted a structural tension between the Central Kingdom and European “maritime empires.” The tension grew as time went by and eventually made China enter into a relationship with the “modern World System,” replacing the contrast/complementary structural relation between tea and horses—a relation between the Chinese Han and the northern nomads. During the time of what is generally called “modernization,” tea remained important; however, it was exchanged not for horses but for silver. When this exchange came to an end, tea was matched with opium, leading to the Opium War. In the eighteenth century, Europe developed a heavy reliance on Chinese tea, which resulted in outflows of silver. At the same time, the imperial Qing court gained foreign silver and used it towards its own “world system projects” which chiefly consisted of the construction of royal gardens because “the Son of Heaven preferred to satisfy his interest in things foreign through contemplation of his own gardens” (Sahlins, 2000, p. 440). Outside the imperial court, the number of those who were addicted to opium—officials, merchants, and rich “commoners”—was also expanding. The cultivation of opium poppies originated as a foreign activity. Opium’s use for food, anesthesia, and ritual purposes can be dated back to the Neolithic Age. Before the Chinese knew of opium, the Sumerian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Minoan, Greek, Roman, Persian, and Arab empires had made widespread use of it as a form of pain relief. In the fifteenth century, opium appeared in Chinese records as a kind of recreational drug used to aid masculinity and enhance the art of alchemists, sex and court ladies. In the seventeenth century, opium smoking became a privilege of the elite in China. From then on, opium continued to be a great luxury into the early nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, while the English relied on tea, the smoking of pure opium became ever more common in spite of the court’s ban, and British traders began importing opium from India. The opium trade, which was illegal in China, thus became an effective solution to Britain’s problem of trade imbalance; the achievements of one empire relied upon the corruption of another, a process which in the nineteenth century led to the Opium Wars (Hanes & Sanello, 2004).

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Other Horses, Other Dresses A couple of years before the coming of the twentieth century, anthropologist Franz Boas (1974, pp. 67–71) argued that no society was “primitive”; societies which seemed “primitive” to ethnologists were not at all isolated from ancient civilizations—even if they had not been influenced by other societies, they did not remain the same. Unfortunately, later scholarly developments have partly re-constructed the discipline, often turning it into an “illusionary geography” in which other cultures have been narrated as if they permanently remained selfsufficient, without historical relations with other peoples, without needing to adapt their own worlds to other worlds, and as if, being “remote” from Europe, they only began to enter the world “when Europeans showed up” (Sahlins, 2000, p. 502). With the legendary power to enable us to “detach ourselves from our own society … [and] elucidate principles of social life that we can apply in reforming our own customs” (Lévi-Strauss, 1997, p. 479), post-Boasian anthropology has underestimated the frequency and significance of cross-cultural interactions (Wolf, 1982, pp. 7–8). Compared to the “other cultures” depicted in such ethnographic “illusional geographies,” the case of the Far East has been a significantly more “outward-going” system. Far from being a “self-sufficient peasant economy,” or a country with only “peasant life,” or a society which did not achieve openness until the transition between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries,13 the inhabitants of the Chinese world had long ago been thoroughly acquainted with the “skill” of constructing an internal order out of “external” materials and images. In the ancient processes of “cultural borrowing,” some of the materials chosen were those whose enchanting qualities had proven to be essential to magical practices. Since the late Neolithic Age, jade has had such qualities in the East Asian continent. Jade, from other places than where it has been excavated archaeologically, was not only crafted into images of animals, but also shaped as round discs (bi) representing Heaven and tubes (cong) representing Earth and its “tunnel” to Heaven. The jade objects, mostly discovered at the sites of ancient sacrificial enclosures, were obviously deployed in kingly ceremonies not only as the “national treasures” of the prehistoric kingdoms but also as

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a means of communicating with Heaven. In the Bronze Age, jade continued to be important. Coming from the Far West—Kunlun—it was crafted by “men of skills,” perhaps also from other places, into artifacts, celebrating the dependency of the Central Kingdom upon its relations with the other ways of being in the world. A close relationship between the East and the West was manifested in the social life of jade. As has been shown in Chapter Three, the reciprocity between Xi Wangmu and the King in Biography of King Mu was between clothing from the East and jade from the West. The reciprocity was naturally bilateral. King Mu seemed to be quite confused about what Xi Wangmu should be like. On the one hand, she should stay in her “wild state,” remaining undressed, living among wild animals in the wild mountains. On the other hand, King Mu imagined that Xi Wangmu should need fine clothing from the East. The “original holiness” of Xi Wangmu could just lie in her nakedness (wildness), but the “bias” of civilization in the East also desired a dressed Daughter of Heaven, whose demand for Zhou clothing made it possible for Zhou to be given jade, for the East (civilization) profoundly depended upon jade from the wild mountains of the West for its sacrifices and class divisions. In the same “sociologics” of relationship, the “national defense” of neither Song nor Ming—the two late imperial Han Chinese dynasties— could sustain itself without the great horses raised in the “barbaric lands,” where the “enemies” also needed Chinese tea. I have said enough about the story of tea, especially the changing roles of tea in “civilization”;14 but regarding Chinese dependency upon “foreign” horses, I must add some more details. The tea-horse trade between the Central Kingdom and its “enemies” did not begin until Tang. But the Chinese troops had depended upon the great horses from non-Chinese tribes and kingdoms from very early on. Although the four thousand years’ history of war horses has chiefly been associated with the Greek, Persian, and Roman cavalry, the medieval knight and his mount, and the horse warriors of the Huns, Mongols, Arabs, and Cossacks (DiMarco, 2008), the war horse has nevertheless also played an important role in the military history of China. Prior to the establishment of the first empire, some of the contesting kingdoms in the Chinese world had evidently developed a

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high demand for horses and barbarian costumes suited for horse-riding. Thus, as recorded in “The second strategic formula of Zhao” in Strategic Formula of the Warring States (Zhan Guo Ce), one of the important reforms that King Wuling of Zhao (r. 325–299 B.C.) implemented was to require the Zhao people to “wear barbarian uniforms and use cavalry in battle” (Hufu qishe). In order to ward off the Hu barbarians in the North, King Wuling called for all his people to change their dresses and adopt the horse-riding tradition of the Hu. Abandoning civilized ways of dressing and moving, in the end, brought good results: a great increase of military power. In the end, the Zhao defeated the Hu, conquered the “barbarian” kingdom of Zhongshan, and achieved its position as one of the seven heroic kingdoms. Qian Mu (2004 [1982], pp. 223–237), who presented the above as an epic-like story, also showed how the strong foreign horses helped both Han troops defeat the Huns (Xiongnu) in the North, and enabled the Tang troops to drive away the Turks. As he has also argued, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Han, who had tens of thousands of foot soldiers, had very few great horses from the barbarian lands; thus, they were quickly defeated by only a relatively small number of Hu cavalry. Horses continued to be important in the battles between Jin and Song. As Qian Mu puts it, it was the “mounted troopers of Jin that won the war.” Closely related to horses from the “barbaric lands” was the assimilation of imperial Chinese dress to “other costumes.” Many decades before Qian, Wang Guowei (2001 [1921], 2:662–690), one of the founding fathers of modern Chinese historiography, had examined the lasting impact of King Wuling’s reform. In a brilliant article entitled “Hufu kao” (An inquiry into “barbarian costumes”), Wang described what Hufu or “barbarians costumes” looked like. He argued that King Wuling’s reform in turn invented Hufu by combining various elements. The standard uniform designed by King Wuling consisted of the following: … its hat is inlayed with ermine, which is called “Huiwen Hat”; its belt is called “Ju Belt” and its buckle is made of gold; it has boots; it is divided into an upper tight doublet and close-fitting pants. (p. 662)

Having spent much academic labor on the history of Hufu, Wang Guowei composed a narrative consisting of the following episodes:

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1. In the period of the Warring States, after Zhao’s victory over the Hu, the peoples of the other Chinese kingdoms began to imitate Zhao. Hufu was introduced in many countries (p. 667). 2. From the Warring States to Han, Hufu was adopted as the uniforms of bureaucrats and military officers. During this period, only the higher officials and officers wore the full Hufu invented by Zhao. Others had only hats or only Hu-style clothes. In late Han, the situation changed dramatically. Due to the military aristocracy’s rise to power, the Hufu system was fully adopted in the army. It was also at this time that the commoners began to adopt Hufu as well. During this period, Hufu was alternatively termed kuxi (trousers with belts) (p. 668). 3. In the Wei-Jin period, Hufu was used in the South when commoners traveled and military officers went to war. In the North, Hufu was much more popular. In late Wei, Hufu became a daily costume; the bureaucrats wore them even in the court (pp. 671–674). 4. In Sui, the emperor sometimes put on his military uniform (Rongfu). A part of the uniform was the “Huiwen hat.” When the emperor put on his military uniform, he went hunting and was accompanied by a troop of military officers in Hufu. When the princes went hunting, they dressed up in Hufu too. The guards of the court wore Hu-style belts and boots daily. 5. The uniform system of Tang was similar to that of Sui, except that the upper tight doublet gradually went out of fashion. 6. At the beginning of Song, the imperial court considered re-adopting what had been lost in Tang. Although no decision was made, the imperial guards were provided with it (pp. 674–680). Undoubtedly, the legend of the Kingdom of Zhao’s self-determined dependency upon the other was narrated in relation with the imperial enterprise of later periods, which became much more expansive than had been true for the contesting kingdoms of the Warring States period. During the age of empire, the Chinese world not only “exploited” things in the remote, but also extended its scope beyond the nearby. In sinological studies, including that of John King Fairbank (1973), one of the types of Chinese world-scapes—the tributary worldview— has attracted the most attention. The majority of sinologists have shared the belief that the Chinese tributary worldview as seen in ancient

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Chinese cosmography, cartography, and ethnography has the characteristic of ethno-centricity. The tributary worldview places the Central Kingdom at the center, and defines the other as situated around it. Core to the tributary worldview was the differentiation between civilization and the other, the other including not only “lesser humans” or “barbarians” but also “things” (wu) to be “digested” by the “civilizing stomach” of empire. The Hu and their horses and dress were such kinds of “lesser humans” and “better things,” and their adoption was intended to strengthen the power of the cultural self. This is what the allegory of “wearing the barbarian uniform and using cavalry in battle” meant. However, as Wang Guowei successfully demonstrated, the consequence of Hufu was that “from Han to Tang, foreign and Chinese clothes looked more and more similar,” and so by Tang, the appearances of the Chinese and the barbarians were not that different (G. Wang, 2001 [1921], p. 682). Wang concluded that by adopting the self-strengthening allegory, the Chinese bureaucracy continuously “alienated” itself, being “dressed” just like the Hu.

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EIGHT

Islands, Intermediaries, and “Europeanization”

Between the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, Chinese

descriptions of non-Chinese worlds attracted considerable attention from sinologists in Europe and America. The Gazetteer of Foreigners, The Customs of Cambodia, and The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles were all highly valued. In 1902, The Customs of Cambodia was translated into French by the French sinologist Paul Pelliot (1951 [1902]). Eight years later, The Gazetteer of Foreigners was translated by German sinologist Friedrich Hirth and American sinologist W. W. Rockhill (1911) into English. From the late nineteenth century, The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles was selectively translated into several Western languages. Many European sinologists also paid attention to The Travels of Fa-hsien and other records of foreign kingdoms written by ancient Chinese monks. French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat had published his French translation of Fa-hsien’s book as early as 1834. Several English versions of the same book were produced by English missionaries and scholars. In 1886, British sinologist James Legge published A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms in Oxford. All the above translations were annotated with extensive notes detailing names of places that appeared in the original texts. The translated editions contributed a great deal to the accumulation of geographical knowledge about the lands, seas, and peoples in between the East and the West.1 Near the end of the nineteenth century, Biography of King Mu

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likewise had been published in Western languages. When diffusionism was dominant in Western ethnology, Biography of King Mu functioned as an important archive, serving to prove that there were historical relations in archaic times across great distances. Members of the “diffusionist school” perceived modern civilizations as derivatives of the ancient civilizations of the world. Translations of Biography of King Mu were published at a time when the theory of the “Western origins of Chinese civilization” dominated European archaeological and ethnological studies of China. Diffusionism was widely accepted among Chinese academics between the 1890s and 1930s. As Gu Jiegang (1998a) comments:2 After Sino-foreign communications opened up at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the French scholar Terrien de la Comperie [sic] [Terrien de Lacouperie] wrote in 1894 [his article] “Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization.” [This work] misled a number of Chinese into believing not only that Chinese civilization was derived from the West, but also that the Chinese race itself had crossed [into China] from over the Congling range, and so King Mu’s journey to the West was [actually] a return to his homeland. Relying on Biography of King Mu, they investigated the places through which King Mu had passed. Thus Ding Qian, in his Mu Tianzi Zhuan kaozheng [An Annotated Biography of King Mu], identified the land of Xi Wangmu as Assyria; Gu Shi, [in his] Mu Tianzi [Zhuan] xizheng jindi kao [An Investigation of the Present-day Whereabouts of Places in Biography of King Mu] and [Mu Tianzi Zhuan] jiangshu [Remarks on Biography of King Mu], said it was in present-day Persia and had King Mu going to places even Zhang Qian had never reached. Liu Shipei’s Mu Tianzi Zhuan bu shi [Biography of King Mu: A Supplementary Discussion] stated that Mount Kunlun [Kunlun qiu] was Sumeru of the Buddhist scriptures and suggested that King Mu climbed to the top of the Himalayas to look south at India. In fact the author of this work [Biography of King Mu] himself says that the distance from Zongzhou (Luoyang) to Yangyu (Hetao) is 3,400 li, and from Yangyu to the furthest northwestern point [of China] is only 7,000 li. At most, he [King Mu] could only have reached Hami [Kumul] in Xinjiang! (p. 19)

Following Ding Qian, Gu Shi, and Liu Shipei, Republican-era mythologists such as Wei Juxian (1939) and Ding Shan (1944) continued to deploy diffusionism in their studies of Chinese culture. In their search for the “realistic geography” of the land of Xi Wangmu, diffusionism

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became one of the guidelines along which they “discovered” the “Western source” of Chinese civilization. Diffusionism was also used in Chinese ethnology. Ling Chunsheng, who later became one of the leaders of Chinese ethnology, studied ethnology in Paris in 1926. In Paris, Ling began to extend the European ethnological scope to include China. Under the direction of Marcel Mauss, he applied ethnology to study the relationship between China and the “West.” In the later period of his career, living in Taipei in the 1960s, he was still conducting research on the relations between Chinese ceremonial rules and the civilizations beyond Xiyu. In an article entitled “Kunlun Mountain and the King’s Mother of the West,” Ling (1979a) states: Xi Wangmu is the Moon God worshiped in the city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia. In Sumerian, the [name of the] Moon God was pronounced “si-en-nu,” similar to “Xi Wangmu.” “Kunlun” is a phonetic rendering of the last two syllables of “ziggurat,” which was the term for temple in ancient Mesopotamia.” … In Ur, the Palace of the Moon God was located north or northeast of the ziggurat. (p. 1605)3

European diffusionist sinologists who studied the historical geography of Kunlun did not fix Kunlun in a specific location. They only located Kunlun to the west of the western frontiers of China, and deployed philological methodology to trace the routes through which this “icon” spread over a large geographic space. Some sinologists considered the ancient tribes who lived on the “plateau of Asia” (probably including the societies of the “Qiang-Rong” system defined by Chinese scholars) to be the source of Eurasian civilizations. For instance, the French sinologist Gabriel Ferrand, in his Ancient Voyages to Condor Island and the China Sea published in 1919, listed a great deal of evidence to demonstrate that the “Kunlun” which appears in classical Chinese texts referred to the tribes living on the northwestern plateau of China. According to Ferrand (2002 [1919]), after the tenth century, Kunlun tribes migrated to certain remote areas beyond China’s South Sea. He argued that the “Kunlun” of the descriptions of foreign kingdoms in the Song Dynasty referred to Zanzibar in East Africa. In his opinion, concepts of “Kunlun” also existed in the oral traditions of the Islamic world, India, Malaysia, and East Africa. The commonality of the vast region between northwestern China

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(sometimes called Inner Asia) and Africa developed out of the frequent contacts among tribes and civilizations, which could be revealed through a comparative study of historical linguistics and ethnology. Ferrand (pp. 63–64) believed that “Kunlun” implied the “code” of early human hybridity. Around 1000 B.C., as he saw it, there was a “Kunlun kingdom” which moved south from the Asian plateau, settling in the area of the Ganges. Around 500 B.C., this “nation” moved again to Malaysia. Around 100 B.C., India and China interacted with each other ever more frequently. A hundred years after that, the “Indianized” peoples in the western part of Malaysia began to colonize Madagascar. Later, the maritime space of these civilizations formed a net of communication. Thus, when China sent envoys to this area, the envoys were only following pre-existing routes of communication—they did not discover them. Ferrand’s history is not the Truth.4 However, its perspective of inter-cultural contacts and trans-continental mobility is convincing as a way of looking at our human pasts. By mapping the historical traces of contact and mobility, we are better situated in the intermediary areas of Eurasia and in what post-Tang Chinese scribes called “the Southern Sea.”5

Radcliffe-Brown and the “Island of History” However, academic ideas drastically changed in the early twentieth century. A decade before Ferrand wrote his Ancient Voyages to Condor Island and the China Sea, between 1906 and 1908, A. R. RadcliffeBrown, the British anthropologist, spent a long period on the Andamans—the islands situated between Burma and Sumatra. In 1908, Radcliffe-Brown began to write down what he had found in his ethnographic fieldwork, without knowing exactly what to write. As he stated, “anthropologists and ethnologists were concerned either with formulating hypotheses as to the origins of institutions or with attempts to provide hypothetical reconstructions of the details of culture history” (Radcliffe-Brown, 1933, p. i). Radcliffe-Brown originally planned to do the same. He continued, “It was largely from this point of view that I approached the study of the Andaman Islanders and attempted, by an investigation of physical characteristics, language and culture, to make

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a hypothetical reconstruction of the history of the Andamans and of the Negritos6 in general” (p. i). For this purpose, he made a systematic survey of available methods for such reconstructions, including diffusionist methodology. Gradually, however, Radcliffe-Brown became dubious about what he himself was doing. He eventually came to “realize” that “it is only in extremely rare instances that we can ever approach demonstrable conclusions and that speculative history can not give us results of any real importance for the understanding of human life and culture” (p. i). To Radcliffe-Brown, the newly fashioned field of sociology, which at the time was becoming the “mainstream,” was the perfect choice. In 1922, Radcliffe-Brown published his book The Andaman Islanders, which seemed to be more or less an ethnographic exemplification of Durkheimian sociology. As he himself asserted, the main purpose of writing such a sociologized ethnography was to drag anthropology out of conventional ethnology and to pad sociology underneath anthropology as a foundation. Radcliffe-Brown drew a clear line between ethnology and anthropology. According to him, ethnology was focused on tracing origins; anthropology was oriented to the understanding of social life. In order to demonstrate that anthropology should take the study of social life as its major concern, he attempted to revalue and reinterpret the society of the Andaman islanders as a whole, abandoning the “hypothetical reconstructions of the details of culture history” unfolding in the spaces between the Andaman Islands and the outside worlds.7 This masterpiece of structural-functionalism defined the historical relationships between the Andaman islanders and their perceived outsiders as a passage leading to ethnographical excavations. Radcliffe-Brown was not ignorant of history. He had a great deal of historical details in his book’s “introduction.” Drawn from sources in Chinese, Arabic, and Sanskrit, Radcliffe-Brown was able to produce an extremely brief outline of almost two thousand years of culture contacts surrounding the Andaman Islands. He was able to point out that around the ninth century, more than a millennium before he departed for fieldwork, records of Andaman islanders had appeared in Chinese documents. Later, merchants and explorers from the Islamic world also made records about the islanders. He admitted that the Europeans discovered the Andamans relatively late. Commenting on

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the “colonial situation” of the Andaman Islands, Radcliffe-Brown said that colonization began as late as the eighteenth century. He also reflected, with a great sense of conscience, that since then the population of the islands had been sharply reduced because the British introduced syphilis. Had Radcliffe-Brown gone into more detail about the historical shifts surrounding the islands, he would have produced one of the best examples of historical anthropology. However, when he began to write, he had become deeply engaged in sociologizing anthropology. He said, “In the case of the Andaman Islands it is possible that they have been entirely isolated with their island home, and have not been affected by contact with other races, but have been free to develop their own culture in adaptation to their own environment” (1933 [1922], p. 6). That is to say, since the ninth century, the Andaman islanders had been under pressure from the outside world. They isolated themselves so as to fight against the devastating impacts of the superior others. To Radcliffe-Brown’s delight, the passive isolating practice of the islanders provided the basic precondition for the ethnographer who, as RadcliffeBrown stated, could not do without that important premise of sociological analysis—isolation.8 Radcliffe-Brown said that the culture of the Andaman Islands seemed as if it was never “affected by contact with other races.” The islanders’ indifference to the “superior others” who passed by is definitely not a reflection of their ignorance of the outside world. Rather, it was a reaction to it. Radcliffe-Brown admittedly neglected this fact so as to make his ethnography seem more like an illustration of a theory of society. The fact that Radcliffe-Brown’s ethnography was not the first description of the Andaman islanders was hardly given any attention in the world of anthropology. The first focused description seems to be the entry “Yen-t’o-man” [Yantuoman] in The Gazetteer of Foreigners by Zhao Rugua of Song. With regard to the “Andamans,” the Song royal family member and official scholar Zhao Rugua said: When sailing from Lan-wu-li [Lanwuli] to Si-lan [Xilan], if the wind is not fair, ships may be driven to a place called Yen-t’o-man. This is a group of two islands in the middle of the sea, one of them being large, the other small; the latter is quite uninhabited. The large one measures seventy li in circuit. The natives on it are of a colour resembling black lacquer; they eat men alive, so that sailors dare not anchor on this coast.

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This island does not contain so much as an inch of iron, for which reason the natives use (bits of) conch-shell (ch’ö-k’ü [sic] [chequ]) with ground edges instead of knives. On this island is a sacred relic, (the so-called) “corpse on a bed of rolling gold”…. This body has been there for generations without decaying, and there is always a huge snake guarding it, on whose body hair has grown to the length of two feet. Nobody dares come near it. Near by is a spring (or well), the water of which overflows twice a year and runs into the sea; the gravel over which it passes, after it has been covered by this water, all turns into gold. The islanders offer sacrifice to this spring. If copper, lead, iron, or tin is heated red hot and then put in this water, it is changed into gold. There is an old story told of a trading-ship which got wrecked, and the sailors drifted on a bamboo raft to this island. Having heard of this sacred water, they secretly filled some bamboo tubes with it, then got on a raft, and were driven by the current of the sea to the country of Nan-p’i [Nanpi], where they presented the water to the king of the country. Having tested its power, the king of Nan-p’i raised an army for the purpose of conquering that island; but before his fleet could arrive there, it met with a violent storm, the ships with all on board were thrown on the shore of this island, and all the men were eaten up by the islanders. For on this island is the “Strange man of the golden bed,” which is silently guarded by the spirit…, and no man may come near the place. (Hirth & Rockhill, 1911, pp. 147–148)

Zhao Rugua was interested in the outsiders’ curiosity about mysterious things—e.g., the “golden bed”—on the Andaman Islands, and the magical “technologies” the islanders used to ward off their enemies. In fact, there were frightening ways of self-defense on the islands, which made Chinese, Arabs, Persians, and Europeans all consider the islanders barbaric. This Andaman “barbarism” was contrasted as a kind of “heterogeneity” to Indian, Arabic, Chinese, and European civilizations. From Radcliffe-Brown’s time onwards, to find “elementary forms of social life” from the opposite side of civilization—the world’s heterogeneity— has become the responsibility of anthropologists. When writing his book, Radcliffe-Brown must have been satisfied with his “findings” of “elementary forms.” He must have neglected Zhao Rugua’s point that the legends and rituals which shaped the social structure of the island were actually also the methods deployed by the islanders to deal nega-

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tively with the maritime world surrounding them. Had Radcliffe-Brown thought of the different points made by Eric Wolf (1982) in his Europe and the People without History and by Marshall Sahlins (1985) in his Islands of History, he would have discovered richer historical facts rather than mere “social structure.” As Radcliffe-Brown admitted, the Andaman islanders, a branch of the Negritos, had historically interacted closely with China, India and the Islamic world. From the eighteenth century, this branch of the Negritos felt threatened by the empires from Europe, and in turn formed an illuminating example of the “opposite.” The larger process can be seen as one in which the ancient tributary polities and smaller societies were gradually brought into the modern world. No matter how “conservative” the Andaman islanders were, they would know something about the world-scapes of the expanding empires. Even if the Negritos had been fictionalized by those who sought to “invent primitive societies,” their persistence in isolation can still be seen as a good indication of the opposite—the larger process of “world history.” According to Sahlins, in the cosmological structure of the Polynesian philosophy of social life, sovereignty always had an appearance of the outside. Prevalent in these societies was a kind of “cosmological drama” which turned frightening strangers into local kings. Did the Andaman islanders share such a philosophy in their practices of history, or in their dealings with the external? The question was waiting to be answered, but RadcliffeBrown saw it as a derivative of unnecessary ethnological imagination. Eric Wolf asked: “If there are connections everywhere, why do we persist in turning dynamic, interconnected phenomena into static, disconnected things?” (Wolf, 1982, p. 4) He answered by referring to a sequence of developments in European social sciences in the mid-nineteenth century. At that time, inquiry into the nature and varieties of humankind split into separate specialties and disciplines. The fatal split “turned the ideological reasons for that split into an intellectual justification for the specialties themselves” (p. 7). The consequence of the split has been the emergence of the belief that there exists an entity called the West, and that one can think of this West as a society and civilization independent of and in opposition to other societies and civilizations.… Many of us even grew up believing that this West has a genealogy, according to which ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the

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Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry, crossed with democracy, in turn yielded the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (p. 5)

In the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, anthropology was somewhat different from other social sciences. It began as “world anthropology,” primarily concerned with the evolution of culture on a global scale. As Wolf emphasized, in the diffusionist phase, anthropology “saw relations between populations exhibiting the same cultural forms—matriliny, blackening of teeth, or tailored clothing—as the outcome of intergroup communication by migration or by copying and learning.” Anthropologists “were not much concerned with people, but they did have a sense of global interconnections. They did not believe in the concept of ‘primitive isolates’” (p. 13). Radcliffe-Brown, a forefather of modern social anthropology, was one of those who set aside the interests and understandings of connectivity and created a “series of analyses of wholly separate cases” (Wolf, 1982, p. 14).

Wu Wenzao: Sociological Nativism Although most field studies, which assumed analyses of “wholly separate cases,” were conducted on the islands of the Pacific and, later, among the tribes of Africa, their theoretical and methodological achievements had an impact upon Chinese intellectuals who actively searched for “the scriptures” from the West. In the age of “modernity,” many Chinese intellectuals felt ever more strongly that it was necessary to obtain from the “Western Ocean” (Europe and America) the important “ingredients” to make their own mixtures of Occidentalism and nativism. In 1935, on Wu Wenzao’s invitation, Radcliffe-Brown himself paid a visit to Yenching University.9 He was warmly received by the newgeneration sociologists and anthropologists who were striving to create a “Chinese school of sociology” (Chiao, 1987, pp. 5–6).10 By then, Radcliffe-Brown had sought to include East Asia on his ethnographic map. He sent his student John Embree to conduct fieldwork in Japan. Wu heard the news and immediately sent a telegraph, inviting him to

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visit Yenching University (W. Wu, 2002b [1936]). Radcliffe-Brown became keenly interested enough in the idea of “civility” that a few years later he wrote “Religion and society” (1945) and paid tribute to classical Chinese ideas of li (ritual). According to Maurice Freedman (1975, p. 6), Radcliffe-Brown often referred to Granet in his teaching in Chicago between 1931–1937 and in Oxford although he “failed to inscribe him adequately in his writings.” To add one more piece of evidence to Freedman’s observation, in an article published after Radcliffe-Brown’s visit, Wu (2002b [1936], p. 270) said the following: Professor Radcliffe-Brown is full of sympathetic knowledge of traditional Chinese civilization. He began to understand China through his studies in art and philosophy. He gained quite a deep knowledge of China. In recent years, he has paid much attention to M. Granet’s works in French on ancient Chinese civilization and thought. Granet is the first to apply Durkheimian sociology to the study of ancient society in China.

But as Wu also noted, being dissatisfied with Granet’s historical study, Radcliffe-Brown had his own project of studying China: … in his visit to China, Radcliffe-Brown strives to maintain his theories and methods of comparative sociology, and to extend them to field studies of rural communities in China. By so doing, he hopes to develop something complementary to Granet’s method of history. (p. 270)

Wu might have had another reason to distrust Granet. As soon as Granet published his Chinese Civilization, Ding Wenjiang (1931), the founder of modern Chinese geology who was keenly interested in anthropology and archeology, heavily criticized Granet, calling into question his language capacity and historical understanding; the effect of Ding’s criticism was so strong that even when Chinese sociologists and historians used Granet’s ideas, they did not refer to him (K. Yang, 1997b, pp. 107–141). Whatever the reason, Wu and his students made their own choice: they asked Radcliffe-Brown to speak on his own social anthropology. Instead of Granet’s model of civilization which had intrigued RadcliffeBrown, they were after all more interested in social organization and the micro-sociology of rural communities. Radcliffe-Brown ended by delivering three lectures about what was imagined as lacking in Chinese

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academia, “The concept of function in the social sciences” (translated by Li Youyi), “Current state of anthropology” (translated by Li Youyi), and “Propositions for the sociological study of rural life in China” (translated by Wu Wenzao) (Sociological Society of Yenching University ed., 2002c [1936], pp. 271–310). It seemed that among Radcliffe-Brown’s three lectures, the final one was the most popular among Chinese sociologists and anthropologists. In 1938, three years after Radcliffe-Brown’s visit to Yenching, Fei Xiaotong, who had sat in Radcliffe-Brown’s lectures in 1935, completed a doctoral thesis in London under the supervision of Bronislaw Malinowski. Fei, who had previously done a more ethnological description of the Hualan Yao in Guangxi (T. Wang and X. Fei, 1988 [1936]), now defined the aim of ethnographic study as a description of the situations of socio-economic change. “An adequate definition of situation, if it is to organize successful actions and attain the desired end, must be reached through a careful analysis of the functions of the social institutions, in relation to the need that they purport to satisfy and in relation to other institutions on which their working depends” (Fei, 1939, p. 4). Durkheim’s The Rules of Sociological Method, which had been translated in 1925 into Chinese by Xu Deheng, was introduced briefly in Wu’s introduction to Radcliffe-Brown’s theory as one of the philosophical sources of social anthropology (Wu, 2002b [1936], pp. 239–270). But it did not really catch the attention of Yenching sociologists.11 Wu listed four contributions of Radcliffe-Brown. Comparative sociology, or what Radcliffe-Brown deployed to subsume ethnology, was listed as the last; the other three were: (1) Radcliffe-Brown’s re-unifying of anthropology and sociology, as Durkheim and Mauss had done; (2) his redefinition of “function” and “meaning”; (3) his training of field research experts. As a careful scholar, Wu did not miss the subtle aspects of Radcliffe-Brown. He mentioned Radcliffe-Brown’s argument that a social system was both a linkage of a particular social group to the natural and material world and an internal integration of “humans” (Wu, 2002b [1936], p. 255). Wu also noticed that by the early 1930s Raymond Firth had added cultural area and contact studies into Radcliffe-Brown’s Australian study project (p. 263). However, Wu’s

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interest was mainly the re-unification of sociology and anthropology in the methodology of “community study.” In describing RadcliffeBrown’s “reunification” of anthropology and sociology, Wu said that sociology and anthropology were undivided in the nineteenth century, in the works of the great scholars such Comte, Spencer, Tylor, and Morgan. But in the twentieth century, “the great fighter for American historical particularism Alfred Kroeber sought to re-divide the two disciplines,” which was “entirely a mistake” (p. 250). In Paris, Mauss established an ethnological research institution; “his original plan was to train fieldworkers,” “but Mauss only lectures theoretically,” “thus the fieldwork validations of Durkheim’s theory did not really exist in Paris” (p. 251). Wu argued that Radcliffe-Brown’s The Andaman Islanders was the first and best example of the combination of sociology and anthropology, being a synthesis of theory and fieldwork. Although Radcliffe-Brown’s second contribution was supposedly the redefinition of “function” and “meaning,” Wu mentioned it virtually in passing. Throughout the long paragraphs intended to validate the point, Wu addressed mainly the issue of “community study.” Radcliffe-Brown’s sociological study of the Andaman islanders became a fine example of how a rural Chinese community should be studied as a whole, consisting of social life, a social structure, and a “system” (p. 255). Concerning the training of field research experts, Wu especially pointed to Radcliffe-Brown’s work in Australia, listing the names of many of his students (p. 262). Later in his article, Wu said: Recently we ourselves are applying functionalist anthropology in our examination of modern communities in China. Thus, when we heard that Radcliffe-Brown was coming to the East, we telegraphed him and invited him to lecture in China. Before then we knew that he had delivered a lecture in a summer conference of the Sociological Society of the University of Chicago on the application of anthropological methods in studying modern society. In that lecture, Radcliffe-Brown cited the example of social institutions and change in China. As soon as Professor Radcliffe-Brown arrived at Yenching University, we invited him to lead a workshop on the issue. He gave two lectures, volunteering to speak on “The plan of investigating sociologically rural life in China.” From then on, the vast country of China has become an experimental area of his comparative sociology (p. 266).

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Prior to Radcliffe-Brown’s visit, Wu’s group had received a Chicago sociologist, Robert Park (Park was a visiting professor at Yenching University from September to December 1932). Park had been a journalist in his youth; later he studied various subjects, including psychology, philosophy, and sociology in the US and Germany. In the late ninteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, he became a leading sociologist at the University of Chicago. By the time he visited China, Park had made extensive sociological inquiries into assimilation in the US, and had become ever more interested in similar processes in other civilizations. Prior to his visit to Yenching, Park had traveled in the Asia-Pacific region and developed a large project on regional “racial relations.” In Fei Xiaotong’s words, “Problems of the nation and culture in China intrigued Park considerably” (Fei, 2001, p. 210). It seems to be true that Park did not go to China just to deliver lectures. He paid the visit because he was intrigued with the old ways in which the Chinese dealt with “problems of the nation and culture.” After his visit, Park wrote a piece entitled “On China” (Park, 2002 [1933], pp. 17–21). Wu translated, edited, and published it. According to Wu’s translation, in this essay Park made a comparison between China and the “political entities.” Translated back from Chinese, this is what Park said: China is an organic entity that slowly but decisively embraced the diverse cultures of the primitive peoples who were in contact with it. It changed those cultures, assimilated them, and in the end, incorporated them into the vast complexity of Chinese culture or Chinese civilization.… [M]any other nations grew out of conquest; they either extended violence to neighboring nations, or deployed political means to rule the conquered peoples. The institution as such is known as “the State” in Europe. By contrast, China expanded by way of extending its cultural influence. By virtue of “assimilation,” China not only incorporated the weaker nations nearby, but also made those nations that sometimes conquered her adopt the social and moral order of her civilization. (p. 18)

Compared to Marcel Granet’s Chinese Civilization published four years earlier in 1929, Park’s short essay was trivial. Granet’s book was a brilliantly composed model. He showed how agriculture as a technology for dealing with nature and “barbarians” evolved together with sexual divisions and alliances to pave the road of “overlordship,” a

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kind of synthetic “personality” stemming from technology and social life and giving life to the “cult of imperial person.” Granet also showed how the imperial person was in itself a microcosm of the world in which relationships between humans and nature, between social egos and others (including barbarians), and between higher and lower territorial centers were hierarchically constituted. We do not know whether Park had read Granet’s work, an English version of which became available just one year after it had been published in France; but it is certain that Park shared with Granet a comparative perspective. In the introduction of Chinese Civilization, Granet also compared the civilization of China with the Indo-European politico-legal entities whose principle of solidarity was either God or Law. The concept of imperial China’s civilizational order was quite familiar to Wu Wenzao.12 However, he obviously felt much stronger about Park’s science of sociology. Thus, Park also ended in delivering lectures upon the “primary aspects” of sociology. At Yenching, Park delivered lectures to two classes on “collective behavior” and “sociological methods” (Sociological Society of Yenching University ed., 2002a [1933]). As Fei Xiaotong, then a student sitting in Park’s lectures, recollected, Park took his teaching at Yenching seriously. “He taught classes, from which students gained scores. After class time, Park also talked to individual students and tutored them in small groups” (Fei, 2001, p. 212). In both classes, Park devoted much of his energy to introducing his sociology of the city. Yang Qingkun (C. K. Yang), one of Park’s students, compiled a full document of this (Q. Yang, 2002 [1933], pp. 179–223). During the 1920s, Park, together with Ernest W. Burgess, had developed an elaborate theory of urban “human ecology.” Park regarded cities as environments like ecosystems in which the struggle for scarce resources, especially land, led to the divisions of urban space. Such divisions were analyzed from the perspective of distinctive ecological niches or “natural areas.” In the city, “natural areas” were also where people shared similar social characteristics. As a complex of urban “natural areas,” the city could be said to be a human ecological matrix within which different sorts of people co-existed (Park, Burgess, and McKenzie, 1925).

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Wu, who had read Park’s publications thoroughly, did not disdain to go to sit among his own students in Park’s classes. But Wu’s courtesy did not produce a full acceptance; in his writings about Park, we can see his indifference to Park’s urban sociology. Wu respected Park’s sociology of the city; but he was much more eager to draw from it a lesson for the study of rural life in China. For him, the sociology of urban America was important simply because it provided a counter-example for China, a collection of communities deeply rooted “in the soil.” Wu did not question Park’s model of “human ecology”; instead, he extended it to all human communities, including those under ethnological and sociological inspection. In Wu’s interpretation, Park’s urban sociology was the same as ethnography, and as a methodology, it was good for the analysis of all definable “small areas” or “communities.” Wu postulated that “community studies” (shequ yanjiu) constituted great “theoretical and methodological perspectives of human community for the study of tribal, rural, and urban societies” (Wu, 2002c [1933], p. 16). In paying this tribute to Park, Wu mentioned three different disciplines—ethnology, micro-sociology or social anthropology, and sociology. In his mind, the three disciplines were different in terms of the target groups of interrogation, but they were the same if one saw them as sharing just one methodology—“community study.” Wu particularly emphasized the use of Park’s human ecology for the study of rural Chinese communities. If Wu was telling the truth, then, Park was also quite encouraging to him. Wu said that Park “regarded the city as the laboratory of Occidental sociology, the village as that of Oriental sociology” (p. 13). But the so-called Park’s distinction between the Western metropolis and Oriental village—which Wu himself composed a diagram to illustrate—“did not derive from Park’s original lectures”; rather, it was Wu’s own comparison “based on Park’s view of urban-rural differentiation” (p. 14). Wu’s endeavor to domesticate Western sciences yielded a long-term effect. Regarding Chinese sociology before 1949, in his article “Sociology in China: A brief overview,” Freedman said the following: In the general history of the social sciences we assume that the marriage between sociology and anthropology comes later, having been preceded by a long courtship. China does not fit this pattern. Almost as soon as the

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social sciences were established there anthropology and sociology were intertwined—to be disentangled in a strange way when the Communists arrived (Freedman, 1979c, p. 373).

Freedman went on to outline three sociological approaches being advanced in China in the 1920s and 1930s: (1) survey-cum-demographic studies, (2) community studies, and (3) law studies (pp. 376–378). Commenting on “community studies,” a characteristic of Chinese sociology or “intertwined” sociology and anthropology, Freedman said that such studies “may be regarded as a kind of extension of Anglo-American rural sociology and anthropology, the fashions of foreign scholarship helping to shape the products of Chinese investigation” (p. 375). However, what Freedman defined as “Chinese sociology” actually was more complex. Wu promoted his “community study” as a part of the project of “Sinification” (Zhongguohua). Wu’s sociology could be said to be an epistemological consequence of the joint resistance of Protestant missionary and modern Chinese sociologists to the old European “orientalism” of the imperial Chinese capitals, and it was a kind of “ethnographic sociology” based on a Chinese synthesis of missionary scholars’ “village-peeping method,”13 Britishstyle ethnography, and sociological functionalism (Wu, 2002a [1933]). To be more specific, Wu’s “translation” of Park’s urban ecology into a content-neutral instrument for sociological practice was done by recycling it with what had been available as a Chinese synthesis. For Wu, “community studies,” which emerged in China not so much as an overt “scientific” rejection of ethnological histories but as a kind of Eastward extension of a new Western method, should better be defined as a Chinese synthesis. In Wu’s mind, one of the two characteristics of a Sinified or “Chinese school of sociology” was ethnography, the other being simply “sociology narrated in the Chinese language.”

Ethnology in the Age of the Isolate The establishment of a “Chinese school of sociology,” to which American and European mentors such as Park, Radcliffe-Brown, and Malinowski made great contributions, resulted in the forgetting of a great part of history. Just two decades before this school inaugurated itself, old China’s “gazettes of the world” were still highly valued in the human science of ethnology.14 By the 1930s, the situation of knowledge

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had dramatically changed. In the North, at Yenching, advanced social anthropology and sociology were combined in a new Occidentalist synthetic text; becoming a part of Mr. Science (Sai Xiansheng), it guided a generation of Chinese anthropologists to delink “China from the soil” from all its historically predestined inter-cultural ties. This trend was not at all uncontested. In Chinese academia at this time, other groups rivaled the “Yenching school.” Francis Hsu, a member of Wu’s “Chinese school,” once remarked: During many months between 1935 and 1936 Professor Radcliffe-Brown resided at Yenching University, Father Wilhelm Schmidt entrenched himself behind the castle-like structure of the Catholic University of Peking, while Professor S. M. Shirokogoroff was on the faculty of Tsing Hua [Tsinghua] University; but these three men could not be persuaded to see each other. (Hsu, 1944, p. 13)

Wilhelm Schmidt was a Roman Catholic priest and diffusionist ethnologist who not only developed a theory of primitive monotheism but also promoted the ethnology of cultural areas, layers, and civilizational centers (Brandewie, 1990). Sergei M. Shirokogoroff received his training in ethnology in Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1910, he returned to Russia and became a professor at the University of St. Petersburg. His work focused upon Siberia and Manchuria. During the Soviet Revolution, he fled to China, where he worked in various institutions such as Shanghai University (1922), Amoy (Xiamen) University (1926), Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, Academia Sinica in Guangzhou (1928), and Tsinghua University (1930–1939). Shirokogoroff specialized in ethnology and physical anthropology. Schmidt, who was also in Beiping (Beijing) during RadcliffeBrown’s stay, left behind him nothing on Yenching sociologists’ view of “community study.” But Shirokogoroff did publish a critical article on ethnography in 1942. He did not criticize ethnography; he was only implying an opposition to the Yenching Chinese approach to “ethnographicization.” As Shirokogoroff (1942) argued, … it is not incidental that a number of investigators have come to the idea of confining the work to the village as unit, but it cannot become a defendable assumption. First of all, the idea itself of fixing any unit of investigation methodologically is erroneous. No such a standardization is possible,

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for it is the ethnographer who has to find out from his preliminary survey how he will go about with the differentiation of the material—the ethnical units are not standardized and “village” is not a system universally practised in China. Since it has already been fixed we may ask ourselves for the reasons of such a choice. There exist two fundamental conditions to be accounted for. Those who have fixed it were not trained in modern methods of ethnography. They attacked the problem from the sociological side the theory of which had been built on the facts of non-Chinese social experience. They even attacked it from a still narrower point of view, such as “rural economy” etc. Secondly, all of them had a rather confused idea about China while the Chinese themselves in their desire of reaching political unity, could not even think of China otherwise than a unit, a nation, which however might be built up of distinct ethnical and regional components. Naturally, under such circumstances there remained only one odd chance of giving a scientifically motivated solution of the problem of the unit of investigation, in fact it was reduced to that technique, while actually it had the greatest importance of a methodological order. (pp. 3–4)

As a foreign ethnologist who had worked for many years in China, Shirokogoroff had sharper eyes than the “natives” on what was happening in Chinese social sciences and the Western elements involved in it. In a long footnote, Shirokogoroff further explained his viewpoint of “nationalism” in sociological and social anthropological studies of China: It is a mere misunderstanding originating from an inadequate knowledge of the nature of “nation,” evidently supplied by those who wanted to “westernize” the Chinese, according to their own shape and small extend [sic] of knowledge. While abroad, being chiefly interested in political problems, the Chinese had only the choice between political and semi-political circles, where the opinions of the Chinese students had to be formed according to the aims of various “engineers” and practical sociologists, the first step to which was to win the sympathy of the Chinese youth by accepting their national aspirations. Such a behaviour affected not only practical sociologists, but also some physical anthropologists…. (pp. 3–4, footnote 5)

For Shirokogoroff, ethnographic work should comprise making maps of ethnic groups, compiling gazettes of localities, conducting fieldwork, setting up ethnographic libraries and museums, and so forth, and ethnographers of China should pay attention to ethnic and regional

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complexities. As early as the 1930s, Shirokogoroff had advanced a theory of “ethnos,” or “psychomental complex,” an ethnological interpretation of ethnic identification and inter-cultural historical interaction (Shirokogoroff, 1935). The emergence of an ethnographic moment in the “Chinese school of sociology” did not really catch the attention of the Nationalist government. The KMT was centered in the South, and it had its own project. In 1927, two years before Wu Wenzao got his job at Yenching University, the decision to establish a brand-new national academy was reached. The plan was to create a supreme academy directly attached to the central government and independent of any universities. The academy was to be called “Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan” or “Academia Sinica.” In April 1929, Cai Yuanpei, the former president of Peking University, was appointed to be its president. A few months later, Academia Sinica was formally inaugurated. During his appointment, Cai first created the Institute of Physics, Chemistry, and Industry, Institute of the Social Sciences, and Institute of History and Philology, among which the last was the largest and most successful. These three “mother institutes” then gave birth to several “son institutes,” to make Academia Sinica an academy with more than ten research institutes. Ethnology was first included in the Institute of the Social Sciences, which was based both in Nanjing and Shanghai. Later, it moved to the Institute of History and Philology, a much larger organization directed by the famous scholar Fu Sinian. The Institute of History and Philology was established in Guangzhou in 1927, and moved to Beiping in 1929. Fu Sinian, from whom I have quoted extensively in earlier chapters, was an active student leader during the May Fourth Movement. After 1919, he spent a few years at the University College London and University of Berlin, pursuing graduate studies in experimental psychology, physiology, mathematics, and physics. During these years, he developed a strong interest in comparative linguistics and history. In 1926, Fu was appointed professor of literature and history at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. In 1928, he was appointed director of the Institute of History and Philology. Fu had an explicit political viewpoint; he was a supporter of the Nationalist government, and he opposed communism. In his inaugural article of the institute, he expressed his disagreement with Neo-Confucianism and other “subjective (zhuguan) views of history,” and argued

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that one of the aims of the Institute was to “construct history and philology in accordance with the same standards used in biology and geology” (Fu, 2003, 3:12). The ultimate aim of establishing his research institute, as stated in the conclusion of his article, was to “make China a center of scientific Oriental studies (kexue de dongfangxue).” Fu’s methodology was a unique synthesis of traditional Chinese historiography, modern archaeology, geography, philology, and ethnology (F. Wang, 2006). Fu shared with Wu and his followers the perspective of China as a whole. But being hardly influenced by Durkheimian sociology and social anthropology, he did not bother at all about either sociology or ethnography; he had his own way of science. Quite like Shirokogoroff, Fu was keenly interested in the ethno-genesis of the Chinese people. Also quite like Shirokogoroff, he paid special attention to the ethnic and regional complexities of historical China. But unlike Shirokogoroff, who concentrated upon the ethnological investigation of the margins and intermediary zones of China, Fu took the study of the holistic formation of Chinese civilization as his prime task. As a patriotic historian, Fu was chiefly concerned with reconstructing the historical, geographic, and linguistic patterns of old China.15 Fu’s leadership saw the emergence of a different group in Chinese social sciences—the ethnologists. Unlike the “Chinese school of sociology,” the ethnological group camped in the South at Academia Sinica did not perceive the isolate of the community as a scientific unit of methodology; rather they saw ethnology as a better science. More immersed in old China’s “gazettes of the world,” the ethnological group admitted the factors of inter-cultural relations into their texts. Moreover, the core members of this group were much more inclined to examine the civilization of what we have called “the Chinese world” as a totality. They thus paid far greater attention to the historical processes in which different ethnic groups and cultural areas interacted, struggled, and fused. However, this does not mean that the ethnological group was entirely emancipated from the idea of isolate. A certain minority continued to apply the perspective of diffusionism in extending the scope of ethnology. But the majority of the group turned away from the study of interconnections. Suspecting that the diffusionist ethnologists conspired to “convert” the border areas of the Central Kingdom to

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foreign imperialistic territorial spheres, they devoted most of their works to the demonstration of how the “exteriors” such as the West in various senses, to which classical China was related, were parts of China historically. Among the ethnological group, a theory of borders (bianjiang) was advanced, and it defined China in terms of a sovereign nation with clear-cut geopolitical and cultural boundaries. In the new theory of the bounded nation, the perspective of intergroup and relationship was retained. But it had been reformulated to fit into the ethnology of “inner-China” inter-ethnic interactions. Li Ji was one of the talents recruited into the Institute of History and Philology in 1929. He obtained his pre-college training at Tsinghua in 1911. In 1918, he was admitted to the Department of Psychology of Clark University in the US. There he switched to demography and graduated as a sociologist. In 1920, Li Ji moved to Harvard University to pursue a doctorate in anthropology. In two years, he was given his degree. His first teaching post was a lectureship in anthropology and sociology at Nankai University. In 1924, he began to conduct the first modern Chinese archaeological fieldwork. In the same year, he was appointed lecturer of Guoxue or Chinese culture studies by Tsinghua. In 1929, Fu Sinian asked him to join the Institute of History and Philology. He became director of its Archaeology Department. He organized the excavation of Yinxu, a famous Shang Dynasty site (Li, 1977). In 1928, Li Ji had published in English a revised version of his dissertation, The Formation of the Chinese People (2005 [1928]), which dealt with the origin of the Chinese people in terms of physical anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, and history. Li Ji did not share Fu Sinian’s interactive model of history, but he was also interested in the conjoining of a variety of ethnic groups into a national whole. Instead of Fu’s contesting macro-regions, Li tended to discover more cultural regions and to acknowledge intra-regional complexities. Li also emphasized the contribution of technology to the formation of civilization. Pottery, bronze, writing, sacrifice, war vehicles, and stone crafting were presented as six progressive stages of Shang civilization (Li, 1977).16 Another man whom Fu recruited was Ling Chunsheng. Unlike the American-trained anthropologist Li, Ling was a French-trained ethnologist. Ling, who came from Jiangsu, received his earlier education

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there. In 1924, he gained a degree in education studies from Southeastern University. In 1926, he went to Paris, where he studied for three years. In 1929, he was appointed research professor by the Institute of the Social Sciences. In 1933, when the Ethnology Department moved to the Institute of History and Philology, Ling went with it. Considering Ling’s life course, one finds the usual pattern: Ling began his career as a unique mixture of ethno-historian and ethnographer, and ended it as a diffusionist. Later in his life, in the 1950s and 1960s, he devoted most of his time to trace the Egyptian and Mesopotamian origins of Chinese ceremonies and political cosmology and to the definition of a macro-region called “Circum-Pacific” (Ling, 1979a; 1979b). In his earlier life, however, he was mainly a fieldworker, making short or long field trips to ethnic minority areas to study ethnic and regional material, social, and spiritual life.17 Ling’s earliest work was an extensive monographic ethnography, Songhua Jiang xiayou de Hezhe zu (The Hezhe in the Lower Valley of the Songhua River) (1934). In its preface, Ling said that his study was one of ethnology. But in his view, ethnology consisted of descriptive and comparative branches: descriptive ethnology was defined as “ethnography,” whereas comparative ethnology could be simply called “ethnology.” Thus, his book fell into the category of “ethnography.” But Ling’s ethnography of the Hezhe (Goldi) was radically different from the community studies Wu Wenzao promoted. It contained three volumes—a volume of figures, Volume One, and Volume Two—which together made up 333 figures and 694 large pages. These large volumes were divided into the following four parts: Part 1. Ancient Nations in Northeast China and the Hezhe Part 2. The Culture of the Hezhe Part 3. The Language of the Hezhe Part 4. Appendices: Stories of the Hezhe Obviously, Ling’s definition of ethnographic unit was much broader than Wu’s, more or less like the ethnic, regional, and linguistic definition adopted by Shirokogoroff. Ling dedicated an extensive part of his monograph to the study of the culture of the Hezhe. “Culture” was defined as consisting of the “material, spiritual, familial, and social life of them [the Hezhe]” (Ling, 1934, 1:1). Data concerning these four

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aspects of Hezhe life was derived from fieldwork conducted by Ling and his co-worker Shang Chengzu. But Ling was unsatisfied with fieldwork that was limited to the synchronic scope. He believed that the culture of the Hezhe was much influenced by the frequent inter-cultural and inter-ethnic contacts among the ancient Asian peoples, Manchus, and Han. Ling devoted a whole part to the complexity of the Hezhe language and another to Hezhe stories which, to him, validated his historical arguments. To many, this ethnographic, linguistic, and mythological data were sufficient to form a solid foundation for an ethnography, but to Ling these were still not adequate. On top of all these, Ling added one more part and placed it in the forefront of his book. “Part 1. Ancient Nations in Northeast China and the Hezhe,” stood out as an evidence to prove Ling’s close relationship with the Republican patriotic ethnologists such as Fu Sinian. The whole part could be said to deal with the issue of whether the Hezhe and other northeastern Chinese ethnic groups are descendants of the ancient Tungus. In 1820, the French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat made the argument that the “Donghu” in ancient Chinese historical records were part of the Tungus, a nation whose influence was prevalent all over Eurasia. This argument was supported by many European sinologists— including Julius Klaproth, Edward Parker, and Édouard Chavannes. To refute this diffusionist and “typical Western conception” of Chinese history, Ling made enormous efforts, taking care to provide all available archival and archaeological materials, to prove the reverse: the Tungus were part of the Eastern Yi (Dongyi, or Eastern Barbarians in China), who were studied by Fu Sinian as an assortment of ethnic groups residing in the eastern macro-region of classical China. The other chapters of Part 1 are devoted to several themes, the first being the historical origins of the ethnic names of the tribe living in northeast China, following which Ling devoted a whole chapter to the Hezhe in Chinese historical writings. In describing the social life of the Hezhe, Ling did display the good sense that he learned from Mauss and Rivet, who between the two wars sought to advance a theory of civilization that would allow sociologists to take inter-cultural technological and intellectual borrowings as a major aspect of history (Mauss, 2006). Inter-cultural borrowings as manifested in the material, spiritual, familial, and social aspects of

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Hezhe culture are emphasized. However, to reorient the direction of cultural diffusion from that to which the nineteenth century European sinologists usually looked, Ling became rather ethno-centric. He insisted that cultural contacts in northeast China mostly occurred among local tribes, ancient Asian tribes, Manchus, and Han. Such a list excludes the Tungus, who are placed under the category of the Eastern Yi of ancient China. Fu Sinian, Li Ji, and Ling Chunsheng were respectively trained in the British, German, American, and French academic traditions. Differences, competition, and tensions obviously existed among them, but these did not hinder them from becoming the three leading figures of the Academia Sinica tradition of ethnology.18 Compared to the few classical diffusionists who still maintained that Chinese civilization originated from “the West,” the “internal diffusionists” such as the ethnological group under Fu Sinian’s direction gained much more popularity. As indicated earlier, the Western sinologists, together with their Chinese followers, related much of Chinese civilization to the Middle East, India, or even Egypt. Some of them located Kunlun in the Far West beyond Chinese territory, treating the cult of Xi Wangmu as a “cultural survival” of the archaic linkage in Eurasia. Abandoning this “external diffusionism,” alternatively, more and more Chinese historical geographers, ethnologists, and mythologists saw Kunlun and Xi Wangmu as certain “indigenous tribal sources” of “the Chinese nation.” They also located the mountains and deities outside the confines of Huaxia. But the “outside” now connoted the areas occupied by the ethnic groups of the Qiang and the Rong, who, to both Fu Sinian and Gu Jiegang, had been integrated into the Chinese nation by the first century A.D. at the latest.19 Sinological diffusionism continued to influence other Chinese scholars. On the basis of diffusionist studies of interconnections, Chinese studies on the history of Sino-foreign relationships (Zhongwai guanxi shi), the history of the Southern Sea (Nanyang shi), and the history of Sino-Western contacts (Zhongxi jiechu shi) prospered through the re-translations back into Chinese of the Western translations of Chinese “gazettes of foreigners.” Nonetheless, once the dichotomies of Sino-foreign and Sino-Western were invented, a great part of the perspective of interconnection was lost. The asserted boundaries between the Central Kingdom and the outside world brought with

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them taken-for-granted confusions: the “illusionary” and “realistic” geographies of Kunlun, the Immortality Mountains, India, the Western Territories, the Southern Sea, and the Western Ocean were treated as data of Sino-foreign relations in historical works, but they were used as materials for ethno-historical studies of Chinese ethnic groups.20

“Europeanization” … within such a short period, three months, the master conveyed to us not the dead knowledge from books, but the vigor of a great life. We, the listeners, could not help becoming enthusiastic; exhausting our potentials, we engaged in intellectual discussions. We tried our best to pursue the meaning and truth of knowledge, and we now attribute our achievement entirely to the master. Three months quietly passed. Our master left us one day after Christmas. Separated from him, we all feel a sense of loss…. (Sociological Society of Yenching University ed., 2002b [1933], p. 5)

“The master” so sentimentally celebrated was Park. The paragraph, written by Fei Xiaotong and his fellow students, expressed the attachment of a generation of Chinese sociologists to their foreign mentor. In its description, Park seems like a “stranger-sage,” coming from the West to inspire all the social science modernization endeavors in the East. The structure of relationship behind the performance of the characters and phases seems the same as that seen in either Biography of King Mu or The Travels of Fa-hsien. It is true that these feelings stemmed from a friendship. However, it did not just mark the beginning of the relationship itself but also celebrated a departure of differentiation, well characterizing the intellectual propensity of modern China.21 In the early twentieth century, Chinese Occidentalism was re-conceptualized. Prior to that, the West had referred to Kunlun, the Western Territories, India, and the Western Ocean. By the beginning of the twentieth century, it was further applied beyond India, to cover Europe and America. Not all the Wests in ancient China were seen as “holy.” These Wests often were “confusions” of other humans, other things, and other divinties, sometimes good to have, sometimes existing as challenges. The West in the modern Chinese sense continued to have the same ambiguity. The “coming of age” of Chinese sociological and

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ethnological sciences was a fine example with which to illustrate the ambiguity of the new West. As the home of Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy (X. M. Chen, 1992), the West had replaced India as the source of Truth. To invent Chinese “science” and Chinese “democracy,” social scientists in post-imperial China reoriented toward the direction of the West. Yet the West now also became the source of imperialism. To “fetch the scriptures” from it was thus not to be seen as putting the East into the “Western world.” On the contrary, they were seen as applicable and valuable only when they served to make China an integrated “isolate,” separated from the “world system” of imperialism. Only in this way could such scriptures be of any use. Thus, while Radcliffe-Brown had his reasons to de-ethnologize anthropology, Republican-era Chinese sociologists and ethnologists had their own backgrounds in reaction to which they chose to head forward in two directions—towards the “communities” in the countryside and the “ethnic cultures” surviving nearby along the “borders.” These two kinds of “isolates” derived from the West and the East did not arrive in the world of academia by coincidence—the age of the nation was what made Durkheimian sociology and Chinese social sciences. Nonetheless, the “blending” of the East and West was achieved in the East. In search of the imaginaries of such an “isolate,” Chinese sociologists and ethnologists reconceptualized the ancient Chinese world in the new setting either as a loose collection of rural villages waiting for re-integration or as a collection of scattered materials waiting for “Chinese ethnohistorians” to organize. Such “sciences” had the shortcoming of not being “reflexive.” They could be said to be un-reflexive specifically because they did not contextualize themselves in the long-term “ecology” of inter-cultural relationships which not only restricted their own “progress” but also constrained the direction of movement of the overall intellectual trend. After all, these “sciences” were bound up with the “coming of age” of “Europeanization” (Ouhua), and they should be contextualized in its terms. Despite the fact that “Europeanization” was a novelty, China’s contact with Europe was a long story. Europe and China can be seen as located respectively to the west of West Asia and to the east of India. Before the fifteenth century, they did not have the kind of large-scale direct contact as seen during the trade wars over tea and opium. But

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their mutual imaginations of each other began long ago. In the fourth century B.C., the ancient Greek began to know Chinese silk and created rich legends about mysterious Oriental things. In the first century, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) wrote Naturalis Historia, in which he explained that silk was made of fuzz from trees, that it was harvested from the forests by Chinese workers and processed into fabrics by their wives (Coedès, 1987, p. 10; Yule & Cordier, 2002, p. 13). Several centuries later, in the Tang Dynasty, Duan Gonglu stated in his literary sketches Beihu Lu (Record of the Northern Barbarians) that European goats were grown in the soil, just like grain, and called them disheng yang (soil-grown sheep) (Zhong, 2000, pp. 12–13). Europeans imagined Chinese silk as something growing on trees; Chinese imagined European goats as animals raised in the soil.22 There was a large distance between China and Europe; but both sides of Eurasia shared something in common when dealing with the other. Both sides relied upon the intermediaries—the Hindu world, the Islamic world, and, more often, their combinations. Neither the Far East nor Far West could separate itself from these intermediaries. In late 1933, Zhang Xinglang argued in his masterpiece History of the Eastward Spread of Europeanization that: The history of Europe was not the central thread of world history. But many European historians, who have written about world history, tend to put Europe at the center of world activities (shijie huodong). This is somewhat understandable, considering that Europeans have indeed been extremely active on the world stage since the fifteenth century. However, I have to say that before the fifteenth century, what we call “world activities” almost only took place between the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa. We should not neglect those activities in Asia and in the areas between Asia, Africa, and Europe. (2000 [1933], p. 2)

Zhang Xinglang urged his colleagues to focus on the Eurasian world activities from the perspective of what I (2008) have recently called the “intermediary” (zhongjianquan). In the quotation above, he differentiated Euro-centric world history from world history itself. He insisted that world history should take into account the “world activities” of the in-between areas in Asia and between Asia, Europe, and Africa. Before the fifteenth century, the center of the world was located between the West and the East in South Asia and the “Middle East”;

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after that, the center moved to Europe. Thirty years after Zhang, Wolf published Europe and the People without History. Like Zhang, Wolf emphasized the important role of the South and the East in world history. Early in the book, Wolf (1982) described a super-regional system in the in-between zones: Eastward, across the Indian Ocean and beyond, lay the vast spheres of India and China and the Southeast Asian archipelago. Ocean-borne trade in spices and gold between India and the West, which was extensive during the early Roman Empire, had weakened after the second century A.D. (see Wheeler, 1955). This had reoriented Indian trade toward Southeast Asia (Coedès, 1964, pp. 44–49), and Arabs and Persians had taken over the routes to the east. In the fourth century and again in the early seventh century, there were colonies of Arab merchants in Canton (Leur, 1955, p. 111). Until the tenth century the Chinese shipped their goods abroad in Arab or Iranian bottoms, and in the ships of non-Han seafaring peoples of South China and the China seas. Thus, there had been long-standing connections of trade among the core regions of southern, eastern, and western Asia. (p. 44)

In the “preface” to the book, Wolf made the point that a realistic world history should be analytic, stating further that “such an analytic history could not be developed out of the study of a single culture or nation, a single culture area, or even a single continent at one period in time” (p. ix). Wolf argues that “older anthropology had little to say, however, about the major forces driving the interaction of cultures since 1492— the forces propelling Europe into commercial expansion and industrial capitalism” (pp. ix–x). To place the particular power of European capitalism under his analysis, Wolf returned to the pre-fifteenth century world and re-emphasized the long-standing connections between South Asia, the Arab-Persian world, and East Asia. He admitted that superregional connections in these areas were much older than European world activities. However, Wolf was prepared to draw out a contrast between the world before the year 1400 and the world after it. He emphasized that “the development of both India and China depended, in the last instance, more on the expansion of cultivation and the surpluses afforded by it than on any linkages created by external trade” (pp. 44–45). Wolf’s paradoxical assumption became an assertion that no true “world activities” could have taken place prior to European expansion.

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Regarding the history of world activities, Zhang and Wolf seem to have the same understanding. However, their positions were quite different. Zhang saw the fifteenth century as a turning point in which a movement of “central places” of world activities took place. He refused to believe that world activities before and after the fifteenth century were limited. Wolf, instead, argued for European expansion as a true breakthrough. In his mind, “world activities” before the fifteenth century were not really global, and they were thus totally different from the truly global “world activities” of the Europeans. Before European expansion, no matter how open the non-Westerner polities were, the world in which they participated could only be regional and partial. The pre-modern non-European civilizations continued to resort to politico-economically “limiting” agricultural production in their efforts to passively maintain relations with the outside world. After the fifteenth century, the relationship between production and exchange altered: external trade, most frequently taking place over the “unlimited” seas, became the premise of internal production. In order to verify his point, Wolf analyzed the modes of production, social structures, and ideologies of India and China. To him, both the caste system in India and the imperial power and the authority of gentry-scholars (the shi) in China created rigid hierarchies, which prevented these civilizations from abandoning “nativism.” He used this thesis to explain why these “Asiatic” civilizations did not integrate their internal hierarchies with a truly global, inclusive, and free-floating world. Wolf’s analytical world history contains certain marvelous illustrations of “supra-societal systems” in the East and the South before 1400. But suffering from the “social scientific” tendency “to ascribe to Europe the ability to modernise, whereas other could but copy” (Goody, 1996, p. 8), Wolf insisted on a discontinuous approach to the modern world system. Although he did not abandon the inquiry of historical connections, between internal hierarchies of ancient civilizations and the worlds “beyond” them, he was mainly interested in distinguishing the modern, the Westernizing, and the “Europeanizing” from the “pre-modern.”23 Many decades before Wolf wrote, Zhang had already investigated “Europeanization” (Ouhua). Zhang’s definition of “Europeanization” is much broader in scope than Wolf’s perspective of “modernization.”

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He states: Since the time of the first East-West contacts, the tangible and intangible trade had never stopped. If these were sometimes limited, it was because some of the politicians tried to put them under their own control. No matter what the qualities and consequences were, the creations of Europeans have spread to China, directly and indirectly. The Chinese learned and used them to remove the old and to introduce the new. Western creations influenced Chinese historical futures. This is what can be called “Europeanization.” (2000 [1933], p. 4)

In Zhang’s view, there were three kinds of media in Europeanization, which he listed in the chronological sequence of their emergence: 1. European merchants, travelers, envoys, and troops; 2. missionaries; 3. Chinese students who studied abroad. (pp. 4–5) Merchants and travelers began to travel between Europe and Asia starting from Han at the latest. Later, with the expansion of East-West communications, the Islamic world in between Europe and China began to connect the two sides, placing them in a broader geographical scope. “Europeanization” in the sense of material culture has more to do with the “Orientalization” of Europe in Yuan. During Yuan, some of the major Chinese inventions traveled to Europe through the Islamic world. Paper, gunpowder, printing, and the compass, the four most famous Chinese inventions, were adopted and refined in “medieval” Europe. After Yuan, the channels of communication between China and Europe were blocked for 150 years. But Eastern products continued to flow to Europe through the intermediary areas. Near the end of the fifteenth century, “expeditions” were carried out from Portugal to the Indian Ocean. Defeating all the other powers (including Chinese pirates) on the sea, the Portuguese gained control over the network of communication. The Portuguese demanded the right to trade with Ming. In the 1620s, Portugal and Ming forged a diplomatic relationship. Portuguese merchants began to do business in Guangdong, Ningbo, and Quanzhou, monopolizing the maritime trade with China for sixty years. In 1571, the Spanish conquered the Philippines, but then in the early seventeenth century, a civil war broke out in Spain. As a result, the colonies of Spain in Asia were taken by Britain and

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Holland. North of China, Russia rose in power. The Russians signed the “Treaty of Nerchinsk” with the Qing court, which defined the border between Russia and Qing, and permitted the Russians to do business in northern China. A new structure of relationship between China and Europe was thus formed: Russians were in the North and Western Europeans were in the South (Zhang, 2000 [1933], p. 17). As Zhang outlined, the eastward expansion of Europe was bound up with the constantly shifting power-centers of the “internally partial empires” (the absolutist states) in Europe: In the sixteenth century, only Portugal and Spain entered China. In the seventeenth century, Holland and Britain came to China, and together with Portugal and Spain, these four countries were permitted to do business with China. In the seventeenth century, the British focused on India. Because of this, its trade with the Far East was not quite developed. The Dutch were based on the islands in the Southern Sea and did more business in the East than in the West. In the eighteenth century, the British not only controlled India, but also rose to the top in the Southern Sea trade with China…. After the fifteenth century, and especially in the sixteenth century, Portugal and Spain dominated maritime trade with China. But in the seventeenth century it was Holland that was in control. In the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, it was Britain that was supreme. (pp. 15–16)

“Europeanization” was achieved by the journeys of merchants, diplomats, and military troops who traveled to the East. It was also impelled by missionaries. Commercial and religious forces reinforced each other. Nestorianism was transmitted to China as early as the seventh century during Emperor Taizong’s reign in the Tang Dynasty. It was banned in 845 during the Wuzong reign. Several centuries later, in Yuan, many Nestorian missionaries arrived in China again, and were able to successfully convert many princesses, princes, generals, and emperors’ sons-in-law. After the downfall of Yuan, Nestorianism disappeared. In the sixteenth century, Jesuits came to China in strictly organized groups. Many Jesuit missionaries were erudite scholars. In order to defend against the spread of the new Lutheranism, they followed the adventurers to travel around the world in search of new followers. Supported by the Spanish and Portuguese, they gained huge influence in the East (p. 18). Founded in the sixteenth century, Lutheranism was powerful in Europe. But soon, it began to develop serious internal

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rivalries. Lutherans, who spent most of their energy on self-protection, did not expand their spheres of influence overseas. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, there were no followers outside of Europe and North America. Between the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the reformed branches of Christianity (e.g., Protestantism) expanded overseas. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the new branches of Christianity from Britain and America came to China in 1804 and 1807. Missionary activities advanced quickly (pp. 32–33). Meanwhile, after the first Opium War, Catholicism and Protestantism also expanded. The major branches of Christianity divided China into spheres of influence. Between China and Europe, there had been communication long before the arrival of modernity. At that time, Europe, like China, depended on intermediaries to import needed products (especially spices) and to learn about the other side of Eurasia. At the same time, European religious forces began to march toward the East. “World activities” before the fifteenth century continued to influence the process of “modernization.” Zhang provided details of this influence, which have by now been well studied. Etiemble (1988), for instance, argues that printing and paper-making became Europeanized as means for the nationalization of culture; gunpowder’s adoption into the military became important for internal order and external conquests; and the compass, functioning as the instrument of navigation, changed European geographical knowledge. Gernet (1979) has also argued that China played an important role in Europe’s modernizing process. He suggests that the Europeans did not abandon their theological worldviews until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In such theological worldviews, “nature” was hard to comprehend. Not until the era of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz did European thinkers begin to develop understandings of nature similar to Chinese cosmology. This change was closely related to the diffusion of Chinese thought in Europe (Gernet, 1986). Therefore, as Zhang (2000 [1933], pp. 30–35) argued, the turning point for European “world activities” was not in the fifteenth century, but between the nineteenth century and twentieth century. During this period, the hegemonic position the European kingdoms held in trade, gained by military conquest, paved the way for Europeanization in the East. From the 1840s, the Europeanization of China entered a new era.

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Meanwhile, Euro-centic worldviews started to be exported as “civilization” to the East. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, unidirectional cultural transmission from the West to the East began to find suitable “local environments.” The newly reformed branches of Christianity, from Britain and America, built numerous schools in Southeast Asia, and later transplanted these schools to south China. After the Opium War (1840), when all the Christian branches established their own operations in China, they also set up academic, publishing, medical, and educational institutions. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Chinese began to participate in Europeanization. In considering “Europeanization,” Zhang Xinglang (2000 [1933]) compared it with Sino-Indian interactions in earlier periods. To him, the Christian missionary activities were similar to the spread of Buddhism in China. Both religions began through the missions of foreign “monks” and continued in the active advocacies of the Chinese. However, between the spread of Buddhism from Han to Tang and the spread of Christian civilization, a sharp difference exists: by the late nineteenth century, while importing European civilization, Chinese scholars were also exporting their own culture. As Zhang states: The importation of Europeanizing civilization was promoted first by missionary churches and then by the Chinese. The situation was just like that during the Han and Wei dynasties. At that time, foreigners [Indian monks] were the first generation advocates of Buddhism in China. Soon they were replaced by Chinese monks such as Fa-hsien, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Now, even though the Chinese students abroad advocated Europeanization, they also wrote a great deal of books and articles to export Chinese culture to the West. They exported much more than they imported. (pp. 39–40)

The “great transformation,” from the Chinese journeys for Buddhist scriptures to the more recent journeys to export Chinese culture, deserves further discussion. In both the Wei-Jin period and in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the “Western Heaven” was seen as the source of truth. In the Song and the Yuan dynasties, the strong interest in exotic things and customs all revealed the ambitions of Chinese in grasping the remote and strange. By contrast, when Chinese scholars became enthusiastic about exporting their own culture, they became “ethno-centric” (pp. 42–46). But this kind of “ethnocentricity”

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was paradoxically bound up with Europeanization. By the time the mission of religion and science was completed, European minds had become ever more concerned with the other. Oriental studies and anthropology were advanced. While Oriental studies specialized in studying non-European civilizations, anthropology had the mission of bringing the “truly exotic” into the historical line of progress (Wallerstein, 1997). “Importing” cultures from all over the world was the prime task of both Orientalism and anthropology. When the Chinese students themselves engaged in “exporting Chinese culture,” they gained spiritual support from the exoticism of Orientalism and anthropology. Their “export of Chinese cultures” might seem to be an expression of the self-awareness of Chinese culture, but it had more to do with the Europeans’ ambition of mastering “world knowledge.” When Chinese intellectuals emerged in groups to assist Europeans and Americans to learn about China, their “study tours” (liuxue) from the East to the West also served a different purpose: learning about the new other. After the Opium War, in order to become “strong” (qiang), Chinese intellectuals felt the need to gain knowledge of the strange new world to be ever more urgent. Zhang (2000 [1933]) also outlined the history of overseas Chinese students (liuxuesheng) (p. 41). Between the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, there had been students from south China studying Catholicism in Europe. Along with the increasing number of foreign missionaries in China, those who sought to become Catholics or Christians ceased to go abroad. For about 130 years before the nineteenth century, they stayed home, studying with the missionaries. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the world activities of the students were revived. In south China, a Cantonese, named Rong Hong (Yung Wing, born in 1828) studied in a missionary school in Macao in 1841. Then, he traveled to America with his headmaster in 1847. In America, he studied at Yale University. He graduated in 1854 and returned to China. After his return, he did business at first, but soon earned the trust of Zeng Guofan, the famous late Qing army commander and thinker. Rong Hong was sent back to America by Zeng to purchase machinery for the imperial army. He established a public school there (known as the Chinese Educational Mission) to foster Chinese engineers. In 1876, Li Hongzhang sent a student to Germany. This was the

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beginning of study in Europe with government support. In the following year, Li sent students from the Fujian dockyard to Britain and France. Among these students was Yan Fu, who later deeply influenced Chinese political thought; he was interested in philosophy and social theory. After China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing court realized that China was weak. By then, the small kingdom of Japan had benefited a great deal from learning from the West. Realizing that China was in a disadvantaged position compared to Japan, the Qing court decided to organize study tours overseas. In 1908, the “Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program” was approved by the US Congress—a decision was made to return part of the war compensation that the Qing court had paid to the US to China. This sum of money was used by the Qing court to send students overseas to study in America. The numbers of students studying in the West surged (pp. 45–47). Near the end of the nineteenth century, many Chinese students began to go east to study in Japan. At the time, many European social theories had already been translated into Japanese. Those who went to Japan studied these theories and translated them from Japanese into Chinese. In this phase, Chinese social thought was pushed by two forces: the East (Japan) and the West. Interestingly, as Zhang (pp. 48–49) pointed out, the Chinese students in Japan were so discriminated against by the Japanese that they developed a kind of radical patriotism. Those who sojourned in Europe and America, however, were quite respected and enjoyed a comfortable life. Hence, they learnt a great deal about democracy. Becoming accustomed to democracy in the West, they were no longer able to adapt themselves to the “backward life-styles” of China after their return. Those who returned from the Far East (Japan) began to advocate patriotism, while those who came back from Europe and America promoted democracy. The “study tours” abroad, near the end of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, were neither oriented toward “culture-exportation” nor aimed at helping foreigners “understand” the Oriental. They were targeted to change China from a “weak empire” into a “strong nation.” Hence, “culture-importing” was the key activity; and the Western and Eastern civilizations of Europe, America, and Japan became the precious “goods” for importation.

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The study tours related either to the Christian enterprise or to the “Westernization” of the Qing were not the only form of overseas travel happening at this time. In the mid-nineteenth century, the imperial court also started sending officials to the West. In 1866, Bin Chun and his son led a team of envoys to Europe with Robert Hart, the second Inspector General of China’s Imperial Maritime Customs Office, as a guide. In 1868, the minister of China’s Imperial Maritime Customs Office Zhi Gang, along with his envoy, went with Anson Burlingame and traveled to America and Europe. In 1876, Inspector General Guo Songtao went on a diplomatic mission to Britain. In 1877, Li Shuchang was assigned as counselor in Germany, France, Spain, and Japan. As the successor of Guo Songtao, Zeng Jize went to Britain and France on envoy tours. These famous diplomats wrote diaries, travelogues, and political essays. The mentor of modern Chinese thought, Kang Youwei, and the advocate of Chinese enlightenment, Liang Qichao, maintained the traditional principles of the shi. They went to Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan in the early twentieth century, making themselves beautiful examples of those who “went to the world” in search of truth. These journeys shared the same pursuit—to broaden the Qing court’s perspective on the world beyond the Central Kingdom. Some Chinese shi had already begun to realize that the Central Kingdom was only one of the numerous kingdoms in the world, as can be seen through the Chinese writings of missionaries such as Matteo Ricci and Giulio Aleni near the end of the Ming Dynasty. For a long period of time, China and the West alternated between mutual understanding and hostility, but this did not hinder China from getting closer to the truth: the Central Kingdom was not infinite. In 1843, Wei Yuan compiled an extensive book called The Illustrated Gazette of the Maritime Kingdoms (Haiguo Tuzhi). The book was a landmark, signaling the beginning of the shi’s endeavor to redefine concepts of the West. In his preface to the first edition,24 Wei Yuan (1998 [1843]) states: On what are the sixty volumes of The Illustrated Gazette of the Maritime Kingdoms built? First, it is based on the translation of The Geography of the World (Sizhou Zhi) by Lin Zexu, the Viceroy of Liangguang; second, it draws from the historical records of all the previous dynasties, as well as

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from the records of islands written since the Ming Dynasty. It also draws from the maps of foreign countries in Chinese and foreign languages. All our forerunners have paved the way for this book. But concerning the Southeastern Sea and the Southwestern Sea, eighty percent of the materials that I use are new; concerning the Great Western Ocean and the Small Western Ocean, the Northern Ocean and the Outer Western Ocean,25 sixty percent of the materials are new. What’s more, I have included many cartographies and diagrams and summarized all the existing comments on them. I have used all the available materials to compose this book. (1:1)

Wei Yuan’s book is a great synthesis; it combines The Geography of the World by the patriotic official Lin Zexu, the ancient treatises of geography, the gazettes of kingdoms compiled from Song to Ming, and the geographic books and cartographies written and painted in Chinese by the missionaries since late Ming. In writing the book, Wei Yuan had his own mission. As he explained, he was to correct the mistake of those who composed geographies of the world from only Chinese sources. In Wei Yuan’s eyes, there were two ways of expressing the West; one was Chinese, the other was Western. His ambition was to put the two together in one text. His purpose in doing so was “to write for the Chinese, to write in order for them to fight against the foreigners.” “Treating foreigners in the foreigner’s manner” (yi yi zhi yi) was his proposed strategy; and his goal was “to enable the Central Kingdom to control the foreigners with the advanced techniques developed in the foreign countries.” Wei Yuan quoted from the Classic of Changes: The (intimations of) good and evil vary according to the place and nature (of the lines). Thus they may indicate a mutual influence (in any two of them) of love or hatred, and good or evil is the result; or that mutual influence may be affected by the nearness of the lines to, or their distance from, each other, and then repentance or regret is the result; or the influence may be that of truth or of hypocrisy, and then the result is what is advantageous, or what is injurious. (1:1–2)26

The Illustrated Gazette of the Maritime Kingdoms portrays a historical geography of the world. It has numerous details about the politics, economy, geography, history, and military situations in all the continents and maritime intermediaries of the world. It outlines the rise and fall of modern states. Even though Wei Yuan “studied foreign

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knowledge,” and “learnt from the foreigners,” he was devoted to fulfilling the ideal of Tianxia. His attitude towards foreigners was “to cherish the men from far away and to treat the foreign countries with courtesy” so as to reset the “generosity of the ruler.” Wei Yuan perceived the world from a modern perspective. His perspective was broader than that of “The Conveyance of Rites” (Liyun) in The Book of Rites, in which “Tianxia” and “Sihai” (Four Seas) were five continents and four oceans. Western techniques were considered as an important basis for the realization of the “Great Unity” (Datong) rather than the ultimate pursuit. The revival of ancient “laws” and construction of “cultural and ideological progress” were, instead, the charter of the “Great Unity.”27 In order to encourage the imperial court to revive the “Great Unity,” Wei Yuan included the article “Interpretations of Kunlun,” in which he says: Those who supposedly owned Tianxia in ancient times were limited by the confines of their own territory; they could never possess Kunlun. Emperor Gaozong of our great Qing Dynasty was the first who took possession of Kunlun and knew that it was the source of the Yellow River. (2:1860)

Placing the emperor inside China on top of the global hierarchy and including him in a newly interpreted world, Wei Yuan forged a new interpretation of Kunlun. The Illustrated Gazette of the Maritime Kingdoms became a new kind of Occidentalism; it as published before the modern Western concept of nation-state became the shared pursuit of the new generation of shi intellectuals. This new world-scape, which was advanced along the line of “unity inside and outside” (neiwai heyi), has been highly praised among Europeanized Chinese intellectuals.

Mutuality of “Diffusion” The history of “Europeanization” indicates that an aspect of diffuisonism is useful for our understanding of modern Chinese history and world-scapes. We cannot totally reject Ferrand’s imagination of relatedness and Ling Chunsheng’s Occidentalist legend of Kunlun. Ling and Ferrand, who developed different diffusionist perspectives of civilization, made

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the same point: an outlook of history can be drawn from the “code” of Kunlun or Xi Wangmu. The “code” itself forged a link by means of which the East and the West of Eurasia were connected. Late imperial and modern China cannot be exempted from the long-term history of relationship. This does not imply that diffusionism is a perfect theory. Diffusionist ethnologists indulged themselves in the study of “Kulturkreis,” which was defined in terms of centers and margins. In the study of “Kulturkreis,” “hierarchy” is displayed as unevenly distributed unequal capabilities of invention. It is interpreted as the cultural flow from centers of civilization(s) to the margins. In our previous narratives on the Occidentalism of the Chinese world, a different explanation was emerging. Chinese hierarchy defined the interiors of society, and was a kind of art for people to learn and define their own and others’ positions within the social terrains in which they resided. Hierarchy was simultaneously defined in relation to the exteriors. Sometimes the exteriors were higher and better than the interiors; sometimes they were lower but not necessarily worse. The feudalism of King Mu’s Zhou and the transcending Tian (Heaven) were connected spiritually and materially through Xi Wangmu. The “secularization” of society and the transcending Buddha were clearly divided, and then connected by the sacred journeys of the monks. In the treatises of foreign regions, “exotic products” and the production of the upper class inside society were connected by the activities of navigators (or unofficial pirates and private sailors), scholars (who might be Tianzi [Son of Heaven], monks, or scholar-adventurers such as Wang Dayuan), and envoys. Groups like the Xiongnu, and later, the Andaman islanders were seen as lower, but awesome and powerful. We cannot perceive all that resides beyond the interiors in terms of religiosity. Religiosity was indeed central to the directionologies of Xi Wangmu, immortals, and Buddha, but it was not what “shadowed” all of history. The Chinese world’s reliance on things, divinities, and humans in other worlds was expressed sometimes in terms of religiosity, sometimes in those of the “everyday.” Moreover, such reliance was always mutual, and we should thus not neglect the “other side of the coin”—the other also relied on “the East,” to the extent that, as Goody (2006, p. 296) puts it, “It was the East, which had not experienced the decline of the Western Roman empire, that stimulated the Renaissance.”

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NINE

Conclusion: Towards Other Perspectives of the Other

I began with the story of an unsuccessful endeavor in late Qing to

continue a tradition of cherishing the West, and ventured into the long history of the major transformations in “directionology.” In the Far East, the “ends of the world” of Kunlun, India, and Europe, together with the intermediaries of the Western Territories, the Southwest, and the South Sea, entertained the contrast of the East and the West in local ways. The myth of Kunlun was constantly re-narrated, in official or non-official accounts throughout the Central Kingdom’s past. But the directional orientations changed several times, from the age of King Mu to the age of empire, from “Westernization” between late Han and Wei to the Southern Sea during Tang, from the Southern Sea to the Western Ocean in Yuan. On the way to the foreign country of the past, I witnessed a sequence of shifts and turns, hardly any of which supports the belief that “everything about human history is rooted in the earth” (Said, 1993, p. 5). In “ancient times,” the Chinese world was not merely territorial; like any other human world, having “a door to the world above” (Eliade, 1961, p. 26), it was also celestial. It relied upon the wisdoms of cosmo-geography in dealing with the relationship between this world and other worlds. These wisdoms were ancient, advanced as early as in the Neolithic Age and refined in the age of Antiquity. Later, as knowledge-power systems comprising both a science of Heaven and a science of Earth (Needham, 1981b), they continued to yield altered expressions of cosmo-geography.

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The widely accepted perspective of Tianxia, or All under Heaven, systematically expressed in Zhou and continued afterwards, refers to what we now describe as “the world” (Y. Feng, 2008, pp. 391–395). In Tianxia, or, in what Granet calls “the Chinese world,” archaic concepts of the universe worked to make “eternal returns” to the original oneness of the self and the other. Integral to the infused cosmos were the perspectives of the West—the examples I have brought forth to shed light on our revelation of the old and new variations of anthropological alterity. In presenting the perspectives of the infused cosmos, I have adopted the approach of the selective synthesis, making use of Chinese and nonChinese scholarly studies of China as well as anthropological understandings derived from the representations of “other cultures.” In theorizing the case of the Chinese world in particular, I have paid attention, not only to more recent anthropological and historical studies of cosmology, but also to older works. I have depended especially heavily upon Granet’s inspirations and have compared and related the Central Kingdom with the mythic axial mundi or “sacred space” (Eliade, 1961) and the “trinity” of the “Three Functions” (Dumézil, 1970). Though I have not confined my own historical narratives to Granet’s pendulum of time, I have nevetherless taken his interpretation as being truthful to the unity and diversity of Eurasian civilizations. Emily Lyle (1990), a rare contemporary scholar specialized in the study of traditional cosmology, draws from Granet and argues in her Archaic Cosmos that the two civilizations of the East and the West share a cosmological structure. Lyle stresses that the two civilizations both integrate marked canonical orientation of one kind or another into a society under royal rule. The East and the West are also similar cultures in the sense that they both relate spring and summer to East and South and, moreover, both correlate such polarities with the upper, and hot, half. Lyle goes on to argue that the East and the West are different as well. One difference is that the Chinese give pre-eminence to the left hand (left being yang and right being yin),1 whereas the IndoEuropeans give pre-eminence to the right hand. Another major difference is that the canonical direction of facing for the Chinese is South, whereas for the Indo-Europeans it is East. Lyle’s re-interpretation of Granet is relevant to our project here— and, for me, as a cosmological approach, it is an important addition to

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sociological and anthroplogical accounts of Eurasian unities of diversities (e.g., Eisenstadt, 1982; Arnason, Eisenstadt, and Wittrock, 2005; Goody, 1996). However, our findings have indicated that her comparison of Eurasian microcosmos has been less close to our case than Granet’s own conclusion. To Granet, the preference for left or right was not the end of the story; the polarization was integral to a larger system of formalist conventions which invested values in the opposition of up and down, front and back. Inversions were constantly found in the system. In Chinese cosmology, the head represented Heaven, the left, and yang, while the feet represented Earth, the right, and yin. Seen from the position of the king, East and South were left, North and West right. As Granet (1973) puts it, in Chinese cosmology: Never do we find absolute oppositions: a left-hander is not sinister, and neither is a right-hander. A multitude of rules show the left and the right as predominating alternately. The diversity of times and places imposes, at any point, a very delicate choice between left and right, but this choice is inspired by a very coherent system of representations.2 (p. 58)

Within the ceaselessly altering cosmic situations, like the dualism of left and right, Chinese directionologies constantly changed their “faces.” If we can categorize the different characteristics and expressions of Chinese directionology in different historical periods into “types,” then, such “types” are categories artificially isolated. In reality, the “separate categories” are most often themselves syntheses of historical processes: the travels of King Mu for the mixture of pilgrimage and inspecting expedition; the emperors’ pilgrimages to the Eastern Mountains for the combination of religious subordination to the other and political divinization of the self; the monks’ journeys to India for the fusion of the sacred journeys to the source of “religious truth” and the mind-liberation practices of “escape”; the tributary diplomatic expeditions and the merchants’ travels for the blending of the “material linkage” and eyeopening world activities.

Facing the Other The legends of the “cultural heroes” of the first sagely dynasty of Xia should not all be abandoned; more appropriately, they should be seen as certain post-Shang narratives of the “prehistorical” sources of

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cosmo-geography, closely related with the cosmos of quarters around the center which set the foundation for the re-invented traditions of the age of Antiquity. Turning the late Neolithic Age cosmo-geography into its own image of Heaven, Shang shaped its kingship along the inversed autochthonic line of the tripartite and vertical structure, supposing its own king to be the one and only descendant of the Holy Bird. The synthesis of the vertical and the horizontal was not achieved until Zhou took its Heavenly turn to rule Tianxia. It was King Wen, the founder of Zhou, that spread—if not re-invented, with reference to Xia—in his realms of rule the blended “religion” of the tripartite and the pentology. In a reaction to the failure of his father’s military expedition in the South, King Mu resorted to the archaic—the legacy of King Wen. In Chapters Two and Three, I have presented a historical and mythological reading of the synthetic text of Biography of King Mu. My point has been that the Biography was a narrative of travels that linked the king, the shi, and the ceremony-performing and guarding army to the outside worlds—the Western wonderland of Kunlun. It developed a world-scape in which the self and the other were related in the formalistic terms of the king’s re-inscriptions of the royal ancestry and re-makings of the court’s ties with both the honored divinities and the other human groups. In King Mu’s project of worlds-scaping, the self was roughly divided into three “functions,” but the “inner tripartite hierarchy” was devised as what was controlled by the impersonal rules of rites commanded by the erudite and all-capable—the magician-turned-shi. The shi, whom in Daoist texts such as Liezi were described as allcapable magicians, are described in Biography of King Mu as erudite experts of cosmological, geographic, and ritual knowledge who guided the king into the West. In the world-scape of King Mu, the other was not represented as uniform. It was instead presented as consisting of a variety of others—mountains, rivers, other humans, lesser humans, half humans, divinities (including legendary historical figures), and Heaven. The king set out to inspect All under Heaven as an aspect of submiting himself to the Daughter of Heaven and the mountains and rivers beside her. Xi Wangmu, residing outside the circles of civilization, became the linkage and the center that took in tribute and endowed the king’s presents. Seen from the perspectives of the “indigenous peoples” inhabiting

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the nearby mountains, the Son of Heaven was the migrating prince whose power was derived from the surrender of “a native woman of rank” (Sahlins, 1985, p. 87). However, the Biography of King Mu reversed the “native’s point of view”: the original transfer of power to the immigrant king was signified by the surrender of himself—a civilizing Great Man or the Mystic One—to a “native woman of rank.” Like the Indo-European king, the Son of Heaven could also be the magical son-in-law of Heaven; but he was merely so when he was “there” in Kunlun. In the Biography of King Mu, it was made clear that the Central Kingdom constructed its own “sovereignty” out of the other. King Mu’s particular Occidentalism continued to set Zhou apart from the preceding dynasty, Shang. His expedition was an important historical moment in which King Wen’s legacy was revitalized as what brought the “beyond”—the higher in the outside—to the East.3 Being a biography and geography, travelogue and ritual script, Biography of King Mu is “hyper-real” to the point that it is “partially historical.” I have considered it in terms of a model of the classical “world-scape,” comprising other-centric and ethno-centric possibilities. Chinese directionologies transformed in the Warring States and the early empires of Qin and Han. As I noted in Chapter Four, during this period thinkers, narrators, and poets created different traditions of cosmology. By way of their own paradigmatic breakthroughs and their inheritance of earlier cosmography and cosmogony, they sought ontological reconsiderations through different re-orientations of space. They developed certain imageries of the mountains and rivers as well as heavens which later influenced the emperors. The Qin and Han emperors, deriving their “sovereignty” from the classical traditions, first attempted to make their bodies immortal. With their intentions of “self-divinization” (Puett, 2002), they surrendered their own eternity to the Three Immortality Mountains Overseas. The Orientalism of the early empires remained attractive until it was contested by the Occidentalism of Chinese Buddhism. Between the imperial Orientalism of the Three Immortality Mountains in the East and the Occidentalism of Chinese Buddhism, there was a variety of intermediary circles—particularly, the “sub-tradition” of Neo-Daoism. Taking Tang Yongtong’s (2001 [1957]) and Chang Naihui’s (2005 [1928]) point, I have argued that Neo-Daoism not only expressed in

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subtle ways the shi’s “escape” from the expanding imperial bureaucracy but also paved the way for the return of the remote and the “wild.” In the post-Han world, while Confucians continued to combine “organic materialism” and “civility,” Neo-Daoists opposed themselves to Confucian syncretism and sought simplicity in their own senses of mystic oneness. The cosmological and philosophical principles to which the Neo-Daoists adhered also involved those of the organic view of the human and the material world. But unlike the Confucians, they did not see “civility” as necessary. Many of them radicalized their artistic and literary creativities against “civility.” To them, “civility” was a means of rule that prevented human beings from becoming happy. Thus, they oriented themselves toward mountains and rivers, wishing to join Heaven through entering these “realms” or “levels” (jingjie), but they refused to accept the orthodox ritualistic way of inculcation. Partly because of the impact of similar Neo-Daoist groups, journeys to the West by Chinese monks such as Fa-hsien and Yijing held a strong tinge of “adventure romance.” By the time Buddhism “conquered China” (Zürcher, 1997), the situation of the directions had dramatically changed. While the canonical direction of politics was the emperors facing the South, and the “religious orientation” had the emperors facing the East, the popular direction of movement was the contrary—it was towards the West. In the depictions of the new journeys towards the West, the mountains, rivers, deserts, and oceans on the way were regarded as necessary obstacles to be overcome in order to reach the holy destination. The sites chosen by classical cosmo-geographers and the Neo-Daoists as the places where Heaven, Earth, and Man met now became the intermediaries between the East and the West. As I have argued in Chapters Six and Seven, Chinese directionology changed between the first empire and the middle of Tang. During these centuries, the “barbarians” such as the Xiongnu in the Western Territories began to evolve into China’s “northern enemies,” eventually pressing the Han, who originally lived in the North, into the South. Republican Chinese historians such as Fu Sinian (1933) and Ji Chaoding (1936) related the re-orientation of directionology with this southward movement of the Central Kingdom’s economic and political center. Adding to what they said, I have argued that it also concerned “civilization.” Along with the movement of the economic and political

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center into the South, as I have shown in Chapter Seven, Neo-Daoist “hermits,” such as the Sage of Tea Lu Yu, returned to the scene, to an extent, paradoxically to celebrate the South as the new center of civilization. History was multi-faceted. In the same historical process whereby political economy and civilization were intertwined in their directional reorientations, the trade routes of the so-called “maritime Silk Road” were paved, and the world of Buddhism further expanded into the oceans. As a result, the West, in which Chinese Buddhism found its source, was combined with the South. The South, which in the postHan period had become the alternative center of civilization, gradually also became part of the road leading to the West (India), imagined as the holy home of Chinese religiosity. While the North-South dualism reoriented the politico-economic geography of empire and the Chinese “world-map” of Buddhism, that of East-West continued to be important. The paradoxical connecting and disconnecting effects of the Islamic world helped re-insert the EastWest dualism into the South; and once the renewed dualism was in more frequent circulation, it paved the way for its own extension. The Song-Yuan vernacular divisions of the Eastern Ocean and the Western Ocean still referred to the two portions of the South Sea. Having been officialized in the early Ming, the notion of the “Western Ocean” became an extensive horizon, toward which Zheng He’s fleets set sail. The cosmo-geographies and directionologies of hierarchically arranged pentology of quarters around the center were the “elementary structure” within which the subjects’ “world activities” were carried out. However, as relational models, these cosmo-geographies and directionologies were constantly re-oriented. Joseph Needham (1981b) argues, in his “Note on Chinese explorers,” that “[s]o great has been the fame of Marco Polo and other European travelers of the thirteenth century A.D. that their Chinese counterparts who also made important journeys have generally been overlooked” (p. 230). By “Chinese counterparts” Needham was not merely referring to late imperial explorers such as Zheng He, who supposedly discovered the world in 1421, some years before Columbus did (Menzies, 2002); rather, he was referring to numerous ancient Chinese travelers whose “world activities,” to put it in Zhang Xing-

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lang’s words (2000 [1933]), were incredibly extensive. As I have shown in Chapter Seven, Chinese “world activities” not only reached extremely far into remote lands but also produced a great number of “gazettes” of other kingdoms, other landscapes, and other things. Among the numerous texts falling into this category, fine examples were the descriptions of foreign countries in the dynastic histories, “biographies” of Chinese Buddhist monks such as Fa-hsien, and the Song-Yuan ethnographies of the maritime world such as those compiled by Zhao Rugua, Wang Dayuan, and Zhou Daguan. For the past three millennia, the West has been a direction of ultimate importance to Chinese minds, but it did not refer to the presentday West (Europe) until the modern age approached. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, knowledge about China exploded in Europe. Adventurers and missionaries from Catholic countries such as Galeote Pereira, Gaspar da Cruz, and Matteo Ricci documented their experiences and produced European narratives of China (Spence, 1998, pp. 19–40). Meanwhile, in the Ming court, the “wrong” understanding of the world as a zoned square or chessboard gave way to a Catholic “scientific” view of the world—the world as globe. Matteo Ricci not only combined his science with Chinese cosmology but also painted his version of the globe with a Chinese brush. In the early seventeenth century, the Italian Jesuit Giulio Aleni—known in China as Ai Rulüe—completed the Zhifang Waiji (Record of Places Outside the Known World) in 1623 with his Chinese Jesuit associate Yang Tingjun. The book supposedly “opened” Chinese eyes to the outside world. Nonetheless, the new Jesuit knowledge of the world, together with all the new sciences of Heaven and Earth, impacted the minds of the Central Kingdom only partially. Thus, in the late eighteenth century, when George Lord Viscount Macartney brought the British embassy to China, Emperor Qianlong and his Manchu court still received him merely as a representative of a tributary “chieftain” (Hevia, 1995). During the Qing Dynasty, foreign embassies were received in the microcosm of the eastern empire which, at the time, was still represented as a perfect squared tributary system. In the Garden of Perfect Brilliance (Yuan Ming Yuan), for instance, foreign elements were included in the display but only to serve as complementary decorations that would contribute to All under Heaven’s cultural diversity. “These imperial

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gardens and hunting lodges signified a cultural politic, encompassing an economics that was likewise inclusive and exclusive and could thus adapt appropriately to the practical situation” (Sahlins, 2000, p. 435). The Jesuit missionaries and the European embassies were also seen as hailing from the West. But among the majority—the unconverted Chinese—the West did not exist as a wonderland with “spiritual attractions” until the end of the nineteenth century. The “wrong” perception of Europe as being a mere collection of kingdoms, which just so happened to be producing advanced machines, was not “corrected” until the Republican period in which the political and intellectual radicalization against tradition became hegemonic. By the early twentieth century, the culture of science and democracy became the two aspects of Chinese new Occidentalism. Europe gained its “religious position” as a destination of Chinese “sacred journeys” to the West. “Europeanization” became not only a calling but also a customary practice among the Chinese intellectuals and polciticians. However, the “end of history” may be just what Granet (1930) detected during the May Fourth Movement: There is no reason to think that the Chinese race (if we can speak of a Chinese race) was not in its present situation from remote antiquity. But neither is there any reason to believe that China knew less invasions and was subjected to less influences in ancient than in modern times. The most serious criticism that can be made of the hypotheses concerning these contacts is that up till now they have always been sought in the same directions and conceived on the same model. It is possible that waves of people coming from the West, by the North or by the South, may have played a great part in the history of ancient China. But very diverse influences may also have been at work. Neither the steppe, nor the mountain, nor even the sea was in prehistoric times an insuperable obstacle. (pp. 68–69)

The Shi as the Middle Ground In his Analects, Confucius, mistaken by many as a “cultural conservative,” openly defined concepts of ornament (wen) and substance (zhi) in terms of a fine way of being in the intermediary. He states: When natural substance prevails over ornamentation, you get the

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boorishness of the rustic. When ornamentation prevails over natural substance, you get the pedantry of the scribe. Only when ornament and substance are duly blended do you get the true gentlemen. (Waley, 1998, p. 74)

In Chapter Six, I mentioned that Sima Qian and Ban Gu depicted Zhang Qian and Gan Ying as great men in consideration of the fact that they “chiseled through” (zao kong) the intermediaries of Xiyu. For both Zhang Qian and Gan Ying, the destination was the “Extreme West” (Ji Xi). Neither succeeded in reaching their destination, but they left behind them certain “epics” which have continued to be praised as fine relics of boundary-crossing activities. Such boundary-crossing activities, however, have not always adopted the perspective of the imperial eye. Rather, in numerous cases, they were the world activities of the shi and the shi-turned monks and Daoist priests. To a great extent, the East’s dependency upon the beyond—the Wests of Kunlun, India, and Europe—was forged by the shi, who, as a special status group, played a central role in the definition of the scope of the world and the above. But how were the shi related to the society in which they lived as a special part? Can we say that they were the individual reflexive opposites of the social whole? In analyzing Indian social structure, Louis Dumont (1980), a French anthropologist who sought to return to the entirety of society, emphasized the importance of the “renouncers.” According to Dumont, while caste is holistic, the renouncers seem to stay outside of it. To an extent, the renouncers are a social force outside of society which, paradoxically, makes possible the integration of kings, priests, and producers. The “renouncers” become such by being “anti-social”: they are the true individualists who live “beyond the world.” “By renunciation, a man can become dead to the social world, [and] escape the network of strict interdependence….” (p. 184). Some of the shi seem to have been similar to the Indian renouncers, especially when they became hermits—either Buddhist or Daoist—who carried the weight of conscience. 4 However, unlike the Indian renouncers who resided outside the social system, their Chinese counterparts mostly had some experience of living within it, which made it possible for them to depart from it.

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Mencius (B. Yang, 1960, 1:63) classified the shi into the following three categories: 1. those who are actively involved in secular affairs under good or bad political conditions; 2. those who become active participants of politics only under favorable political conditions—that is, when the king or emperor is wise enough—and who resign when such conditions are not provided; 3. those who are always inactive. The first category of the shi were perceived as “vulgar scholars”; the second were men with wisdom (Mencius says that Confucius himself was that kind of shi); and the third kind were known also as yinshi, that is, recluses or hermits.5 The renouncers in India have a strong spiritual influence; but despite their great philosophies, they have played a very small role in history. These ascetic renouncers embody the opposite side of the hierarchical society as a whole. They live within a pure individualistic atmosphere after escaping from society, and become the moral legacy of Indian society by being “negative” to the power of caste.6 Unlike the Indian renouncers, the shi set themselves as either participants or reflective contrasts to the imperial bureaucracy. (If we insist on adopting the perspective of Indo-European mythology, we can define them as an intermediary type between Brahmans and renouncers.)7 Since early Han, most of the shi anxiously sought to get upgraded into being bureaucrats (Fei, 1983 [1948], pp. 1–3). However, as Granet (1930) notes, “Chinese thought … seems to tend, from the epoch of the Han, towards a scholasticism which is a counterpart to the orthodox discipline of Chinese life” (p. 4). This “thought,” which was made, arguably, in a large part by the shi, alternated between their own creativities and convention; to return to Granet’s description, “it preserves with remarkable aptitude—concrete, poetic and plastic—a kind of free play which conceals itself, easily and as if under cover, under a veneer of conventional forms” (p. 4). It was in the arena of the dialectics of creativity and convention that the three categories of the shi continued to be co-present throughout China’s imperial past. The majority of the shi,8 the source of all the sub-traditions in

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Chinese cosmology, shaped themselves into astrologers, historians, artists, philosophers, priests, or monks, or, more often, into combinations of these roles. They served as fortune-tellers and/or participants of history for either the court or the commoners. Many of them entered the bureaucracy and became human apparatuses of the empire, while some checked the emperor and the government’s conduct. In the latter case, the shi saw themselves as those possessing daotong (the Orthodoxy of the Way). As Fei Xiaotong (1953) argues: … the development of the idea of tao-t’ung [daotong] took place in Chinese traditional society because there had appeared a new type of person, the scholar-intellectual, one excluded from political authority but still possessing social prestige. Since he did not have political power, such a man could not decide political issues. Yet he might, through making known his opinions and formulating his principles, exercise a real influence. Such men did not try to control political power in their own interest but endeavored rather to put forward a set of ethical principles which should restrict the force of political power. (p. 36)

Though the number of the shi was large, the true shi were nevertheless always perceived as a minority who either sacrificed their own lives to “civilization” or “renounced” the world, in ways including selfimmortalization and social renewal. In both cases, they made the remote into the sagely (Confucianism), the pure (Daoism), and the holy (Buddhism). Inaction was sometimes practiced, but even then it was one of various actions which aimed to create distance. As the ancient Confucians often said, to search for ritual in the wild when it is lost “here” (li shi qiu zhu ye). In turning knowledge into “wisdom,” one requires a different sort of power. The meaningful cardinal points—especially those which referred to the remote, such as the mountains—became the points for re-signification, the more un-differentiated the better and the more peaceful. In such forms of wisdom, power became non-knowledge and knowledge became not the usual kind of power. To avoid taking wrong actions or to escape from bad or “confused” emperors (hunjun), the good scholars and the hermits either chose to stay within the confines of the family, or to go into the remote mountains for solitary meditation. As such, they were more like the Indian renouncers.

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Being either bureaucrats (scholar-officials or official-scholars) or hermits, the shi were those who mastered the knowledge of history, cosmology, and ritual, whose scope covered not only the interiors but also the exteriors of the empire. Moreover, the shi were perceived as linkages between the upper levels (the emperor, the feudal kings, the generals, and the bureaucrats) and the lower levels (the shi, the agriculturalists, the craftsmen, and the merchants) of society and between the centers of civilization and their remote fringes that occupied an important position in Chinese perceptions of Tianxia.9 As the linkages between the upper and the lower, Here and There, some of the shi were thinking travelers who made physical and/or mental journeys “around the world.” As we can see in many of the chapters of this book, the power of the shi consisted in this intermediary-advantage that they had. It appears in the active roles that they played throughout classical and imperial history in the relation-making between inside and outside, kings and the kings’ Mother, and in the inversions of East and West, North and South. It can also be seen in the origins of the early Chinese “fetishism of plants and animals” in the ways in which “material culture” became integral to the mutual-dependence between the contesting Chinese and non-Chinese—such as the Mongol and Manchu—empires in the late imperial period. That having been said, it could be argued that the shi, the makers of “the official religion” (Granet, 1975), did not always produce the “official accounts.” While those actively involved in secular affairs under good or bad political conditions were more inclined than others to make “official cosmologies,” others—those who become active participants of politics only under favorable political conditions and those who were always “inactive”—to offer “alternative ideologies” or “traditions.”10

Mountains, Cosmos, and the Faminine Eliade, who pays most of his attention to the sacred space of the temple (Knipe, 1988), stresses correctly that mountains occur among the images expressing the connection between Heaven and Earth, thus are often believed in different cultures to be at the centers of the world (Eliade, 1961, pp. 36–37). Deriving his initial inspiration chiefly from

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the Indo-European mytho-religious system, Eliade obviously overemphasizes the cosmogonic, centering, and consecrating efficacy of the singular “top” in each of the societies upon which he concentrates— Meru in India, Haraberezaiti in Iran, the mythical Mount of the Lands in Mesopotamia, Gerizim in Palestine—and he regards a singular mount in the middle of the cultural world to be functioning like the temple, to link Earth to Heaven, so as to order the world—namely to turn the “original chaos” into cosmos.11 As one variation of the other cosmology, unlike Eliade’s examples, “traditional” Chinese cosmology had more than one holy mountain. Though there was in fact a Middle Mount (Zhong Yue), it was not only mountaintop. Each of the quarters of the world outside the capital had its own mount. The model of quarters surrounding the center was in fact not that of chaos around order, but that of the multiple linkages between Earth and Heaven surrounding the human residence. In the model, the center did not become the center through pushing away the “chaotic quarters”; rather, it had to gain its own status by way of obtaining vitality in them. In it, the self-immortalizing persons—the shi and the kings and emperors who sought to become xian (immortals)— did not achieve their ideals through simply asserting their own distinctiveness; rather, they had to ascend (sheng) into higher levels of existence by going up to the mountains out there, wherein the state that preceded the cosmic creation was recovered.12 Thus, as I have argued, the Chinese world developed its cosmos out of a less clear-cut distinction between order and chaos, and in making its own kind of “great men,” it advanced a whole system of rituals, relating Subject and Object, Self and Other, Here and There, and Humanity and Divinity. This does not mean that the leaders never tried to assume the civilizing role, or, specifically, to envisage their royal capital as the center of the world—in fact, throughout China’s imperial past, such attempts were constantly made in urban China (Wheatley, 1971). However, it does entail two related points: first, that, when such efforts were made, they necessarily involved the “cultural politics” of bringing into the capital the holy mountains originally situated in the “quarters” outside it, and, second, that they never realized this impossible dream— “urbanization” of the surrounding mountains. As an example, continuing earlier imperial traditions, a coherent

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spatial order of ceremonies was constructed in the late imperial capital of Beijing. In Ming and Qing, Beijing continued to be projected as a “capital of symbols” in spite of all the dynastic shifts and turns. It was shaped into a world in which the performances of hierarchical relationships in the cosmos and among humans were programmed and organized. Ethnologist Ling Chunsheng (1965) has pointed out that the altars and enclosures for such performances, known in Chinese as tanshan, were modeled on the holy mountains.13 However, equally interesting is certain altered linkages developed outside the imperial altars and enclosures. Situated between the imperial “great tradition” and the “little traditions” in the communities and “real regions,”14 this altered system of linkages hindered the capital’s centering of mountains from its “completion.” The story goes back to the Zhengde reign (1506–1521) of the Ming Dynasty. From this period onwards, the system of ding (tops) became an important aspect of Beijing’s ceremonial scenarios. The system of ding was legendarily said to be a derivative of the early imperial fengshan. Though legend has it that all the “tops” were directly related to the Great Mountain, Mount Tai, to which both the First Emperor and Wu Di made their “pilgrimages” (see Chapter Four), there were in fact five tops in suburban Beijing. Four of these were located outside the four great gates of the city in the directions of the East, South, West, and North, and one was located in the “middle” inside the city. The system of “five tops”—mimetic of the five sacred mountains—was a system of worship, connected to the cult of Bixia Yuanjun (Prime Monarch of Azure Clouds). In turn, the cult of Bixia Yuanjun was known as “Mother Taishan” (Taishan Nainai). With a sense of confusion, the “five tops”—in fact five temples devoted to immortals—all claimed their own historical linkages to the official Dongyue Miao (Eastern Peak Temple) of Beijing. Ceremonies devoted to Her Majesty the Prime Monarch of Azure Clouds chiefly involved “incense congregations” (xianghui) known as dingxiang (incense-burning at the tops). During the first ten days of the fourth lunar month, different neighborhood and sectarian religious groups came to the “five tops” to pay tribute to the goddess. The groups of what we may call “pilgrims” performed either “martial arts” (wuyi) or “literary techniques” (wenyi). The goddess—a feminine figure symbolizing a folkloric reversal of the

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male figure, the God of Taishan (Taishan Shen)—became the center of the world during the “incense congregations” (J. Gu, 1998a). The tribute-paying groups had different titles and cult organizations; but during the “incense congregations,” they described themselves as parts of the “incense” of the Prime Monarch of Azure Clouds. They were related to fengshan and gained their own meanings by virtue of a differentiating connection. As some Chinese folklorists have argued, the cult of the Prime Monarch of Azure Clouds originated in the Taishan area as early as the late Han. Thus, the tradition of folk cultural innovations related to the imperial ceremonies must have been quite old. In the case of the “five tops” of Beijing, they seem to have emerged not long—roughly one century—after the final completion of sacrifice altars in the Yongle reign (1403–1424) of the Ming Dynasty.15 The journeys to the “incense congregations” at the tops were organized cooperatively by the “low classes” of local neighborhoods, unofficial sectarian groups, and eunuchs. What the tribute-payers sought to gain from the “five tops” was the fulfillment of yuan or blessed wishes, and what they gave in return for the blessings was known as “repaying [the debts] of blessed wishes” (huanyuan). The various quests of the imperial state, Buddhists, Daoists, and “commoners” for the “five tops” can be used as an example of contesting “traditions.” However, for us, the example has another implication, concerning the predicament in the imperial court’s “invented tradition.” Between the setting up of the imperial altars and enclosures and the re-invention of the “five tops,” the contest occurred between those social forces which sought to bring in the symbols of the great mountains—the emperor and his urban designers—and those “countercurrents” which pushed the symbols of the mountains out of the capital. However, one should not simply treat the “counter-currents” as manifestations of “resistance.” For, in “urbanizing the mountains,” even the emperor and his urban designers did not treat the altars and enclosures for the mountain-linkages to Heaven as the original mountains, which, for them, were still far away from the capital. In “cosmocizing” the capital, the very center of the Chinese empire, the emperor and his urban designers could surely try to order space, but they could not erase the lasting “collective memory” of the past: that in “ancient

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times,” the holy mountains were situated in the “wild” as home of either Xi Wangmu or the Immortals, or, simply, the superior others in spaces far away from the capital. Seen from another perspective, the “counter-currents,” whose efforts were in fact devoted to the “re-suburbanization” of the altars and enclosures for mountain worship, only brought back an earlier and more inclusive tradition of imperium. In addition to Chapter Four’s outline of early imperial ceremonial politics, let us mention that this earlier tradition was made between Han and Tang in the imperial re-invention of holy mountain “pilgrimages.” After Wu Di of Han, fengshan, or the emperor’s sacrifices at the mountaintop of Taishan, had been re-defined as a part of the ceremonial institution of she and jiao (whose older counterparts could be found in Zhou). It was founded upon the Zhou principle of the synthesis of inside and outside, of “place integrity” and “Fengshan pilgrimage.” In imperial times, China experienced several periods of “disintegration.” However, whenever the Chinese world was reintegrated and whenever the empire sought to maintain the order of its Tianxia, imperial tributary ceremonies related to fengshan were reconstructed to assert the Great Unity of Tianxia. For instance, by Tang, the Chinese lands were reintegrated into a centralized empire. Fengshan, at this time, also regained its full force. Different jiaosi were held with different “ranks” of ritual. Jiaosi, or ceremonial tributes to the outside and “beyond,” in Tang involved worship in the four quarters (the suburbs in the four directions) which surrounded the center of she and ji, or the altar/temple of state worship (sheji tan). Jiaosi consisted of an extensive number of ceremonial journeys outside of the capital (in regional contexts, the prefectural seats). This conveyed respect to cosmic divinities, including not only Heaven and Earth but also human souls and ghosts, who were perceived as lower-rank “divinities” (S. Chang, 2000 [732], pp. 389–390). These ceremonies—or cyclic “pilgrimages” to the suburban altars—situated the center in the peripheries by way of establishing and renewing the pattern of “quarters round a center.” But the center did not represent the highest of the levels of the cosmos. It was represented as the middle realm between Heaven and Earth. Jiaosi revealed the sense of transcendence of Heaven (both Nature and Supremacy).

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The imperial enclosures for worship consisted in an ordered system of spaces in which the emperors and his close attendants were received as worshippers whose sacred journeys transcended the enclosed city. In so doing, the worshippers were set aside from all the locality-centered and this-world-centered ceremonial activities. By rites, they created a contrast between the above (shang) and the below (xia). The centers were not inside a city, but outside it, situated in the suburb, and in closer relationships to Nature and Heaven. Ideologically, the outside in turn defined the above for the below—Heaven for the Son of Heaven, emperor for the country, and rulers for the ruled. Sociologically, the imperial out-going “pilgrimage” rituals resembled a certain aspect of “construction of affinities.” In a way more typical than the modern imperial British case which Cannadine (2001) considers, such rituals were acts in which the emperors turned themselves into praying subjects, into subjects of the “sacred”—the mountains and rivers. Such ceremonies did not exist as pure performances. They originated in the classical “inspecting expeditions” and existed together with other “performances.”16 From the beginning of the first empire, the emperors ceased to pay tribute to the tribesmen in person; however, the principle was partially retained in imperial inter-cultural politics. In the great empires of both Han and Tang, the “Policy of Peaceful Kinship” was implemented to forge relationships with the “barbarian kingdoms” of the Huns and Tibetans. In the late imperial dynasties of Yuan, Ming, and Qing, the “institution of native chiefdoms” (tusi zhidu) was maintained. Such policies and institutions were designated as means to incorporate other kingdoms or semi-kingdoms into a “supra-societal” and “supranational” system. Whether they were effective is not the problem with which we are here concerned. What has intrigued me has been how their existence in history has inspired us to perceive the empire as a different sort of “social organization.”17 The inter-dependence between the Central Kingdom and the other was never just cosmologically (or ideologically) factual; it was also materially and sociologically so. The orientational and alternational directionologies were at the same time hierarchically ordered and ritualistically “renounced” to constitute a civilization from both inside and outside, society and nature. The Central Kingdom was le monde chinois—a “world system.”18

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In terms of scale and splendor, Tianxia was like Wallerstein’s world system. It was composed of centers, semi-peripheries, and peripheries that constituted a world order of hierarchy (even if it was an “imagined world,” and one in which exchanges were related, to a great extent, with money). But from the perspective of its sociological features, Tianxia was more a social world, for it invested materials not in their own reproduction but in the making of ranked relations between persons and the civilization of a relational ideology.19 The factuality of a Chinese “world system” suggests that old Chinese world-scapes shared a “paradox” with all “traditional cosmologies,”20 conceptualizing the world outside their own “society” as a distant realm “far away” in time-space, less known and therefore extraordinary and exotic, less controlled, wild, and “barbarian.” They also shared with the traditional “galactic polities” in the mandala model (Tambiah, 1985b) the “confusion” that they were at the same time cosmologically politico-economic and politico-economically cosmological. However, they did not simply function either as the axial mundi or as the kingly dialectic of military action without and social justice within. Such archaic world-scapes did not de-link outside from inside, and they did not insert absolute boundaries between the two sides—even if they did so, they sought in the boundary-drawing efforts border-crossing virtues. They often derived the order of inside out of what lay beyond inside, in the outside. Hence, they made outside and inside closely interrelated and asserted the realms outside to be the ultimate source of the intangible energies, basic materials, original knowledge, ancestral creators, and culture heroes that ultimately allowed for the making and maintenance of human life and social ties inside. The conjunctioned inversions of inside and outside were composed of two cosmological principles, yin and yang, which governed the world. Under the “rule” of such principles, space was not the simple extension of qualitatively similar parts and homogenous elements, but composed of extensions of different kinds, of different genders; time was not made up of a succession of qualitatively similar moments according to a uniform movement, but was constituted by the repeated alternations of two periods of opposite, yin and yang (Granet, 1932, pp. 226–229). Historically, the alternations took place first between villages and “districts” whose own dual qualities always came from each other. If

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we may redefine such alternations in terms of “structural transformations,” then, they belonged to the horizontal kind. As Granet also argues, along with the ascendance of the “feudal” seigneurial town and dynasty, the horizontal transformations gave way to the organization of the vertical, which placed yang above yin, male above female. However, the holy places where the matching of different places was done remained the “external soul” of the power of the feudal lords, and yin, female, and whatever was “alien” to their opposite never disappeared (pp. 235–236). In the present work, much has been written with reference to the “mythical” structure of relationship between Xi Wangmu and King Mu. I should add that, if the placid femininity, the return to the maternal, is the mythological signification of the other sex and other alterity, then, it has a great many “survivals” in later phases of history. Chinese myths and religions seem to have been dominated by male gods and masters, but female divinities have never been trivial. The classical Xi Wangmu and the late imperial Empress of Heaven (Tianhou), have been the “native” categories of female deities, whose prototype can be traced back to the mythology of Nüwa—the mother of all human beings who created men by dragging a cord through mud, thus heaping up the mud to make it into men (Bodde, 1961, pp. 367–408). These various deity cults emerged in different historical periods; but they have all been divinities identified with the feminine principle of moist, dark, receptive nature, constituting a pantheon of water sprites, dragon ladies, snake queens, moon-goddesses, and rulers of Heaven and Earth. As Irwin has argued, they have collectively represented the presence of the feminine element, divinized to the highest degree, in an almost unbroken continuity of spiritual potency. The basic difference between the religious environment of classical and post-classical China has been characterized as the difference between a warring hegemony of hereditary Chinese warlords and a central bureaucracy, dominated by a structured hierarchy of non-hereditary officials. However, the potency of femininity has continued throughout much of Chinese intellectual history (Irwin, 1990).21

Cosmology and the Critique While historians of science can derive a contrast between East and West

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from the uniqueness of “organic materialism” and consider it to be what explains the lack of metaphysical idealism in the ancient Chinese “sciences,” I have drawn from it a different comparison. In the East, the old ways of knowledge-power worked to obscure the boundaries between subject and object and created either realistic idealism or idealist realism, which, according to Wang Guowei (2004 [1908], p. 2), has the following “logics”: Objects in nature are mutually related and at the same time mutually restrictive. When described in literature and art, the relationships and restrictions are usually disregarded, to make the realist writer or the artist seem idealist. But no matter how imaginary the poetic state (xugou zhijing) one may construct, the materials are bound to be sought in nature, and the construction must follow the laws of nature (ziran zhi faze). Thus an idealist is always also a realist.

The cosmic conflations of the old Chinese world, manifested in all their relational imaginaries, form an important lesson for us who live in modern times. I have tried to convey the viewpoint that such conflations, once reconstructed, can become a mirror of the “order of things” (Foucault, 1992) in the ideology of the “archaic cosmos” (Eliade, 1961). In one of the other places of the “pre-modern,” removed from the space in which power is derived at once from the dichotomization of subject and object and from the all-mighty “perfected language,” I have seen a different attitude towards the other, understood its difference in terms of “immanent transcendence,” and taken it as what Zhuangzi called “the whole of the spontaneity or naturalness of the world” (Y. Feng, 1989, p. 7). Having found in history a kind of sagehood, which made history in a different way—by transcending and forgetting the distinctions between things (Y. Feng, 2008, p. 320), I have also revealed some of the alternatives in history, interpreting them in terms of the “native” categories of being the subject—a great variety of shamanic, poetic, Daoist, Confucian, Neo-Daoist, Buddhist, and ethnographic ways of “self-immortalization.” We live in the “post-traditional” age, and I have conveyed in what I have brought forth a critique of the paradox of such an age, and by implication, of their related conceptual sources of contradiction— chiefly that the meaning of the world can be seen as a sum of the

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physical workings of the world and that “civilization” can be reduced either to the emancipative economy of the artificial or to the restraining efficacy of the powerful. As Zhuangzi said long ago, “If there is no other, there will be no I” (Y. Feng, 1989, p. 41). I believe that all “self-awareness of culture” should stem at least partly from the external vantage, and that kind of vantage was more pronounced in the “ancient” than in the “modern.” However, in consideration of what I now specify, I have refrained myself from advocating “traditional cosmology.” Traditional Chinese heavenly portents were full of irregularly occurring phenomena, and because “the Heavenly Fate was irregular” (tianming wuchang), the Chinese thus evolved or degenerated into a great demand for fortune-telling expertise. In classical and imperial times, excessive endeavors were made to correlate the conduct of the king, or later the emperor, with Heaven. Such attempts and projects, nonetheless, were mostly intended for one to obtain celestial rewards. As has been argued in Chapter Three, in late Shang and Western Zhou, the conviction that things, actions, and their propensities were determined and judged by Supremacy, Heaven, and Fate was not unshakable. In spite of their other-centrism and the marvels of fusions or alliances, such “harmonizing” perspectives often exerted an impact as “pragmatic” worldviews (Keightley, 2000, pp. 123–125), and such worldviews, like their counterparts elsewhere, could both benefit humans and, by means of serving the king’s “self-divinization” and domination (Puett, 2002), destroy their common life. The cosmology worked to turn the cosmos in on the human persons who in turn adjusted their life trajectories in accordance with the cosmic rules—not to surrender themselves to the other worlds to which they adapted their lives but to gain good fortune. When it was utilized by authoritarian rulers, it helped them invest the world in their own pursuit of immortality—or, in fact, to civilize the other while freely barbarianizing the self in the name of his “oneness” with the world. Reflecting on the legacy of the ancestors, I have constantly thought of a possible concept—“life fetishism,” which can be compared, as Elvin (1985) has done, with the Indian notion of suffering: For the Indian, suffering was an intrinsic property of life. For the Chinese, it was secondary: either accidental or brought unnecessarily by the human

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actor onto him- or herself. Pain (dukkha) is not a basic Chinese philosophical concern. Equally, the Indian believed in the continuous cycle of rebirths among living beings into lives of suffering, the wheel of sa s ra. The Chinese believed, by and large, in a unique personal existence, no doubt fortified by the concept of a structure of kinship ascendants and descendants, stretching indefinitely back into the past and indefinitely forward into the future, in which the individual occupied his unique place. The Chinese recycled hexagrams, not selves. Likewise, the Indians sought some type of “salvation,” some escape from rebirth into suffering. The Chinese, for whom birth and life were positive goods, felt no such need. They were, until the coming of Buddhism, innocent of soteriology. (p. 170)

What I have called “life fetishism” can also be compared with Christian sainthood. If we may say that “Christian saints are present in relics of their bodies and the accompaniments of their death and their miracles” (Feuchtwang, 1992, p. 198), then, we can also say that such saints are not present in “the religion of the Chinese people.” The gods of Chinese cults are present through the symbols and activities of their vitality and their efficacy. Unlike Christian authority, which forms through saints the willing dispositions of human souls and consciences, Chinese authority forms through activities the restorative balance of energies, and it encourages acts of “virtue,” conflated with “morality” and what works to prolong lives. Being innocent or negligent of soteriology and sainthood, in numerous moments, the classical, the vernacular, and the imperial in the Chinese world made history to induce the increase of their own human flourishing, “freedom,” and longevity. When history was made in such a way, the cosmology itself—its “primitiveness” and its lack of ecclesiastical withdrawal from the world—sometimes became a danger to itself. For this reason, I believe that the old saying cited in Chapter Three, “A stone from other hills may serve to polish [the] jade [of this one]” (ta shan zhi shi, ke yi gong yu), remains highly relevant; and as we have repeatedly emphasized, despite the “pragmaticism” that characterized “the religion of the Chinese people,” the “ethos” of other-centrism was also pursued by our ancestors. At a great number of historical moments, in the world activities of the virtuous kings, sages, monks, and modern “literati,” the other was respected as the superior. These moments, considered retrospectively in our own age, have become a

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synchronic unity of diachronic diversity, a Tradition of traditions, which, as I hope, will re-emerge in renewed guises to make different effects.

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Postscript

In Eurasia of which the Chinese unity of plurality is a part, the ques-

tion of the inequality of discourses is not novel, just as the tensions and relations between different spatial orientations of culture are ancient, and the ethno-directionologies of inter-cultural hierarchy of the EastWest are immersed in the archaic cosmos whose histories are much longer than they have been imagined. Eliade (1971) has argued that the process of “cosmocizing” began long before societies were formed and divided. In the “traditional societies,” certain common mythical topographies were shared, and they were constructed to assert order in the world that originally lacked the prototype of cosmic existence. The “original” cosmological topographies emphasized the consecration of the center, what made the known world holy and orderly. Around the center, the world of chaos—the wild, uncultivated regions and the like—was structured and integrated into the known world, “cosmicized,” and then, inhabited (pp. 9–10). The kind of “world order” constituted was the axial mundi of quarters around a center. It consisted of orientations in space, incorporating the polarities of right and left, front and behind, and the four directions (Eliade, 1961, pp. 29–36), of which the concepts of East and West were part.1 Along certain lines similar to those drawn by Eliade, I have defined the ethnographic and Orientalist (including the reflexive Orientalist) conceptions of the other—alterity and sometimes, by implication, “other worlds”—as merely a small strand of the greater story of “cosmocizing” (and thus

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direction-making). Like their counterparts elsewhere, Eurasian cosmologies are the “transformations” of “local” lived experience,2 but in a different sense. Though East and West have often been imagined as situated far apart, they were nevertheless constantly interacting in the intermediaries. Such inter-civilizational interactions, like their counterparts in other macrocosms or microcosms of the world, made them mutually interdependent as “structural antitypes,” or the “systematic contrasts of cultural order” that were “transformations of one another” (Sahlins, 2004, p. 8). On the basis of what may be called “the primary cosmos,” different worldviews in different civilizations were made: of particular relevance to the comparative perspective applied in the book have been the “trinity of power” in the Indo-European cosmologies, especially in the Greek and Roman worlds (Dumézil, 1970; Vernant, 1990), mandala in the areas close to South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Tibet (Tambiah, 1985b), and the Chinese pentological model (Needham, 1981b, pp. 237–385). The pentological model could be exemplified in the “actualized” cosmography—Mingtang (the Hall of Distinction). Legendarily, Mingtang was established in archaic times by the inventor of agriculture— the sage-king named Shennong. Realized as a temple or palace in the eleventh century B.C. under the Zhou (Y. Zhang, 2005, pp. 441–462), it was surrounded by a circular pool and covered with a round roof, and it was the place where the cyclic work of the calendar was supposed to be consummated. Built upon the model of the magic square, Mingtang had four sides, symbolizing not only the four seasons, but also the four directions. Within its enclosures, the vassals were placed according to the ranking of the levels of peopled or un-peopled spaces in the directions other than the North, which was where the Son of Heaven should be. Like Eliade’s axial mundi, the structuring of Mingtang depended upon its inside-outside distinction. However, unlike axial mundi, which placed an overwhelming emphasis upon the distinction between inside and outside, equalized the distinction to the contrast between order and chaos, and honored the consecrating potency of the center, Mingtang was oriented toward activities mediating inside and outside, order and chaos, sacred and profane. Outside the enclosure of Mingtang, the peoples, divinities, and things of the “frontiers,” “mountains,” and “seas” were supposed to

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form the four squares which had reciprocal relationships with the center. The building itself had a square design, containing nine square rooms, representing the nine divine prefectures making the confederation. To promulgate the calendar, in the months in the middle of each season, the Son of Heaven would act in accordance with the propensities of Heaven. He would stand in the central rooms facing the four directions and move as if he was himself enacting the rhythms of the universe, which were believed to be of great efficacy in bringing the divided world together.3 Partly inspired by the cosmography of Mingtang, Marcel Granet advanced his theory of “Chinese civilization.” He argued that “Chinese civilization” was characterized by a ritual formalism which made it a relevant contrast to the Indo-European cosmological systems.4 Unlike the rites “that symbolically repeat the act of Creation” (Eliade, 1971 [1954], p. 10), the classical Chinese ceremonies did not serve to mark out and maintain the boundaries between order and chaos, which was important only to the “western idea of the State” (Granet, 1930, p. 6). Law, which “a narrow admiration of the Roman world has fastened on our minds” (p. 7), does not explain “Chinese facts.” To reveal the cosmology and sociology of relationship, Granet traced two simultaneous processes—the taming of nature and the amalgamation of small primitive groups. He defined “civilization” in terms of two kinds of relationship—that between humans and nature and that between different human groups. He argued that in Chinese “civilization,” neither was the mandate separated from Heaven, nor was “society” constructed out of its own independence of its “neighbors”; rather this and the other worlds, this and other societies, found their linkages in the intermediary places of mountains, rivers, seas, and forests where social activities—festivals—were held. These places were living nature-powers embodied in objects and were the surroundings within which the ties between we-groups and they-groups, between “here” and “there,” and between self and others were forged. At a time when Chinese ethnologists were endeavoring to historicize the inter-cultural relations within the confines of the Chinese nation (Chapters One and Eight), Granet made his own efforts to uncover the cosmological structures of the same relations. In Festivals and Songs of Ancient China (1932), Granet patterned out the history of the making of what I have called “the cosmology of relationship.”

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Through a history of the transformation of agrarian socialities into “court societies,” he showed how the Chinese cosmological model was created out of the mental and social maps of the holy places outside the cities. These holy places, he argued, were where the nature-powers resided and where festivities involving sexual orgies forged the social ties both between different human groups and between humans and nature. Because Granet was keenly interested in revealing the embodiment of cosmology in the model person (for him, the Son of Heaven) and in interpreting social change in early China, he went on to reconstruct the ways in which the “sovereign” developed his “rule of rites” by serving as the agency of cosmic movements.5 In his lengthy Chinese Civilization, to approach what has more recently been compared with a European “society of gods” and “order of powers”—the concepts of influence, patterns, spontaneity, and modes of being (Gernet & Vernant, 1990), Granet charted three stages in the accumulative history of an alternative idea of the “sovereign”: the pre-historical “five sovereigns,” the three classical dynasties, and the first “empire.” The “five sovereigns” (wudi) were perceived in Chinese historiography as intellectual sages (shengren) rather than heroes. They were the models of moral and intellectual centers that later kings and emperors followed. They, the mythical-cum-historical “great persons,” were themselves exemplary body-containers of civilizing technology and moral virtue: “a wise Sovereign who, possessing a ‘virtue’ more human and at the same time more abstract than the ‘virtue’ proper to heroes, civilizes the world by the direct effects of his efficacy and reigns, in harmony with the will of heaven, for the happiness of the people” (Granet, 1930, p. 13). Legendarily, during the times of the “five sovereigns,” both an exact calendar and a microcosmic structure of the universe had been invented. The calendar allowed the sovereign to reign without government, while the cosmo-geographic “map” of the four cardinal points of the compass defined the reaches of the “sovereign” as the limits of the world. In the time of the “three classical dynasties,” the kings and feudal lords experimented again with the archaic ideals of unification. Granet located this phase somewhat vaguely in the centuries prior to the inauguration of the first empire in 221 B.C., which in fact was almost a

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millennium comprising a longer period of what can be called “symbolic unity” and a shorter period of contesting kingdoms, both of which went under the name of “Zhou.” He divided the long period into two sub-periods: the pre-chronological age (the centuries before the ninth century B.C.), in which historical dates were ambiguous, and narratives of the past were inseparable from mythology; and the classical chronological age (between the ninth and third centuries B.C.), in which chronology and systematic narratives played an important part in the making of history. Inheriting the wisdom of the archaic “sovereigns” and deploying them to counter the power-based cosmology of the previous dynasty—Shang (seventeenth to eleventh centuries B.C.). Zhou (in its incarnation from the eleventh century B.C. to 256 B.C.) was, in my view, the first dynasty to have developed a relational attitude towards cultural difference between the “Central Kingdom” and the peoples distributed in the different directions and to have invented a polity and a variety of world conceptions which later became the sources of cosmology and political ontology for later kings, emperors, and “intellectuals” (the shi).6 From the beginning of the age of chronology to the inauguration of the first empire (Qin) in 221 B.C., the “scholars”—or simply the shi—advanced philosophically different world perspectives by means of reformulating the legacies of myth and history. Granet did not have the idea of an “axial age,” but he depicted the pre-imperial period in similar terms, showing how such intellectual world perspectives as conceptions of “oneness” paved the way for the making of empire.7 I have not blinded myself to the limits of Granet’s theory. Knowing that Granet’s analyses would be far more persuasive if they are taken out of the essentializing, evolutionary, and typological frameworks of “traditional history” which he shared with his contemporaries (W. Ding, 1931; Puett, 2002, p. 323), I have situated my own narratives of directionology in a different history, one richer in its own inversions, unlimited by what Granet called “a great Empire” (1930, p. 5). Moreover, though Granet (1975) admitted that the “official religion” was bound up with the teachings of the sages (pp. 97–119) rather than the “laws” of the king, he nevertheless insisted on taking the Son of Heaven as the agency of cosmic movement, and neglected the Son of Heaven’s dependency on the “literati” (the shi). His conceptualization of the “sovereign” thus sometimes became a Chinese counterpart of the

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European notion of “sovereignty.” Realizing that Granet’s works also had this limit, I pay much more attention to the universal characteristics of the world conceptions of the “local” thinking subjects. However, in approaching the cosmological perspectives and political ontologies of one of the other “world systems,” I have taken most of Granet’s general points concerning comparative cosmology,8 and, like him, endeavored to speculate “amongst these relationships, these confusions, these substitutions, penetrate into this mysticism which underlies the whole of Chinese life, and which often recalls what has been named ‘primitive mentality’” (Berr, 1930, p. xxii). I have also taken his points regarding the cosmologically-related “alternations” of Chinese political history, and I have sought to combine them with a variety of relevant modern Chinese historical and ethnological narratives—in particular, those regarding the spatial movements of temporality. As my narratives have gone, in the varied perspectives of cosmogeography, a part of the Neolithic Age “wisdom” was retained, and it continued to infuse the paradigmatic with syntagmatic, the synchronic with the diachronic, and to yield later cosmic infusions. Such infusions were conjoined not only with the movements of civilizational central place but also with the temporality of zhi (order) and luan (chaos), or what was seen by traditional Chinese historians as the realizations of the Heavenly Fate (tianming). As Granet (1930) puts it: The power of every dynasty springs from a Virtue (Tö) [de] or a Prestige (Tö [de] or Tö-yin [deyin]) which passes through a time of fullness (cheng or sheng), then declines (ngai) [shuai] and after an ephemeral resurrection (hing) [xing], becomes exhausted and is extinguished (mie). The dynasty ought then to be extinguished (mie), suppressed (tsüeh [jue] or mie-tsüeh [miejue]; exterminated), for it no longer has heaven on its side (pu T’ien) [bu Tian]. Heaven (T’ien) [Tian] ceases to treat its kings like sons (ts ) [zi]. A family can only provide China with Kings, sons of heaven (T’ien ts ) [Tianzi], during the period in which Heaven grants it investiture (ming). This investiture, this heavenly mandate, is always temporary. Heaven is changeable, and inexorable. Its favor is lost and wears away. The Great Happiness (ta fu) [da fu] does not come twice. (p. 14)

In pursuing traditional Chinese cosmo-geographies, I have followed the above tracks of time; but I have not, in doing so, restricted my

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perspective to the dynastic cycles.9 I have concentrated upon a number of the “realistic” and “illusional” geographies found in both ancient Chinese texts and in modern Chinese scholarly works. The history I have written is one of change. To describe it in classical Chinese terms, it is that of yi, and, in particular, that of the yi of directionological re-orientations, achieved within the limits of the possibilities framed within the cosmographical topography of Tianxia. The word “Tianxia” conveys approximately what Granet (1930) terms “a grouping of civilization” (p. 6). It encompasses a variety of world-scapes and differs significantly from Western systems. In Tianxia, I would argue, the Chinese, at least of antiquity, formed “an active and powerful grouping, without however believing themselves under the obligation to give to the State and to the idea of the State that prestige and authority in which the Western mind very readily sees the indispensible protective armour of all national life” (p. 6). Underlying the very idea of Tianxia often was an imperial eye.10 However, the imperial tributary kind of worldview11 was not the only perspective of Tianxia. In the age of “Antiquity,” Tianxia originally referred to an extensive grouping of geographic and magico-ceremonial entities. The “world system” conceptualized in the name of Tianxia was based upon a model, seemingly concentric, and thus seemingly the same as the extensive polity of empire. It was imagined as more or less a “galaxy,” in which quarters were represented as an extensive sum of satellite regions surrounding the center. The center was recognized as a refined summit of civilization, from which each outer entity or circle was distanced as being “progressively a weaker representation of the preceding” (Tambiah, 1985b, p. 322). Like the “galactic polity,” the concentric system of classical Tianxia at once attributed the most intensive passions and activities to the lower orders and maintained the hierarchy encompassing the lower. However, unlike the galactic polity, in whose world-scape the opposite direction of interaction, according to Tambiah, was only that in which the lower attempts to raise itself by emulation of and contact with the immediately superior, the archaic “map” of Tianxia (as represented in the chapter on “Tributaries of Yu” in Shang Shu [Classic of History]) (Legge, 1889) framed, in terms of two-way mobility, the relationships between here and there, the low and the high, the self and the other, the human and the non-human. In the classical Tianxia, neither were origins explained in terms of

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cosmogony, the primary stage of order,12 nor was the other represented as outside the cosmicized. As I have argued, for Zhou, the third “classical dynasty,” either the outside or the other was particularly bound up with the circles of Kunlun in the Far West. Moreover, it comprised several spaces for other beings—chiefly, human others, semi-human others (half-animal, half-human beings, divinities, immortals, and demons), and things—distinguished from the “selves” only relatively, and imagined as retaining the original vitality of “chaos” (hundun), essential for the life of the center, and the “selves.” Historically, this variation of Tianxia had the potential of transformation in two directions: it could not only “evolve” into the imperial world imaginaries but also could change into other world imaginaries, and in these latter forms, Tianxia was most often related to the “exit” of philosophical and religious engagement and of reclusive escape from the social world.13 In Cosmologies in the Making, Barth (1990) shows how different cosmological traditions (or “sub-traditions”) co-exist among the Ok people. Barth argues that such traditions are more or less like what is called “schools of thought.” These are bound up with the thinkers’ creativities which make different dynamic cosmological traditions. It can be argued that Barth’s perspective fits Chinese examples even better. In their attempts to conceive cosmology philosophically (Jaspers, 1961), different world conceptions were pursued in ancient China under the name of Tianxia. Undoubtedly, such conceptions shared the modality of “immanent transcendence” (Gernet & Vernant, 1990).14 However, they were distinctive and competing schools of thought: while Confucians took cosmic oneness to conceptualize civilities (li), Daoists chose to run to nature (also seen as Heaven), in which they sought to retain a mystic oneness between the self and nature, the familiar and the strange, and remain outside civilization (Y. Feng, 2008, pp. 209–223, 265–268). While Confucian thinkers engaged themselves when needed and retreated when they were no longer “in a position to be effective” (B. Yang, 1960, 1:63), Daoist thinkers usually turned to renunciation in order to engage or escape altogether out of civilization and reflect on this-worldly cultural distinctions.15 Different cosmological senses of nearness and remoteness, which paved the way for the development of different cosmological philosophies, also existed in early ethnology-like narratives (Cai, 1993 [1926]).

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These senses ranged from the extreme of the ethno-centric to the extreme of the other-centric, while most were varied mixtures situated in the spaces between the extremes. *

*

*

By means of tracking the trajectories of Tianxia’s world conceptions and activities, I have attempted to bring back from history certain different senses of distance and certain directional flexibilities. In particular, I have expounded on the point that the reorientations of direction in Chinese pasts are constant.16 As I have argued, the West represented by Xi Wangmu was the destination of journeys to “explore the ends of the world.” Later, the holy direction of the journeys moved from the West to the East, and the myth of Xi Wangmu was synthesized with the Immortality Mountains Overseas (Haiwai Xianshan), which lay to the East. But even after the “holy direction” was re-oriented in the imperial “pilgrimages” to the East, the inter-cultural relationships in the West remained a heated issue. The West, now tied to the fearsome forces of the Xiongnu, came to be perceived as the source of all the external challenges. However, during “the phase of splits and struggles” (Fu, 1933; Ji, 1936), its implications dramatically changed. Buddhism from the West (India) was adopted in China, and it joined the Neo-Daoist reflections on the social consequences of bureaucracy. The West at this time was gradually integrated into the “Western Heaven” (India), and became once again “holy.” When Buddhism was being replaced by Hinduism in India, the great Tang welcomed Buddhism and cherished it as the way of civilization. The formation of Tang as a world center of Buddhism, coinciding with the “medieval” stage of “Great Unity,” paradoxically also pushed the sacred journeys to the West (India) into blending with religious “expeditions” to the East (Japan). With the improvement of the position of the South, the historical significance of the East-West dualism decreased, while that of the North-South contrast increased. The mountains and rivers of the South were re-made as new ways of opening the human world to the above—the superhuman world of Heaven. But the South also extended into the maritime world, to become the direction of the South Sea, which was gradually divided into the Eastern and Western Oceans. It was this “late imperial” dualism that paved the way for “Europeanization,” mistaken by many

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as the one and only source of dynamism in “international politics.” The part of Chinese antiquity closely examined in the preceding chapters has been the “native” cosmologies, in which space-times are conceptualized in a synthetic way, preoccupied with human affairs and oriented toward the cosmic-religious and “biological” renewals. In our time, many of the contributions to our knowledge, ontology, and politics have paradoxically stemmed from their common problem—inflexible directional fixations such as that of imperial hegemony and its opposites. If this observation is true of our contemporary “realistic geography,” then, the “representations” of pre-modern Chinese directional flexibilities can likewise be understood as a different reflexive part of our subject. In our day and age, while the field re-orients itself toward issues of cultural encounters, most contemporary anthropologists have, however, single-mindedly applied a certain “politics of isolation” in their creative or redundant complaints against power and domination. Thus, they have reserved little energy for focusing upon the understanding of other “world systems,” and for paying sufficient tribute to other perspectives of inter-cultural and supra-societal relations. My endeavor to re-consider these cosmologies has stemmed from my reading of such “politics,” which, in the past few decades, have paradoxically re-affirmed the hegemonic order it intended to undermine. *

*

*

I have also written to re-paint the landscape of history for “post-traditional” China. Since the end of Qing, several generations of Chinese “literati” have written against their own world. With the new world conception of the nation in mind, scholars since Liang Qichao, the advocate of the political philosophy of the nation (Liang, 1936 [1899]), have endeavored to rescue Tianxia from history. Since then, China has reoriented itself towards a radicalized society, the most noticeable characteristic of which being its revolutions against its own pasts. On the one hand, this radicalization can be related with the Chinese adoption of “Western cosmology” (Sahlins, 2000, pp. 527–584), a variation of Eurasian civilization bound up with the special kind of individualism which opposes subjects to objects and objects to subjects.17 On the other hand, the modern Chinese radicalization has also been about the refusal of the

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other.18 The keyword that enhanced the efficacy of the radicalizing power has been the Eastern variation of the civilizing “sovereignty” of the West. Originally, core to the Western notion of sovereignty, the very conceptual foundation of nation, is the paradox of being at the same time from outside and inside: “The law is outside itself” (Agamben, 1998, p. 13).19 By contrast, in China, the Republic has taken only one of the “two bodies” of the king, and left behind the other—the “spiritual” (God) or “cosmic” sovereign “above” (Heaven).20 Thus, the proposition that “the law is outside itself” has simply meant that sovereignty has celebrated itself as the complete “motherland” (zuguo). In the process, the national borders have become themselves holy—as the popular phrase of Mao Zedong’s time goes, “the holy territory of the motherland” (zuguo de shensheng lingtu). Anyone who could effectively maintain the borders and the livelihood within such a “consecrated” territory would be seen as a “wise leader” (yingming lingxiu). Consequentially, the old sacred journeys to the exterior hierophantic mountains, rivers, and tribes, along with imperial tributary diplomacy (including military expeditions, ceremonial diplomatic missions, trade, “peaceful kinship,” and so on)—or what Confucius, by means of reforming customs, re-invented as the Way of Humanity— gave way to “international politics” that paradoxically set China apart from the world. Since the end of the twentieth century, China has partly revived its Tianxia, with its expansiveness re-achieved through industrialization, military and political power, world trade, and emigration. Nonetheless, in the new century, the nation has continued to entertain the old paradox: while it has remained a great “confederation” with several “systems,” it has lost its cosmological perspectives. As an altered “confusion of pleasures” of national solidarity and free mobility, the Central Kingdom has been ever more “real.” While the Central Kingdom has remained a nation related to other nations, certain mental de-linking mechanisms have made its minds detached from the kind of alterity prevalent in the intellectual, religious, political, and commercial “world activities” in “pre-modern” times. As someone writing under the above conditions, I have more than one self: I am a contemporary Chinese scholar different from the ancient shi, one who writes about the “foreign country” of history in a

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foreign language, one who is the other of the other language that I use, seeking to become a part of the other in order to know more of the self. The other has also several “voices”—not merely the Western other, but also the others in other parts of the world and within China, and the other within “me.” For continuing the anthropological tradition of accepting views from afar, I have learned about “us” not only from “here” but also from “there,” from a distant perspective of “theirs,” and have reconstructed the history of “our past” in such a way as to re-offer it as a tribute to those who have made endeavors to “bring the distant near”—those who honored world perspectives beyond the limited sightings of the “realistic geography” of empire. However, unlike those who come from the “Far West,” I still live within the social facts investigated. How can my anthropological study be situated outside my own culture or civilization, while I am obviously a participant of it? Like any anthropologist, I am trying to “take another culture to know another culture” (Sahlins, 2004, p. 5), and in this context in particular, to compare and relate the East and West of the Eurasian landmass, and to take the “archaic” to know the “modern” (despite my emphasis on their continuity). In so doing, I aim also to develop a kind of dialectics of alterity and autonomy (Levinas, 1969; 1981) or “self-awareness of culture” (Fei, 2004). How do the other and the self engage each other in a single text? While believing that, in order to acquire knowledge, it is important for one to be “constrained by moral scrupulousness and scientific accuracy” (Lévi-Strauss, 1997, p. 471), I paradoxically also wish to continue the tradition of “the oneness of knowledge and action” (zhixing heyi), to make what I know improve the conditions of my own present. In earlier work (M. M. Wang, 2002, pp. 149–174), I argued that with the “third eye,” the “native anthropologist” is able to distance himself from his “home.” Thus, among the great variety of the world perspectives revisited, I have valued those conceived in the legends of King Mu’s journey to the West, the high monks’ pilgrimage to India, Han’s politics of peaceful kinship, Zhou Daguan’s ethnography of Cambodian civility, and late imperial Chinese intellectuals’ synthesis of Chinese, Indian, and European “mythologies.” Essential to these was other-centrism; once

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reformulated, I believe, it could become a new kind of attitude to the other, a glorifiable dialectic of “hospitality” and ontological signification, alterity and autochthony, exile and habitation, and a certain venture of the mind in inter-cultural conscience or trans-civilizational mutual disposition.

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Notes

Preface 1

Moreover, as I should note, an important source of so-called “structuralism” is in fact Granet’s idea of spatial and temporal transformations. Granet inspiringly referred them not only to the action-ridden polarities of the ethno-epistemological concepts but also to the dramatic alternations between cosmo-political order and chaos “indigenous” to what he called le monde chinois (the Chinese world) (Granet, 1930). Because what Granet called “the Chinese world” is that with which this study is chiefly concerned, it becomes natural that, in terms of theoretical considerations, I have developed a preference for what has been derived from it.

Chapter One 1

2

Since the nineteenth century, the term “Tianxia,” which literally means “all beneath the sky,” has at times been translated as “empire.” However, as Feng Youlan argues, this translation is a bad one because it imposes modern concepts (such as the state) onto ancient minds. According to Feng, when ancient Chinese spoke of Tianxia, “they meant the world, even though in early times their knowledge of the world did not extend beyond the Chinese states” (Y. Feng, 2008, p. 391). Though I see “empire” as one of the phases and thus aspects of a historically changing Tianxia, I regard Feng’s translation as more precise. I take Tianxia as a “native grouping” of certain “perspectives” of the world, and of “world conceptions” and ways of differentiating and relating the inside and the outside, such as “We-groups” and “You-groups” and “They-groups,” and “humans” and “other things.” Though the Cuna’s “sympathetic magic” is defined by Taussig in terms of mimesis, as the ethnographer himself admits, the Cuna themselves do not

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3

4

5

6

see it in the same way. The “mimetic practice” of the Cuna is not simply a derivative of the natives’ adoration of the exotic. This is because the Cuna remain themselves or autochthonic while practicing a mimesis of alterity. As Chen Xiaomei, who has taken modern Chinese Occidentalism as “a counterdiscourse,” has argued, the idea of “Chineseness” pervasive in postrevolutionary discourses of a “Chinese way to socialism” can be seen—as indeed Said would have agreed—as “historically contaminated” by Western Orientalism. Understandably, Said was mainly objectifying the process of the East’s being “elaborated” in the West, and thus he was correct in speaking so little about the “subjective” value of what we may respect in anthropology as “other-centrism”—the opposite of ethnocentrism. Moreover, he was obsessed with the Western discourses of the East and totally devoted to the cause of exposing this hegemony; thus he could only limit his perspective to a deconstructive exposition. However, what has made me unsympathetic is that Said was so concerned with “one side of the coin” that he neglected similar discourses of the West in the East. Such discourses are numerous; Bin Chun’s is but one example. For instance, in Ornamentalism, David Cannadine challenges the academic orthodoxy of Orientalism. He argues that, in the West, the empire’s power structure functioned much more complexly than with mere perceptions of Orientalism. To Cannadine, the British empire indeed invented and entertained its sense of the other, assuming the other to be different from and inferior to the imperial metropolis. However, it was simultaneously concerned with the “construction of affinities” which allowed the imaginative subjects within Britain to presume the periphery to be the same as or even superior to society in the metropolis. Therefore the empire, which advanced on the vision of a single, interconnected, hierarchical world, often led to a contradictory view of the world. That is, while Britain and other Western nations were confident of their inherent superiority, they applied the same hierarchical worldview to their colonies and in turn paradoxically undermined the perception of the inferior other. For, between the nineteenth and twentieth century, the British elite developed a romanticism of empire, incorporating traditional hierarchies abroad and seeing empire as the last repository of hierarchy disappearing at home (Cannadine, 2001). That being the case, “native anthropology” is even more so. Anthropology is seen as entirely external to the societies that it examines, as a part of what continued to be absent until it arrived with the colonialists. Moreover, in anthropological circles, as we will show later with the case of LéviStrauss, there has been a prevalent belief that even if the natives were to adopt Western anthropology, they would not make good anthropologists.

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Fortunately, so far one good thing in Western anthropology has been that, as the perceptive subject with a good conscience and sense of aesthetics, the anthropologist usually does not blame the natives’ lack of a good sense of the other on the natives; he or she blames it on the Westerners. 7 In a more subtle way, Sahlins (1995) explains why the term “civilization” has been counted out in anthropology. Taking sociologist Norbert Elias’s point, Sahlins argues: “‘Civilization’ was a term coined in France in the 1750s and quickly adopted in England, becoming very popular in both countries in explication of their superior accomplishments and the justification of their imperialist exploits.” He continues to suggest that “culture,” originating in Germany and also in the late eighteenth century, was “in defiance of the global pretensions of Anglo-French ‘civilization’” (pp. 10–11). 8 He comprehensively discusses discourses of the “Victorian Prude” and the other which have continued to “trouble” anthropologists. 9 In his influential book Time and the Other, for instance, Johannes Fabian (1983) admits that “universal time,” upon the basis of which anthropology was established, “was probably established concretely and politically in the Renaissance in response to both classical philosophy and to the cognitive challenges presented by the age of discoveries opening up in the wake of the earth’s circumnavigation.” Nevertheless, he soon argues that “there are good reasons to look for decisive developments … in the century that elaborated the devices of discourse we now recognize as the foundations of modern anthropology—the Age of Enlightenment” (p. 3). The shadow of Michel Foucault was behind Fabian’s sighting of the other. For Fabian’s reading resonates with Foucault’s reflection on how modernist objectification enforced the idea of the anthropological other. Similar also is how Foucault traces this inquiry of the other only to the post-Renaissance era (Foucault, 1992). In a more explicit effort to retrace the origin of anthropology, Bernard McGrane discovers a slightly longer history of the other. His history starts in the sixteenth-century Renaissance, a time when the alterity of the non-European other was experienced and interpreted on the horizon of Christianity in terms of demonology instead of anthropology. During the Enlightenment, the foreignness of the other underwent a fundamental change; the psychology of error and superstition replaced demonology. At the time, anthropology was not yet invented. Only in the nineteenth century did “developmental time,” or what Fabian calls “naturalized time,” lodge itself between self and other, in turn producing the study of anthropology. For the history of progress was by then celebrated as the triumph of the teleology of truth (McGrane, 1989). 10 For an example, see Clifford and Marcus (1986).

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11 China hardly appears in Said’s Orientalism. 12 Daisuke Nishihara’s Junichiro Tanizaki and Orientalism—The Chinese Illusions of Taisho Japan is one such study which investigates Japan’s imperialist Orientalism towards China (Nishihara, 2005). However, it leaves out the fact that while China is imagined by the Japanese, Japan (as a country further east than China) has always also been imagined by the Chinese (who dwell in a country situated to the west of Japan). By reflecting on their illusions of China, the Japanese critic of “Japanese Orientalism” fails to recognize that such an “Orientalism” should better be defined as “Occidentalism.” 13 For an example of such studies, see Schien (1995). 14 In contemporary China, most political ideologies have been oriented toward the “hot.” In terms of academic ethics, many have rejected Western “objectification,” refusing to accept the fact that the Chinese make up certain “objects in ethnology.” Thus, anthropology has been a social science used by the “natives” for almost a century. The fact seems to disprove LéviStrauss’s insistence on the impossibility of anthropology in postcolonial nations (Lévi-Strauss, 1963; 2007). It, however, validates his point that anthropology has become something quite different from its original pursuit. The intellectuals’ anxiety to modernize, civilize, or “include” the “internalized others” has overshadowed the anthropological respect for the more distant perspectives of the other. Intellectual radicalization against tradition and against the surviving “backward peoples” has continued to empower the strong state. The sense of the other and the sense of scientific accuracy have been surrendered to political projects of “civilizing” or “nationalizing.” All these have made what we have said about “Chinese civilization,” the alterity of itself. Paradoxically, it has not proven to be too different from either the “revolutions” of the dynastic turns, or the Occidentalism or Orientalism of classical and imperial history. 15 Let us acknowledge that Bin Chun’s analogy between the Swedish queen and Xi Wangmu was a small moment in this long history of “Oriental Occidentalism.” 16 In the 1950s, the tradition of such studies was inherited by both mainland and Taiwan scholars. A great number of good books appeared from then on about cultural communications, especially focusing on the Sui-Tang period when the communications with outside flourished. For a summary of these studies, see Rong (2005), pp. 45–120. 17 This term deserves a note. Huaxia has been translated as “China,” but it is composed of two Chinese characters: Hua, literally, means properly dressed; Xia, “architecture of civility.” Huaxia thus means something similar to “civilization”: an ethnocentric view of the self as a well-dressed

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and well-performed “We-group” as contrasted to the naked and “illbehaved” others—for instance, the Yi, who were sometimes equalized with “things” (wu) in patriotic Chinese discourses such as those prevailing among the Han at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. If we really want to extend the horizon of Orientalism to Chinese “Occidentalisms,” then we should not forget that the latter bear important resemblances to the former, in spite of their “Oriental characteristics.” Yet, it was precisely Li who led several generations of Chinese anthropologists to discover the archaic foundations of the “independent civilization” of China. Li and his disciples aimed to match all their archaeological findings with old Chinese historiographies like Shi Ji (The Records of the Historian) by Sima Qian, a Han Dynasty historian and astrologer who supposedly invented the Chinese tradition of historiography. For them, Shi Ji was somewhat like the earliest national history of China; but in fact, such a conclusion should be understood as extremely nationalistic. It should be pointed out that Shi Ji, the first classic of Chinese historiography, only became a “national history” in the twentieth century. Before then, it meant something quite different—it was a Chinese history of all “kingdoms.” Li Ji was trained in the US, and he returned, with all that he had learned in the new West, to China in search of the “soul” of his people. For a reflection on Gu Jiegang and Fu Sinian’s historical studies, see F. Wang (1987); see also X. Lu (2001), pp. 495–588. There is an obvious paradox in Li, Fu, and Gu’s “patriotic scientism.” On the one hand, these great scholars insisted that China was a mixture of “We-groups,” “You-groups,” and their different “civilizations,” making China an achievement of inter-cultural politics—a different polity from either a sovereign kingdom or a “nation.” On the other hand, by limiting Tianxia to the Central Kingdom, a portion of the Eastern Asian continent, they more or less adopted the modern geo-political conception of “China” as a “bounded nation.” As I have pointed out elsewhere (M. M. Wang, 2007b), this paradoxical perspective of “unity of diversity” should be reconsidered. To reconstruct China as a true “fusion,” historians and anthropologists ought to re-define China’s past as being constituted by “three rings”: the circles of the “We-groups” (e.g., the Han), the “Yougroups” (the so-called minzu or “nationalities”), and the “They-groups” (the “foreigners”), which basically coincide with “pre-modern” Chinese conceptions of the civilized (Huaxia)—the “cooked barbarians” and “raw barbarians” which were part and parcel of ancient Chinese cosmological ontologies. Long ago, Durkheim admitted that many social phenomena “do not have such clear-cut boundaries; they reach beyond political frontiers and have a

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spatial expansion that is more difficult to determine” (Mauss, 2006, p. 36). In the historical “fields” of the East, I devote some of my efforts to retrieving the “social phenomena” found by the Western sociologist to be difficult to “determine” from where they have been underrepresented or repressed, and to re-state what Mauss observed: “Societies live by borrowing from each other, but they define themselves rather by refusal of borrowing than by its acceptance” (p. 44). A particularly interesting synopsis of these can be found in Needham (1981b, pp. 237–385). Only until recently have Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss’s (2006 [1920/1953], p. 44) joint critique of the idea of the nation become known to the English-speaking and Chinese-speaking worlds. Yet, this argument had been made as early as the end of World War I. It showed that the unique civilization, customs, technologies, and fine arts that different nations frequently claim to own were most often borrowed from other societies. They argue that the history of civilization is a history of “circulation between societies of the various goods and achievements of each.” The notion of “circulation” became contradictorily complementary to the idea of the Holy, a contradiction which most vividly exemplifies the “paradox of sovereignty” and obsessed Durkheim too. For a systematic overview of Granet’s works, see K. Yang (1997a [1948]); for a portrait in English of Granet’s career and contributions, see Freedman (1975); for a more recent critical engagement of Granet’s theory, see Puett (2002). In the past two decades, several endeavors have been made to initiate ethnographic inquiries from the site of the other (most often, the so-called “non-West”) (e.g., Taussig [1993]; Goody [1996]; Nealon [1998]; Sahlins [2000], pp. 527–583). However, under academic, ontological, and political pressures brought on by the impact of a number of critical works concerned with the domination of imperial structures and discourses, most anthropologists have remained cautiously indifferent to the equivalent perspectives of the other in “other” societies and civilizations. A rougher outline of these periods was initially published in Chinese in an essay entitled “Tianxia [All under Heaven] as a Cosmographic Frame” (2005b, pp. 214–288). Necessary revisions have been made. But both the earlier essay and this book come out of a project aimed at formulating a synthetic re-interpretation of existing mythological and historical geographic perspectives of “Yi-Xia” (foreigners/barbarians-Chinese) or “Hua-Yi” (Chinese-foreigners/barbarians) relations which, for me, are parts of the alternations of certain cosmologies of relationship. I do not sequence this temporal order in accordance with the “world

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histories” of modernity—be they histories of progress in social cohesion, or of the modern politico-economic world system; neither do I present it as an event-centered history of reformation or reproduction. 29 As will become apparent, I use the other in a broad sense, approximating the notion of “alterity” in Latin. However, in speaking of the other, I attempt to retain the meanings of the Chinese character “ta” (other), which refers to a variety of things including non-humans, “other humans,” “other places,” “other cultures,” “other landscapes,” and “divinities” whose locations are conceptualized in Chinese cosmo-geographic terms. Chapter Two 1

2 3

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Historians in the Han Dynasty believed that Liezi was a “true book,” that is to say, a collection of works by Lie Yukou, while those living several centuries later put it onto the list of ancient “fake books” (weishu). See also the Chinese annotated edition (Z. Zhang, 1986, pp. 31–33). Minor changes have been made where necessary. Though many ancient texts described Xi Wangmu as the King’s Mother or Older Sister, modern mythologist Yuan Ke (Yuan, 1991, pp. 236–237) has argued that in the beginning, Xi Wangmu was an ungendered mythical figure. In Shan Hai Jing, Xi Wangmu is described as “a human figure with the tail of a leopard and the teeth of tigers, with loose hair and a high hat, good at roaring.” Yuan believes that the Shan Hai Jing version was the original, and that Xi Wangmu was personified and given a gender only in later stages. In Han, in particular, she was not only accepted as a gendered person, but also granted a husband “Dong Wanggong” (the Eastern King). However, I have not taken Yuan’s point. While I share with him the belief that Chinese historical writings did not become “realistic” until Han, I believe that the structure of East-West and the male-female relationship has deeper historical roots than the Han empire. As Xun Xu explained particularly, “The ancient version of Biography of King Mu was discovered during the second year of the Taikang reign in Ji County, where unearthing the old tombs without official permission was forbidden. This ancient version was all recorded on scrolls of bamboo strips tied by plain silk … the strips are two chi (Chinese foot) and four cun (inch) long. There are 40 characters on each strip, written in ink. Ji County belonged to the Wei state in the Warring States period. According to the Biography on Bamboo Scripts (Ji Nian), the tomb belongs to King Ling, son of King Huicheng of the Wei. According to the Book of Lineages (Shi Ben), this tomb belongs to King Xiang. According to the chronological table in the Records of the Historian, from the 21st year of King Ling of the Wei to the 34th year of the First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huangdi) when

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many books were outlawed and burned, it is 86 years. From King Ling to the First Emperor until now, the second year of Taikang, this book was lying underground for 579 years” (Guo, 2006, p. 197). Historian Yang Kuan (1999, pp. 549–576) lists 26 major military expeditions during the Zhou Dynasty; among these, three expeditions where conducted by King Mu. Gu Jiegang (2000) took this book as deriving from the self-promoting myths of the small kingdoms, such as Zhao and Qin, built by the barbarian Rong people. What is revealed here is similar to “the way a superior man pursues” in “The Doctrine of the Mean” of The Book of Rites: “His (the superior man) acts are for ages a law to the kingdom. His words are for ages a lesson to the kingdom. Those who are far from him, look longingly for him; and those who are near him, are never wearied with him” (Legge, 1991, p. 426). As the Tibetologist R. A. Stein (1972, pp. 28–30) notes, in mythological traditions, both the Tibetans and the Chinese trace their own ancestral origins to the land of the Qiang, whose location coincides with the residence of Xi Wangmu. The ancestors of Zhou came from the West (see Chapter Three). Thus, “home” here presumably means the directional location of the political center of the regime, to the East of their ancestral land. However, this does not mean that the “Extreme West” (Ji Xi) refers to the home of the Zhou’s ancestral land. Rather, Ji Xi obviously refers to the further exterior plane of existence.

Chapter Three 1

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The sacrificial enclosures are mostly located in or near mountains and beside rivers, and are situated at some distance from human settlements. It is possible that they served as the destinations of “pilgrimages.” From Xia on, combat in the central plains began to make significant marks on Chinese history. In Chinese historiography, the Shang Dynasty is seen as a tribal union from the East whose founder served Xia as a minister. The Shang founder eventually took over Xia and established Shang. Eventually, Shang was replaced by Zhou, a great alliance from the West (directions relative to the central plains). For a Chinese text of Tianwen, see G. Lin, 1983. Another English translation of Qu Yuan’s poems has been made available in Hawkes, 1985. The archaeologist Xia Nai (1985, pp. 79–106) has suggested that in the period equivalent to Xia a unitary civilization had not yet developed; there were instead several contesting late Neolithic cultural areas. Fortes continues, “In the ultimate sense, perhaps, the concept of Predestiny

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may be taken to designate tendencies that originate in organic sources and in the earliest experience of infantile dependence. It is of profound interest that these tendencies appear to be intuitively recognized in many societies and are deemed to manifest themselves in unwitting resistance to the normal relationships of parenthood. Ancestor- or deity-worship, on the other hand, presupposes the triumph of parenthood. It recognizes the paramountcy of the moral norms emanating from society as a whole over the dangerous egotism of childhood” (p. 40). 6 According to Confucius, even by King Wu’s time, Zhou held two parts of three of All under Heaven, and it still used its realms of rule in submissive service to the dynasty of Shang, waiting for its own Heavenly Fate. Zhou overthrew Shang with a “absolutely perfect moral power” (Waley, 1998, p. 103). 7 Wang Ping and Wolfgang Kubin (2007) have shown that human sacrifices were the most spectacular ritual events in Shang. These were mainly made to the Ancestors. The sacrificed came mainly from the non-Shang peoples. This fact, as Wang and Kubin argue, proves that Shang held an exclusionist attitude toward other peoples (pp. 214–215). 8 The Three August Ones and Five Sovereigns were heroes who legendarily ruled China in the time preceding Xia. Then, “August Ones” and “Sovereigns” took on the meaning of Huangdi which was not adopted until the First Emperor. These notions meant simply “supreme beings,” rather than “emperors.” They were “Supremacy” (Shangdi), as reflected in Shang cosmology. The Three August Ones—Fu Xi, Nüwa, and Shennong—were demigods who used their magical powers to improve the lives of their people and lived to a great age for their lofty virtue. Fu Xi and Nüwa were respectively the god and goddess, the husband and wife, credited with being the ancestors of humankind after a devastating flood. They were also known as great inventors. Fu Xi invented the Primal Arrangement of the Eight Trigrams (Xian Tian Ba Gua), while Shennong invented agriculture and was the first to use herbs for medicinal purposes. They can thus be seen as the inventors of the Chinese “science of heaven” and “science of earth.” 9 In modern Chinese historiography, there have been heated debates between those who see continuity between Shang and Zhou and those who see a cultural breakthrough in Zhou. The debates emerged in late Qing; but they are exemplified in the rivalry between Yang Xiangkui (1997, pp. 3–43) who insists that continuity outweighs discontinuity, and Yang Kuan (1999) who sees Zhou as the beginning of a new order. 10 From the point of view of the court, a change from reciprocation and fixed relationships was important. “Rites and styles” not only defined how the interrelationship between divinities and men should be managed but also

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constituted patterns of proper human interaction. 11 Its basic framework was the pentology of quarters around the center, whose model, as pointed out earlier, had come into existence at least six millenia earlier in the late Neolithic Age. That being the case, it is not surprising to see that Shang deployed the framework in its own way. As Keightley (2000, pp. 61–71) has shown, the domain of the Shang state and its allies was conceived in cosmological terms as a square world, oriented to the cardinal points. The squareness of the Shang cosmos can be seen in the four-sidedness of Shang city walls and in the directionological concepts of tu and fang. 12 The first systematic description of wufu as a “world map” appeared as late as the fifth century B.C., but histories written during the pre-Qin period traced its origin back to the founders of Zhou institutions. Although the issue of origin remains debatable, it is certain that a preliminary cosmogeographic system close to wufu was in use. The basic framework of Zhou’s “rites and styles” was constructed on the basis of this system. 13 Systematic presentations of the cosmology of change are recorded in Yijing (I Ching), the Classic of Changes, one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. Yijing contains presentations of a divinatory system. The origin of the divinatory system was traced legendarily back to the age of the “Three August Ones.” Most likely, however, it was developed in Zhou, from 1000 B.C. or before, and thus was known as Zhouyi, the Zhou Book of Changes. 14 A further comparison can be drawn with reference to Fu Sinian’s conclusion that the kingly practice of human sacrifice in Shang dramatically decreased in Zhou (Fu, 2006, pp. 81–97). 15 There also seemed to exist in Zhou a “cultural politics of difference,” unseen in Shang. This “cultural politics,” instead of insisting on “integration,” valued diversity highly. As the chapter on “Kingship” (wangzhi) of Li Ji argues: “Peoples who live in different places have different institutions (zhi) and live different lives in different customary patterns, which are conditioned by the situations of Heaven, Earth, coldness, warmness, humidity, and wet and by different shapes of plains and valleys. Thus different peoples developed different personalities and capabilities. Some are softer, some are tougher; some move slower, some move faster. They have different tastes of food, use different instruments, dress in different costumes. The Central Kingdom (Zhongguo) only takes the same measures to rule these peoples; but it does not seek to change what they are accustomed to” (c.f. Cai, 1993 [1926], p. 1117). 16 The classics cited above were most probably compiled between the fifth

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and the third centuries B.C. and are without clear authorship. But they can be said to be later editions of the earlier rules of institutions invented by Zhou kings and their advisers. Many of the euphonies praise mountains and rivers (shanshui), which became a core theme in Chinese poetry and painting in later periods of history. There are also poetic descriptions of folkways and the love affairs of shi. In the Pinyi (Phing I in Legge’s translation) chapter in the Li Ji, Confucius said, “Anciently superior men found the likeness of all excellent qualities in jade. Soft, smooth, and glossy, it appeared to them like benevolence; fine, compact, and strong,—like intelligence; angular, but not sharp and cutting,—like righteousness; hanging down (in beads) as if it would fall to the ground,—like (the humility of) propriety; when struck, yielding a note, clear and prolonged, yet terminating abruptly,—like music; its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws,—like loyalty; with an internal radiance issuing from it on every side,—like good faith; bright as a brilliant rainbow,—like heaven; exquisite and mysterious, appearing in the hills and streams,—like the earth; standing out conspicuous in the symbols of rank,—like virtue; esteemed by all under the sky,—like the path of truth and duty” (Legge, 1966, p. 464). See also Kao Gong Ji (Wen, 1993, p. 60). For a more detailed study of these changes, see “Junzi bi de yu yu” [Gentlemen are those who compare virtue to jade] (M. M. Wang, 2006, pp. 69–85). King Mu was tightly attached to “the West.” If rebellions such that of Xu Yan Wang had not taken place in the South, he would not have had to return from “the West.” His return journey was full of sorrows, in sharp contrast to the calm of his attendants: they became very impatient by the end of the journey. King Mu lost his favorite concubine, and he was deeply sad. The sixth volume of Biography of King Mu says: “On the day of wu-yin, the Son of Heaven passed Zezhong on his way back to the East. Certain cold-induced diseases spread there. The Son of Heaven stayed in Zezhong, and his concubine Sheng Ji fell ill. The Son of Heaven named the river nearby “Han Shi” (Coldness) in memory of the event. Sheng Ji felt thirsty and the Son of Heaven called upon servants to fetch drinks. The Son of Heaven named that place “Hu Chuan” (Fast Moving Pot) to memorialize this event. When the Son of Heaven arrived at Chong Bi Tai (Double Jade Stand), Sheng Ji died. The Son of Heaven named the place “Ai Ci” (Place of Sorrow) to express his sadness. He held a grand funeral for Sheng Ji in the Temple of Gu Qiu” (Guo, 2006, p. 240).

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Chapter Four 1

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Undoubtedly, the archaic pentology had become indispensable in Shang. As in the times of the “archaic sovereigns,” political cosmology in Shang was also “built upon the cardinal directions, upon the seasonal changes in weather and in motions of the sun, moon, and stars, and upon the repetitive cycle of ganzhi-days and xun-weeks that was sanctified by the numerous presence of the Shang ancestors as their emblematic days and suns appeared in orderly sequence” (Keightley, 2000, p. 122). However, my point is that the pentology of Shang was more like a mandala than was its counterpart in Zhou. After the death of King Wu, the remnants of the Shang Dynasty attempted a revolt, taking advantage of internal factionalism in the royal family. Fortunately for Zhou, Zhou Gong, the Duke of Zhou, engaged in a threeyear eastern expedition which succeeded in putting down the rebels. The reigns of King Cheng and King Kang, who followed King Wu, were characterized by three measures of peace and prosperity and the extensive establishment of the so-called feudal lords, but these two reigns lasted only about forty years. The following ruler, King Zhao, undertook a southern expedition against the Jing and the Chu, but he died on the Han River. His death was a major setback in the political history of Western Zhou. His son King Mu also had ambitions of further extending the powers of the Zhou royal house. The next several kings after King Mu were at best able to retain the status quo. The internal contradictions within the society were gradually increasing, on the other hand, and at the same time disturbances from neighboring ethnic groups, such as the Yi people in the southeast and the Xianyun people from the north, constituted a considerable threat to Zhou rule. In the late years of the Western Zhou, the oppressive King Li was exiled by the people, resulting in the regency under dukes Zhou (Zhou Gong) and Zhao (Zhao Gong). King Li’s son King Xuan ascended to the throne and made a successful attempt to revive the royal powers, but this success was brief. Starting in the late 1920s, Fu sought to replace the “unscientific Orientalism” coming out of the West, with a “scientific Orientalism” (kexue de dongfangxue) in the East (X. Yang, 1995, pp. 16–28). For Fu, if Chinese archaeologists, historians, philologists, and ethnologists joined forces, they could make a totally different science. To create this science, Fu called on Chinese scholars to begin from their own perspective of sinology. Fu did not see this perspective as restricted to the Chinese world; instead, he perceived it as combining all the good senses of science, including positivism. Radicalizing himself against Western sinological representations of the Orient, Fu made efforts to derive, from a Chinese sense of truthfulness

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to history, a new science. In configuring this science, Fu curiously inserted a certain element of diffusionism into his fields. Like Li Ji, Fu was keenly interested in investigating inter-cultural relations within the “Central Kingdom” and in deploying diffusionism to revise the modern concept of the bounded nation for the sake of re-understanding China. Gradually, Fu invented a narrative of Chinese history that was at the same time nationalist and internationalist. With a new synthesis in hand, Fu set out to make his perspective useful to re-conceptualizing Tianxia as a unity of diversity. Fu wrote four chapters to show the differentiation and relationship between East and West within the territory of early China. Publishing his influential essay as a short book in 1933, Fu argued that in Antiquity, “the battles and wars among ancient nations” were usual events that mainly took place between the East and the West. For instance, Ji Chaoding (1936), a British-trained economic historian to whom we will return, completed an important study on historical shifts of political, economic, and cultural centers. Most of his work was precisely focused upon the post-Han movement of capital cities from the North to the South. In fact, the people of Shang might have considered themselves to be from the place where the sun rises, and in turn pit themselves against those from where the sun sets. The name of the Chun Qiu period was derived from the annals of the state of Lu, Chun Qiu, a work that has always been regarded as having been edited by Confucius, and it refers to the period between 722 and 481 B.C. There are various versions of the date of the beginning of the Warring States period. For convenience, contemporary scholars for the most part use the beginning of the Annual Table of the Six States in Shi Ji, the first year of the reign of King Yuan or 476 B.C., as the beginning of the Zhan Guo period. Curiously, the period coincided with the time when the Zhou chronology began to be accurate. According to Puett (2002), “axial age” Chinese cosmological thinking was derived from recurrent critiques of sacrifice and divination which characterized both Shang and Zhou. These critiques were made by such figures as those who opposed themselves to ritual specialists. Countering the ritual specialists’ insistence on operating by working from the recently deceased and less powerful local spirits toward more distant and more powerful deities, the new “intellectuals” advocated the One in order to integrate all spirits, all natural phenomena, and all humans, and to claim direct access to the One—the full power and knowledge over the cosmos (p. 318). Though I am aware of the usefulness of this power-knowledge kind of

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universalism, given that Zhou still was not Shang in spite of all the continuities, I have sided with Gernet. As Douglas (1966) argues, unlike the “primitive world view,” the “anomalous institutions” which laid the archaic foundation for the “modern progress” of the social share certain clear distinctions between subjects and objects. The relationship between social evolution and institutions is, moreover, a kind of double movement in which “increased social control makes possible greater technical developments and the latter opens the way to increased social control again” (p. 91). We should not, however, blind ourselves to the fact that Douglas and Foucault obviously have different attitudes to the social. While the former insists on its necessity, the latter doubts it. According to Foucault (1992), it “distinguishes carefully between the very real animals (those that are frenzied or have just broken the water pitcher) and those that reside solely in the realm of imagination.” It exorcises the possibility of dangerous mixtures and remains in the place transgressed by the alphabetical series (a, b, c, d) in Borges which, to Foucault, links each of those categories to all the others. China thus offers Foucault proof that “language has intersected space” since the beginning of time (pp. xvi–xvii), but didn’t emerge as modalities of order until the nineteenth century. In a word, to Foucault, such an Oriental encyclopedia does not make full sense to the modern mind. Thus in “the wonderment of the taxonomy, the thing we [the Europeans] apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own” (p. xv). Regarding Chinese “mysticism,” modern Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan (2008) says the following: “In order to be one with the Great One, the sage has to transcend and forget the distinctions between things. The way to do this is to discard knowledge, and is the method used by the Taoists [Daoists] for achieving ‘sageliness within.’ The task of knowledge in the ordinary sense is to make distinctions; to know a thing is to know the difference between it and other things. Therefore to discard knowledge means to forget these distinctions. Once all distinctions are forgotten, there remains only the undifferentiable one, which is the great whole. By achieving this condition, the sage may be said to have knowledge of another and higher level, which is called by the Taoists [Daoists] ‘knowledge which is not knowledge’” (p. 320). For a good study of Kang Youwei’s thought, see G. Xiao (1975). Nonetheless, Kang (2007 [1904–05], pp. 80–82) did not see Christianity as the appropriate way of “education”; rather, he argued that among the three ways of thought in the world—the Way of Gods (Shendao), the Way of

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Humanity (Rendao), and the Synthetic Way of Gods and Humanity (Shenren zhi Dao)—Christianity proved to be the most limited. According to Kang (p. 83), beginning in the Spring and Autumn period, the Chinese way of religiosity or moral education was developing in the direction of a different Way which, for him, consisted of the unification of culture, the equalization of society, the decrease of utilitarian pursuits, and the increase of concern with public well-being. All of these were manifested in the growth of civility (liyi). With reference to classical China, Kang expressed his political approach to modernization. Like most of the philosophical thinkers and classicists, he attributed much of the greatness of civilization to what has now been seen as the “axial age”; like most of the intellectual politicians, he was disturbed by the rupture in what was seen as “modern.” Thus, Confucius argued, “When a country is ruled according to the Way, (the gentlemen) accepts rewards. But when a country is not ruled according to the Way, he shows compunction in regard to rewards” (Waley, 1998, p. 175). Thus, Zhuangzi argued that transcending Self and Other, “this” and “that,” “right” and “wrong,” there was another plane: “It might seem as if there would be a real Lord, but there is no indication of His existence. He may have reality, but no form” (Y. Feng, 1989, p. 41). As I should emphasize, Daoism was an important part of this age of upheaval. Preserving certain strands of animist spiritual tradition, Daoism as an activist religion was engaged in the opposition to the new hierarchical society. The Daoist ideal was to return to the “primitive” and the “wilderness.” Contrary to Confucian complexity of hierarchy, Daoist thinkers in the sixth century B.C. advocated anarchy and simplicity (Y. Feng, 1983 [1934], pp. 221–245). This essay, originally titled “Zhuangzi yu Chu ci zhong de Kunlun he Penglai liangge shenhua xitong de ronghe” [The fusion of the two myth systems of Kunlun and Penglai in Zhuangzi and Chu Ci], was first published in 1979, but then revised and republished as “Kunlun chuanshuo yu Qiang-Rong wenhua” [Legends of Kunlun and Qiang-Rong culture] (J. Gu, 2000b, pp. 646–878). I quote from the revised edition. Gu based his political mythology mainly on interrelationships between the West (Qin) and the East (Qi). As a critical historian who radically suspected the authenticity of “origin” or archaic history, Gu was paradoxically in search of a national past for China. The national history Gu had in mind was different from that of Antiquity, which obsessed nationalistic scholars like Fu Sinian. It was a bottom-up history which took into account regional powers and their capacities for cosmological thought. Gu excluded the Yue

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22 23

24

25

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in the Southeast, the Yi in the Southwest, the barbarians like Rong and Di in the North as well as the Man in the South, and focused on the “Central Plain” which, according to him, coordinated different diverse mythological systems into a Whole. Yet Gu somehow ended in depicting the co-existence of different traditions from Xia to the Warring States. To him, in a radical critique of the history of Antiquity, this can be dated back to no earlier than the Warring States period. About the Four Mountains and the Five Mountains, Gu (2004) said, “The Four Mountains were where the Jiang family originally lived. Later, the Qi peoples and Rong peoples migrated to the East. They re-named the mountains in the East after the Four Mountains.… The Five Mountains were derived from the Four Mountains after the unification of Qin. The Five Mountains were scattered in five directions at roughly equal distances, serving as the sacred places for the Emperor’s inspections” (p. 23). Under the county level, the First Emperor and his government also created a sort of autonomous self-governing body semi-attached to the higher level of government. In the first century A.D., Wang Mang, who built his architecture of power on the basis of the empresses’ families and eunuchs, finally proclaimed himself emperor and gave a new name to the empire, the Xin, which lasted for only 15 years (A.D. 8–23). Wang Mang’s regime was eliminated by a provincial landed family who benefited from peasant revolts against the state. Liu Xiu, who claimed to be of the royal line of the Han, re-established Han and fixed his capital in Luoyang. This new empire is known as the Later or Eastern Han. In A.D. 220, having undergone several messianic rebellions, the Later Han was abolished. All were discussed in Chinese history with reference to the disturbing and chaotic effects (luan) of the barbarians on the Chinese (Hua or Han), which in turn were regarded as demanding the completion of the peace and order in the Mandate of Heaven. The book might have been compiled at the same time as the Books of Rites. They emerged as collections roughly around the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods (770–221 B.C.). Strictly speaking, the book is not a specialized ethnological work although some modern Chinese ethnologists believe it to be. Instead, it covers areas such as geology, geography, and human geography. It has some 31,000 Chinese characters, organized into three parts, each with a few chapters (together making up eighteen chapters [juan]). Legends of Xia, Shang, and Zhou conflicts and dynastic successions are sporadically depicted throughout the book. The structure of the narrative is constituted more or less in terms of the non-Huaxia worlds. It has been translated into English as The Classic of Mountains and Seas

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(Birrell, 2000). 28 Some nineteen of them overlap. 29 More than other classic texts, Shan Hai Jing pays attention to countries associated with lines of descent different than the compiler’s own ancestors—female or male—who were commemorated as the founders of various kingdoms or allied descent groups in Zhou. It involved a map of the sacred mountain residences of spirit-media or shamans who had closer linkages to Heaven than the Son of Heaven or the King. These mountain residences— such as the residence of Xi Wangmu in the Kunlun mountains—were distributed far from the royal domains. However, the gods and goddesses who resided in them were described as deities for the Son of Heaven’s sacrifices. 30 The directional geographic representations in Shan Hai Jing are quite similar to those of Yu Gong in Shang Shu (Supreme Book) that first patterned out the radiating five zones and the nine prefectures in Chinese geo-cosmography. 31 A philological genealogy of ta, which can be pursued in another study, could indicate that the kind of polarization of self and other began very early on. The ideograph of ta emerged among the oracles of Shang, especially in the divination inscriptions concerning the threat of the external tribes and kingdoms. Its meaning, as retained until Han, is the threatening other, be it cosmic force or human power. In I Ching (Yijing; The Classic of Changes), you ta (the existence of the other) means there is a threat from the outside; wang ta (the absence of the other) means there is no threat from the outside. 32 This contrast of iconographies was available by the imperial Han Dynasty, at the latest, as a linguistic mechanism of mind. 33 During the Han, scholar-officials including Xu Shen also applied the metaphorical messages behind the iconographic scene to mark the distinction between Han and non-Han peoples. For instance, the people of the Min state (contemporary Fujian), not yet incorporated into the Han, were described in Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi as “a snake race” (shezhong). 34 The cosmology was based on classical modes of mythology such as those expressed in the myth of Pangu—the creator of the world whose body penetrated the egg-like cover of Heaven and became the earth by itself. The concept of Tianxia, however, changed. 35 Fu Sinian overlooked the fact that, although the same alternation was repeated on the political stages of the contesting states, the mythological West had begun to be mixed up with factors of Xiongnu culture. The Xiongnu emerged around 300 B.C. as a little nomadic tribe, continuously absorbed the energy of nearby tribes, and changed into a great power.

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Finally forming a strong grasslands empire, they faced off against the Chinese empire in the Central Plains, which was based on an agricultural civilization. Over a lengthy period of three to four hundred years, the Xiongnu and the Chinese fought each other. The Great Wall was constructed as a demarcation line that safeguarded the territory of the East from its powerful enemy from the West. The empire of the Xiongnu in the Northwest exerted great pressure on the Central Kingdom, and it also impeded the exchange between the Central Kingdom and the Far West. In other words, after the Qin and Han empires conquered the East, they had to face challenges from the West. Zhou resorted to the Far West for its spiritual and material support. But now, between the Central Kingdom and the West, there was an obstacle—the Xiongnu. Whether it was this obstacle that directly forced the Central Kingdom to re-orient itself remains a question; it is evident that a great transformation in the Chinese world-scape was taking shape roughly around the same time as the Xiongnu were hindering China from its communications with the Far West. See X. J. Chen, 2007 (1989), pp. 173–265. 36 The First Emperor’s first journey of inspection was a tour to the West. His purpose was to incorporate the Xiongnu into his empire. Failing to accomplish his self-assigned mission, he initiated the project of building the Great Wall. Meanwhile, he began to pay most of his attention to the East. Chapter Five 1

2

Chu, originally known as Jing and then as Jingchu and Chu, was a kingdom in what is now central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. At the height of its power, the Chu Kingdom, centered on the city of Ying in today’s Jingzhou of Hubei province, developed into a vast empire, occupying an extensive territory comprising the present-day provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Henan, and parts of Jiangsu, as well as the area around Chongqing. As Xu Xusheng (1985 [1943], pp. 163–196) has pointed out, Sima Qian, who obviously derived his conclusions from legends popular in his time, related such unrest to a virtuous king called Xu Yan Wang (King Xu Yan). According to Shi Ji, Xu Yan Wang was one of the great descendants of the archaic sage-kings. During King Mu’s time, Xu Yan Wang succeeded in winning the “heart of the people,” and making his realm of control spread to many kingdoms. Legendarily, Xu Yan Wang was very smart and good to the people, so he was deeply loved. King Mu “wandered” to the West, leaving all the affairs of state untreated. The princes complained about him a lot. It was during that time that Xu Yan Wang was proclaimed king and led a coalition to march towards the central confines of Zhou. King Mu

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had to return to the East to deal with this issue. However, as Xu has also argued, Sima Qian’s story was not the original version. Between the fourth and the third centuries B.C., there were earlier versions which identified Xu Yan Wang as a famous king of the sixth century B.C. who was overthrown by other kingdoms in the South. Such stories shared an “elementary structure”—a hero from China proper is exiled to the periphery due to his own failure; later he gains the trust of local aborigines and becomes the king who civilizes the place. For instance, the story “King Zhuang Qiao of Dian” was recorded to show how the “southwestern barbarians” became the kingdom of Dian thanks to the deeds of an exiled Chu prince. Various historical narratives generated on the basis of the “story of heroic exile” during the Wei-Jin period describe how the “prince” of Shang ran off to Korea (Jizi ben Chaoxian), the “prince” of Zhou to the south of the Yangtze River (Taibo ben Wu), and a runaway “slave” of Qin to the Qiang region in the Northwest (Wuyi Yuanjian). The symbols (prince, general, runaway slave, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Chu, etc.) constructed by these exile narratives demonstrate the peripherality of “Dian” or the “southwestern barbarians” relative to the Chinese center: Zhuang Qiao, who fled to Dian, was considered a “general” of Chu and the story shows that Dian in the Southwest was evaluated by the Chinese during the Han and the Jin as a civilized place at the periphery of China (Huaxia), but Dian was apparently less Sinicized than the Northeastern and Southeastern peripheries (Korea and the Eastern Wu) and more Sinicized than the Northwestern periphery (the Western Qiang) (M. K. Wang, 2008). The policy was practiced in both the Han and Tang Dynasties. While for Han, the issue of the West was the Xiongnu, for Tang (A.D. 618–907), it was Tibet. Princess Wencheng, a niece of the powerful Emperor Taizong of Tang, was given to the Tibetan king as one of his wives. She left Tang in 640 and arrived the next year in Tibet and married Songtsän Gampo. Before her departure, Tang had received an envoy in 634 from Songtsän Gampo. Through the envoy, the king demanded to marry a Chinese princess and was refused. In 635 and 636 the king’s forces attacked and defeated the Tuyuhun, who lived along an important trade route into China. The king then organized a campaign against China and forced the emperor to agree to give a Chinese princess in marriage as part of the diplomatic settlement. Princess Wencheng was selected. She was a Buddhist and, along with Songtsän Gampo’s Nepalese wife, Bhrikuti Devi, is said to have introduced Buddhism to Tibet (see T. Wang, 1928). For example, see Cui (2005). “The third phase of unification and peace” includes the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. According to Ji Chaoding, during this phase, the rulers

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were worried about the distance between the capital in the North and the economic centers in the South, so they tried hard to develop the area of the Hai River (now in Hebei province), which was closer to the political center, into an economic center. 7 Regarding the move of the economic center to the South, Zhang Jiaju (1957) also did a great deal of research. His focus was the shifts of economic areas in southeast China. In this book, he pointed out that the centuries from the middle of the Tang to when the Northern Song Dynasty migrated to the South was the transitional period for the southward move of the economic centers. The relocation of the Song imperial court marked the unprecedented development of the South. 8 The Three Kingdoms period is a part of an era of disunity called the Six Dynasties (Liu Chao) following the collapse of the Han Dynasty. It began with the founding of Wei in A.D. 220. The three kingdoms were Wei, Wu, and Shu. 9 Some have dated the spread of Buddhism in China earlier. For instance, Wu Hung (1989, p. 134) argues that the iconic composition in Eastern Han carvings, as represented by the King’s Mother’s image in the Wu Liang Ci, was derived from Indian Buddhist art. The Han Chinese of the first century A.D. had began to accept this format to portray the King’s Mother in the West because by this time the goddess was viewed as a sacred figure and she was equated with the Buddha, who was also thought to be a deity of the West. Wu Hung also mentions that in the Yongping reign (A.D. 58 to A.D. 75) Emperor Ming of Han had sent monks to the Western region to search for Buddhist scriptures, which is the beginning of the eastern diffusion of Buddhism. Influenced by Buddhist statues and modes of composition, the stone carving method of Han was changed, resulting in the combination of the Indian Buddha and Xi Wangmu. 10 This situation continued in the phase of unification, that is, the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In this period, Zen emerged and became popular. 11 In spite of all the rivalries, the West, where Buddhism came from (India), was worshiped as the sacred direction by both the South and the North Schools. 12 In Europe, the first scholar who translated this book was a Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat. He was the first professor of sinology in the Institute de France. Later in the Qing Dynasty, a missionary called Samuel Beal translated it into English and published it in 1869 in London under the title Travels of Fa-Hian and Sung-yun, Buddhists Pilgrims, from China to India (A.D. 400 and 518). Following Beal, one of the founders of sinology in Cambridge University, Herbert A. Giles, translated it again and published it in 1877 with the Cambridge University Press. Giles named it Record of

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the Buddhistic Kingdoms. The third English version was done by James Legge, the famous sinologist, who called it A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline and published it in 1886 in Oxford. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republican period, historical and geographical research about the border developed. Li Guangting included The Travels of Fa-hsien in the seventh volume of his Han Xiyu tukao. Ding Qian wrote “Jin shi Faxian Foguoji dili kaozheng.” Cen Zhongmian’s Zhongwai shidi kaozheng has a chapter on the travels of Buddhist monks to India. First published in 1934, it focused on Fa-hsien. The Japanese scholar Adachi Kiroku also paid much attention to the Travels. He published his “An inquiry into The Travels of Fa-hsien” in 1935 in Tokyo. See B. Wang, 2003, pp. 20–27. What is more, The Travels of Fa-hsien was redacted and annotated by Zhang Xun and published in 1985 by Shanghai Guji Chubanshe in Shanghai. The Chinese phrase tongzhi first appeared in this text, where it meant “monks with the same ambition”; now tongzhi is used to refer to “comrades.” An English version of Xuanzang’s book is available; see Beal, 1980. About the monks’ travels between India and China, see Tan and Geng, 2006, pp. 254–296. Such pilgrimage is, in a strict sense, similar to the European “pilgrimage,” but different from the self-centered rituals of Feng-Shan, burning incenses and worshipping the mountains. See M. M. Wang, 2003, pp. 176–212.

Chapter Six 1

2

“While in this country Fa-hsien heard an Indian monk, seated on his high seat, deliver the following sermon: ‘Buddha’s alms-bowl, which was first at Vaisali, is now at Gandhara. After several centuries (Fa-hsien heard the monk mention a definite period of time but he has forgotten the exact number of years stated), it will go to the country of Western Sakas; after several more centuries it will go to the Kingdom of Khotan; after several more centuries it will go to the Kingdom of Kucha; after several more centuries it will go to China, where it will remain for several more centuries before going to Simhala; and after several more centuries it will return to Central India. After having returned to Central India, it will ascend to the Tusita Heaven’” (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], p. 24; Y. Li, 1957, p. 85). This story could be interpreted thus: it is inevitable that the truth of Buddhism will go to China, which is compatible with the pursuit of Fa-hsien. After Fa-hsien, in the Southern and the Northern Dynasties the number of

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monks who traveled between India and China by sea “is around ten that can be identified” (C. Feng, 1987 [1937], p. 31). The king of Wu sent several envoys to Southeast Asia. Around the fifth year of the Huangwu reign (A.D. 226), the prefect of Jiaozhou sent a middleranking officer called Kang Tai and his assistant Zhu Ying to the “southern countries.” They traveled as far as Linyi (now the south-central part of Vietnam) and Funan (now Cambodia). It is said that they saw and heard stories about more than one hundred countries. After having heard much about “local customs” from the envoy of central Tianzhu, Zhu Ying wrote Gazette of the Wonders of the Southern Journey (Funan Yiwu Zhi, now lost); Kang Tai wrote Accounts of Foreign Countries during the Wu Period (Wu Shi Waiguo Ji, also lost). After the Sui emperor inaugurated his dynasty, he soon banned private trade on the sea. Hence, in the early Tang Dynasty, despite the fact that Xuanzang was a monk-sage, he promised Emperor Taizong to write a documentary book on the geography of the Western Territories. The book was completed and became a classic among Chinese treatises on geography. His “illusionary geography” yielded a kind of “realistic geography.” About the situation of the foreign populations and cultures in this period of Chinese history, Xiang Da published an article in Yenching Journal with the title “Chang’an and the Civilizations of the Western Territories in the Tang Dynasty” in the 1930s; this was later collected in his book of the same title, which was published in 1957 by the Sanlian Bookstore. This book introduces the situation of foreigners in Chang’an in Tang (Xiang, 2001 [1957]). In The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles, Wang Dayuan (1981 [1349]) mentions the “Western Ocean” several times without giving a clear definition. In the Record of the Foreign Regions (Yiyu Zhi) of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhou Zhizhong lists “a country in the Western Ocean” and locates it in the “Southwestern Sea,” which is now Malabar along the southwestern coast of India. The “Eastern Ocean” first appears in the Record of the Southern Sea, written by Chen Dazhen in the Yuan Dynasty. Chen divided the Eastern Ocean into the “Great Eastern Ocean” and “Little Eastern Ocean,” all in Southeast Asia now. He also took Leizhou Peninsula and the western coast of Kalimantan Island (Borneo) as the dividing point. The east of Java and Kalimantan Island belonged to the “Eastern Ocean,” in which Java island, Kalimantan Island, Sulawesi Island, Timor Island, and the Maluku Islands were called “Great Eastern Ocean,” while the area from the south of Kalimantan Island to the Philippines was called “Little Eastern Ocean.” The “Western Ocean” referred to the vast maritime space from the west of Kalimantan Island to the coast of East Africa, in which the

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Strait of Malacca was the dividing line of the “Great Western Ocean” and the “Little Western Ocean.” The western part of the modern Southern Ocean belonged to the “Little Western Ocean,” and the Indian Ocean belonged to the “Great Western Ocean.” In Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores, there is an entry for “the country of Nan Boli,” which states “[I]n the northwestern sea of [Nan Boli], there is a flat-topped mountain called Hat Mountain. West of this mountain is just the Western Ocean.” In the entry for “the country of Guli” it is recorded that “the grand country of the Western Ocean is right here” (H. Ma, 2005 [1431], pp. 49–51). Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756) indulged in entertainment, so political affairs were left in the hands of Li Linfu and, later, Yang Guozhong. As a result, the generals in the frontier area began to hold private military forces. When An Lushan was in charge of three armies (Pinglu, Fanyang, and Hedong), he rebelled in the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign (A.D. 755). He claimed the throne the following year in the capital Chang’an. The officers in charge of the West, Feng Changqing, Gao Xianzhi, and Ge Shuhan, were forced to go on a punitive expedition but failed. Emperor Xuanzong escaped to Sichuan, and the crown-prince Li Heng (Emperor Suzong) was enthroned in Lingwu. Emperor Xuanzong authorized Guo Ziyi as Eastern General to crusade against An Lushan together with Li Guangbi. They first took up Hebei area. Later, An Lushan was killed by his son An Qingxu, and General Shi Siming surrendered. Shi Siming rebelled in A.D. 758 and replaced An Qingxu as “Emperor of Great Yan,” but he soon was killed by his son Shi Chaoyi. The next year, Emperor Suzong, who was succeeded by Emperor Daizong, took back Luoyang. Hearing this, Shi Chaoyi had no choice but to commit suicide. The An Lushan Rebellion was over, but Tang subsequently broke into several independent warlord regimes.

Chapter Seven 1 2

The hermits were either demoted by the court or renounced the chaotic world of the North. The first time Zheng He led the fleet; it started from Liujia Port, passed through Java, Sumatra, and Ceylon, and crossed from Cochin to Kozhikode along the west coast of India. The second time (from November 1407 to July 1409) the fleet traveled along roughly the same route. The third time Zheng encircled the Eastern Indian Ocean, starting from Java and Sumatra, continuing to Ceylon, and then proceeding north along the eastern coast of India until he arrived at the Bay of Bengal. After that, he returned to the Strait of Malacca, where he built a city, and then came back to China. The

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fourth time (from October 1413 to July 1415) he traveled again through the Indian Ocean and then went on to the Persian Gulf, arriving at the Strait of Hormuz; he may possibly have reached the eastern coast of Africa. The fifth time (from the autumn of 1417 to July 1419) he repeated this same route and arrived again at the Persian Gulf. He sent a small team to travel along the south coast of Arabia to Mogadishu, Brava, and Malindi along the Horn of Africa. The sixth time (from the spring of 1421 to August 1422) he returned to the Persian Gulf, where he divided the fleet into two teams to travel in two directions along the coast of southern Africa. The seventh time (from January 1431 to July 1433) he traveled along the western coast of India into the Persian Gulf and on to Mecca. The scale of Zheng He’s fleet was enormous. It undertook seven expeditions in twenty-eight years, visiting more than thirty countries. Compared to Vasco da Gama of Portugal, Zheng He’s travels happened eighty years earlier. Sometimes when academics compare China and Europe, they claim that the Chinese discovered the world earlier than Columbus. Actually, Zheng He’s trips were the result of many earlier trips made by the Han and non-Han Southerners to explore the world. On Zheng He’s expeditions, see Xiang (2001 [1957]), pp. 530–562. The concept of the “Western Ocean” emerged at a time when the Central Kingdom changed from the period of partition to the final phase of unification. Under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the unified empire was not in the hands of the Han. Instead, as discussed previously, it belonged to the Mongols and their trusted foreign administrators (Semu), who may have added a Persian—Arabic dimension to the Chinese conception of the West. Among Han scholars and monks, the “Western Ocean” referred to a broad area which continued to be the “South Sea”—a part of the “Western Heaven.” But in the regional world of the southeast coast of China, the presence of people and materials from the Islamic world became ever more visible. Evolving into a different perspective on inter-cultural relationships, the idea of the “Western Ocean” became closely related to the prosperous maritime trade, particularly the trade along the so-called “maritime Silk Road” (haishang sichou zhi lu). It is worth noting that even though Gao Xianzhi was the commander of the losing side, his campaign helped spread paper and the compass to the rest of the world. Paper, which was introduced to Europe around the fourteenth century, made more foreign knowledge available to more Europeans, ultimately bringing about the Renaissance. The compass, which spread to Europe through the Islamic world, became an important tool in navigation and led the way to the Age of Exploration (see Gernet, 1982, pp. 288–289). The first premise for the formation of the maritime route was the

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advancement of shipbuilding technology. In Tang, the shipbuilding industry became highly developed in the South. The second premise was that some parts of the maritime network had a consumer demand for the products and materials of other parts. It seems to be the case that during the Tang, whenever one of the locales or nexuses of the network needed a certain product, it would motivate and shape the growth of a relevant industry in another place. Silk and porcelain became the special products of the Central Kingdom in exchange for the elegant tusks, rhinoceros horns, pearl beads, and spices found in the overseas kingdoms. 6 Since the archaeological discovery of the Sanxingdui civilization in Sichuan (dated to the twelfth through eleventh centuries B.C.), many Chinese scholars have believed that there must have been a southern Silk Road that linked China with Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia through land routes and was related to the harbors in Southeast Asia from the Bronze Age (see X. Xiao, 2007). 7 There had been “Moslem Districts” in the great harbor cities along the maritime Silk Road (e.g., Guangzhou and Quanzhou). After Ming, the Moslems were forced to “localize” and follow Confucian rules of “civility.” 8 When Zheng He sailed around the world, he made great efforts to reach the heartland of the Islamic world (see Y. Chen, 1996, pp. 157–170). 9 Wang Gungwu (1991, pp. 106–110) has argued that the Mongol conquest had important consequences for Chinese relations with Southeast Asia. During Yuan, Yunnan became a “permanent part of the Chinese empire,” and direct control of Yunnan laid the foundation for a new kind of political and economic relationship with China’s overland neighbors in modern Southeast Asia. 10 An English translation of the Chinese original is made available by Harris (2007); Pelliot’s (1902) French translation has been rendered into English several times, including Paul (1992). 11 In the entry for “Ta-ts’in [Da Qin]” (Roman Empire) in The Gazetteer of Foreigners, it is said that there is “a saying that in the west of this country is the Jo-shui [Ruoshui] and the Liu-sha [Liusha], near the place where the Si-wang-mu [Xi Wangmu] resides and almost where the sun goes down.” It also records that “the inhabitants are tall and of a fine bright complexion, somewhat like the Chinese, which is the reason for their being called Ta-ts’in [Da Qin]” (R. Zhao, 1996 [1225], pp. 81–82; English translation, Hirth & Rockhill, 1911, pp. 103–104). That is to say, in the Tang-Song period, there were legends that the Far West (Europe) was close to the land of Xi Wangmu where humans look similar to Chinese. But the entry does not further explore this legend about Xi Wangmu. 12 During Song, some fifty countries had trading relationships with China.

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Materials and products traded included pearls, ivory, rhinocero horns, frankincense, agalloch eaglewood, coral, agate, hawksbill turtle shell, gardenia, and rose were imported from the Arabs and Samboja, herbal medicine from Java, costusroot from Foloan (Kuala Sungai Berang), cotton cloth and cotton yarn from Mait, and ginseng, silver, copper, and quicksilver from Korea. To promote overseas trade and maximize the state’s financial income, the court subsequently established five Maritime Trade Supervisorates (Shi Bo Si) in Guangzhou (971), Hangzhou (999), Mingzhou (now Ningbo city) and Quanzhou (1079), Huating county (now part of Shanghai, 1113), and Jiangyin (1145). Initially these Maritime Trade Supervisorates were attached to the Department of Transportation or prefectural official, but they were later made into separate agencies with their own directors (C. Huang, 2003, pp. 179–195). 13 The most influential ethnography of China has been Fei Xiaotong’s Peasant Life in China (1939). Fei’s kind of anthropology was built, between late 1920s and the 1940s, on the basis of the blending of “paradigms” from the West (modernity), the East (tradition), and the South Pacific (ethnography). His main analytical model has been said to be drawn from Bronislaw Malinowski, but it is virtually taken from Wu Wenzao’s blending of late nineteenth-century Pritchardian “village-peeping methodology” as advanced in North China, the early twentieth-century “isolate ethnography” as advanced in the South Pacific, and Chinese “Occidentalism” of modernity (see Chapter Eight). This blending resulted in the “invention of the village,” in which ordinary Chinese villages are described as if they, as microcosms of “earth-bound China,” did not have contacts with outside worlds and did not have imaginary “heavens,” until Western imperialists arrived in the East or until the “great men or women”—such as Fei Dasheng, Fei’s sister—began to introduce Western industrial technologies into “China from the Soil” (xiangtu Zhongguo). 14 Briefly, tea was first discovered by the hermit kind of the shi as something which perfectly reflected the reclusives’ self-identity. Then, tea’s civilizing role changed honoring the Chinese as those who have a “stylish” way of life (mimetic of that of the hermits). By Song, the “barbarians,” perhaps culturally “colonialized” by the Han, had also become dependent upon Chinese tea. Chapter Eight 1

As will be shown later, in the twentieth century, these works exerted a strong impact on Chinese minds. Western editions of ancient Chinese descriptions of foreigners, translated back into Chinese, deeply influenced modern Chinese intellectual thinking.

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Prior to 1949, Gu had advanced an interaction theory of contesting mythological systems within the confines of China. By 1949, Gu thought even more critically of diffusionism. The “evolution” of Gu’s mind was not accidental. In the age when all the foreign imperialists’ conspiracies to incorporate China into their great maps of the world were “uncovered” (jielu), the thesis of “the Western origin of Chinese civilization” was heavily condemned by the new regime. Gu Jiegang, whose mind was firmly nationalist, ceased to allow enough space for the interactive dramas of the “supersocietal system” of ancient China. 3 Originally this essay was published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica, 1966 (22): 215–255. 4 For example, Cen Zhongmian (2004 [1962], 1:115) suggests that “the Southern Sea and Kunlun are the results of shifting pronunciations, not the original ones.” 5 Ferrand defined the intermediary areas in terms of “Kunlun Kulturkreis,” which, together with ancient and modern texts of “foreign kingdoms” including The Gazetteer of Foreigners, The Customs of Cambodia, and The Brief Description of the Barbarians of the Isles, offer us an important perspective from which we may reconsider both the imaginaries of Western ethnography as regards “isolated islands” and modern Chinese nativistic interpretations of history. 6 Negritos were connected with the “Kunlun Nu” in ancient Chinese records by some authors. 7 In sinological anthropology, there were also “campaigns” to sociologize the subject. For instance, the British sinologist and anthropologist Maurice Freedman was deeply absorbed by Chinese persepctives on the Southern Sea (see Freedman, 1979b, pp. 3–21). Later, Freedman turned to the study of Chinese social structure. His interest in the Southern Sea was gradually lost, and he focused on localized lineage organizations, religion, and political culture. 8 The same idea of “isolation” also appeared frequently in Malinowski’s works. In his classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), published in the same year as The Andaman Islanders, Malinowski focused his description upon the Kula, which is a certain way of circulating goods and persons. Yet, parodoxically, in the introduction he chose to concentrate upon how the concept of “isolate” was critical to a good ethnography. 9 This was a missionary university established by the joint efforts of American, British, and Canadian Christian societies. For a good study of its institutional development, see Trescott (1992). 10 Wu Wenzao was born in 1901 in Jiangyin county in Jiangsu province. In the year 1905, the Qing government abandoned the imperial examination

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system. Young students like Wu had to pursue higher education in the newly created foreign educational institutions in China. In 1917, he was admitted to Tsinghua College in Beijing. Having finished his pre-university study, in 1923 he went to the US. There Wu studied sociology at Dartmouth College and Columbia University. After having gained his Ph.D. from Columbia University, Wu was appointed to a professorship at Yenching (Bing, 1990). An exception seems to be Tian Rukang, one of Fei’s assistants during his Yunnan years, who applied Durkheimian sociology in his study of Baiyi (now identified officially as the Dai) festivals in the Mangshi area of Yunnan (Tian, 2008 [1946]). In 1926, Wu, still pursuing his doctorate at Columbia University, had published in a student journal one of his earliest and most interesting essays, “Nations and the State” (Wu, 1990a [1926]). In the essay, Wu critiqued most of the modern theories of the nation-state. Oriented toward the “native’s point of view” of China, Wu argued for a theory of unity with diversity—specifically, a model of political unity co-existing with many cultures. In the late 1980s, this theory became a foundation upon which Fei Xiaotong, one of Wu’s most famous students, built his idea of “unity with diversity” (duoyuan yiti geju) (Fei, 2004). Although Wu did not have the idea of civilizational order—in Park’s terms, the cultural radiation of Han civilization in different directions, or in Granet’s terms, the empire’s capacity to absorb the neighboring or distant others—he was rather sensitive to the other side of it, to the ways in which “ethnic diversity” did not necessarily contradict “political unity.” To Wu, rural community studies were a new invention of Yenching sociologists, but they could in fact be traced back to the American missionary sociologist Arthur Smith’s Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology (2003 [1899]). Smith, who conducted a long-term field study in Shandong, described imperial China as a great house, and a village as a microcosm of it. He argued that earlier descriptions of imperial China got it wrong by just talking about the big cities. He argued that to know the “real China” one had to develop a new method, and for him, that was the village study. In Smith’s eyes, one could use the village as a hole in the wall to peek into the secret “great house” of the empire. As a microcosm of Chinese society, the village was a perfect methodological unit deserving future sociologists’ attention. Wu obviously took Smith’s point and combined it with the newly fashioned ethnography (M. M. Wang, 2007a, pp. 164–193). Even in Cai Yuanpei’s first piece on ethnology (1993 [1926]), some examples of such “gazettes” were listed as evidence of the existence of the ethnological science in ancient China.

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15 Fu was a great scholar, leaving behind him seven large volumes of writing. A careful consideration of these volumes would yield much knowledge and inspiration, but this is not something we can do here. 16 Li’s unique contribution was his study of what Fu described as the eastern “Barbarians” (Yi). His findings there, in the Shang remains, made him compare pre-Shang civilization with the Yangshao and Longshan cultures, and he concluded that the creators of Shang civilization were a different ethnic group from those who founded the agricultural cultures of Yangshao and Longshan—they were hunters with a strong religion who were able to absorb inventions from all four directions, East, West, North, and South. 17 Heilongjiang, western Hunan, Zhejiang, Yunnan, and western Sichuan were the main areas of his field study. 18 It deserves note that in 1926, a couple of years before Fu, Li, and Ling were recruited into the academy, Cai Yuanpei, the founder of many modern social science disciplines in China, had already defined the scope of ethnology (Cai, 1962). As early as 1906, Cai had gone to Leipzig University, where he stayed for three years. In 1911, he visited Europe for the second time. On this trip, apart from Germany, he also visited France; he stayed in these two countries for a total of four years. During these two periods, Cai studied philosophy, aesthetics, and ethnology. In 1925, Cai again went to Germany to study ethnology; before then, he had taught ethnology at Peking University for several years. Cai had a broad knowledge of ethnology in Europe, and he was particularly familiar with evolutionist and diffusionist theories. For him, such theories were especially good for modern Chinese scholars who had the task of inquiring into the deep history of the progress of the Chinese nation and the immense diversity of ethnic cultures co-existing within its boundaries. Seen from this perspective, the usefulness of German, Anglo-American, and French ethnological methods and theories became apparent. 19 Wang Mingke (2004, p. 13) explained that “the scholars who did ‘skeptical studies of ancient Chinese history,’ such as Gu Jiegang, started the scientific analysis of ancient history in China. ‘Scientific reason’ forced some Chinese scholars to reject the ancient history in the historical materials. But the fierce arguments between those fighting against the authenticity of ancient history and those fighting for it show that both sides cared most about the ‘origin’ of history. Hence, the implication of ‘skeptical studies of ancient Chinese history’ does not reflect their denial of ancient history; on the contrary, it reflects their demand for ancient history.” 20 These semi-diffusionist assertions of the unity of diversity were pronounced by the Academia Sinica ethnologists to attest the taste of the post-imperial state, and they would be seen as quite disappointing by anthropologists

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such as Lévi-Strauss. More than half a century ago, in a lecture entitled “The Future of Anthropology,” Lévi-Strauss (1987) states: “Objectively, these peoples are undergoing a process of transformation that is bringing them closer to Western civilization, which has traditionally been regarded as lying outside the province of anthropology. And above all, from a subjective point of view, these peoples manifest an increasing hostility to ethnographic inquiry. It seems as though anthropology is doubly threatened: in the first instance, by the actual disappearance of certain peoples, and in the second, by the fact that other people who are demographically flourishing deny themselves to anthropological study on ideological grounds” (p. 12). In re-inventing the social sciences, Chinese, like other non-Western peoples, have re-conceptualized anthropology (Hymes, 1969). Much of anthropology has been reformed into a different kind of adventure. With “adventure romances” abandoned and “adventures” into the futures of the nations now enchanting, most non-Western anthropologists have taken on the responsibility of recreating the knowledge-power system for the sake of resisting the West. These anthropologists have tried to take their own “internal objects of study” back into their own hands, and aimed to erase the factors of imperialism inevitably contained in what they have learned. The bilateral fantasies might have metaphoric references to reality—it is true that there is some relationship between silk and mulberry trees, and between goats and grass. Sidney Mintz (1985), who analyzes the “material culture” of capitalism, suggests that production and consumption in the time of capitalism divided the world into the West and the rest, the colonializing and the colonized. The luxurious and stimulating were often produced in “the rest,” while being consumed in the West. For me, it would be more interesting to say that European consumerism and taste for luxuries were more or less like those in the hierarchical civilizations of the East—the West and the East both adored things from remote places. The first edition of the Haiguo Tuzhi was published in the twelfth lunar month of the twenty-second year of the Daoguang reign (January 1843) in fifty volumes. Later, several more volumes were added; and it became a sixty-volume book when it was reprinted in the twenty-seventh year of the Daoguang reign (1847). The book was revised and reprinted again in the second year of the Xianfeng reign (1852); by then, the book consisted of a hundred volumes. These early editions were all published in Yangzhou. In the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1522–1566), the name of “Southern Ocean” appeared. It referred to the land and sea in the due South. Later, East-West interactions increased; the names like the Great Eastern Ocean, Small Eastern Ocean, and Small Western Ocean were

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discarded. After the First Opium War, the concept of “Western Ocean” and “Eastern Ocean” reappeared. The former referred to Japan and the areas near by it; the latter referred to the Atlantic. 26 The English translation is from The Yi King, translated by James Legge (1882, 16: Appendix III, Section II, p. 405). 27 Three chapters in Haiguo Tuzhi discuss world religions. Wei Yuan remarked on the relationship between Christianity, Islam, and “Brahmanism” by saying that these religions were also world-orders constituted by their founders. Wei Yuan named these founders of “foreign religions” the “sages from the Western Sea” (xiyang shengren), and equated them to Confucius. He said that all these “sages” shared the same mentality and the same wisdom, and they all took public education and redemption as their own responsibilities (Y. Wei, 1998 [1843], 2:1814–1846). Chapter Nine 1 2

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In this work, Lyle draws from Granet’s discussions of the preference for the left in China (Granet, 1973, pp. 43–58). In critiquing Hertz’s absolute division of right and left, Granet sought to direct his discussion away from religious polarity. He argued that in emphasizing the “pre-eminence of the right-hand,” Hertz made a dangerous ideological interpretation of the symbolism of etiquette. Using Chinese materials, Granet showed the existence of a different microcosmos. Mauss (2009 [1930], pp. 200–201) highly praised Granet, and considered Granet’s take on Chinese civilization to be more universal than Hertz’s right-left model. He hinted that Hertz’s kind of one-dimensional division was bound up with the notion of the sacred, which became ultimately important chiefly in the Islamic world and in the Orientalized Christian world. In turn, the king of Zhou was able to take power from Shang. Zhou kings came and went, but the “orthodoxy of ritual” was maintained as a principle. It was precisely this “orthodoxy of ritual” which distinguished Zhou from Shang. For, unlike Zhou kings, the core of the Shang kings’ mystic oneness was “orthodoxy of belief.” Throughout the twentieth century, heavy criticism of the ancient hermits’ “pretended solitude” was expressed (e.g., X. Jiang, 2009 [1943]), and the hermits were believed to have ceased to exist. However, some researchers, such as Bill Porter, believe that such hermits still exist in mountainous areas of China (Porter, 2009). For a further discussion, see M. M. Wang (2009a). As Dumont (1980) suggests, the renouncers are similar to those who “become to himself on his own end as in the social theory of the West.” They are different, however, in that they are completely cut off from social

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life, making them different from the individuals representative of modern European model. The “renouncer” is sharply different from the “man-inthe-world”: he disengages himself from his social role. “[I]f we bring together the society on the one hand and the renouncer on the other, we have a whole containing an equilibrium between quite different things” (p. 185). Beginning from Han, the shi were on the top of the “four kinds of people” (simin)—the shi, the agriculturalists (nong), the craftsmen (gong), and the merchants (shang). Above them, were the emperor (di), the kings (wang, or the feudal lords), the military generals (jiang), and the bureaucrats (xiang, or the emperor’s advisers). The shi were treated as potential officials or generals, but not all of them became such. To clarify, in stressing the importance of the shi, neither have I represented them as individuals who always served as the producers of the strategies of domination (J. Gu, 1998b [1955]) nor have I related them with the “wisdoms” too often accorded to their creations since the “axial age” (Yu, 2003). Bill Porter (2009), who encounters some contemporary Chinese Buddhist hermits, has shown that the long tradition has survived all the cultural disasters. Our point is not merely that “other cultures” have their own “agencies.” The case we have made has also concerned the “confusions” of “hegemonic order” and “alternative interpretations.” It should also be pointed out that all these “schools of thought,” “ideologies,” and “traditions” were subjected to the restrictions of Heaven on their knowledge. Different thinking subjects’ acceptance of this reality often yielded related, or even conjoined, attitudes toward nature. Deep in Eliade’s mind is a differentiation between chaos and cosmos. As he puts it: “One of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is the opposition that they assume between their inhabited territory and the unknown and indeterminate space that surrounds it. The former is the world (more precisely, our world), the cosmos; everything outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of ‘other world,’ a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, ‘foreigners’ (who are assimilated to demons and the souls of the dead)” (1961, p. 29). Eliade (1963) is clearly aware of such counter examples, but, to insist on his own theory, he interprets them as validating the argument that the act of going back to the state of chaos is the same as the eternal return to origins (pp. 83–84). Ling argues that the imperial mountain worship was based on ancient Chinese mimesis of Mesopotamian sacred mountains. Though I have taken

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diffusionism as relevant to our consideration of inter-cultural relations, I do not agree with Ling’s diffusionist “conjectural history.” Ling directly jumps from late empire to the eastward diffusion of “Western” civilization in the age of Antiquity and thus leaves behind him a sequence of historical gaps waiting to be bridged. To relate the cultural inventions in the Chinese world to the “West,” he has neglected differences between the East and the West: while in Mesopotamia the sacred mountain was singular and imagined as situated in the middle, in China the holy mountains were dispersed in the four directions. In spite of all his shortcomings, Ling’s ethnological imagination is quite enlightening, particularly when it relates Chinese cosmography of the city to the archaic worship of the mountains universal to Eurasia. His negligence or ignorance of the “little traditions” is no doubt a great pity; but we should not thus conclude that his grand view is useless for ethnographic studies. Four of the “five tops” were located in the outskirts of the city, in the same cosmological directions as the altars. The rituals involved in the main worship activities were also modeled on the tribute-paying journeys to the imperial altars (X. Liu, 1996). Whatever the essence of imperial cosmology was, the kind of tribute the emperors paid to the mountains outside the capital has inspired me to consider the civilization in which I have lived as a part as a more valuable history than it has been seen since the radical campaigns targeting at making China a truly “hot” (revolutionary) society. Here, two points concerning “traditional China” deserve our attention. First, “traditional China” was not always ruled by the Han; rather, the role of emperor was sometimes “occupied” by the Han, and sometimes by the “barbarians.” Apart from the periods of partition during which many of the kingdoms were created and maintained by non-Chinese, quite a few of the periods of Great Unity were also phases of “barbarian conquest”— including Northern Wei, Yuan, and Qing. Second, in the “Chinese world,” it was a common phenomenon for more than one “state” to co-exist. In classical China, the fiefs were in fact described in terms of guo or states, and were indeed included under the system of Tianxia. The significance of the system of fiefs was, from the time of the first empire, heavily downplayed. Nonetheless, what we now perceive as China was always inclusive of a number of states—e.g., Tibet between Tang and Yuan, Nanzhao during Tang, and Xixia during Song (M. M. Wang, 2008, pp. 44–74). The broad inclusiveness of old China urges us to examine the civilization from its own sociologics of inter-cultural inclusion. This “world system” could be as small as a town, in which the world-scape

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of empire was deployed to plan the inside and outside of the patterned-out location; or as large as Tianxia, “the whole world beneath Heaven.” It is both a microcosmos and a macro-system, a “collective representation” which centered and dispersed a “model of virtue.” It is a set of material and sociological achievements in the civilizing process of expansion and acceptance. 19 This is similar to the world of the Muyuw in Frederick Damon’s (1990) depiction: “The kula is Muyuw’s primary purpose in life. The ranking it creates is not unlike the ranking created in the world economy Wallerstein describes for the West. If, of course, these two systems share some features, many others are different. As one minor example, success in the Western system is perceived as acquisition of wealth by oneself relative to others. In the kula success is in relation to and with others, for it is presented as if it is in their eyes and by virtue of one’s own material loss. Wallerstein’s model has other core countries with which a given core area exchanges finished products for money. At least in Muyuw ideology there must be others, for their existence measures one’s own. Wallerstein’s analytical method is relational. Muyuw’s kula ideology is relational” (p. 223). 20 The Chinese world should not be said to be simply “Chinese”: it was also maintained by the “barbarians rulers” such as the Mongols and the Manchus of Yuan and Qing, and it was multiply centered and multi-lateral. 21 The superiority accorded to the feminine in Chinese mythology and religion can be illustrated with reference to the “Sinification” of Buddhism. The Buddhist divinity Guanyin enjoyed great popularity in China as the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion. Dharmaraksa’s translation, the Zhengfahuajing, was quickly disseminated around Luoyang. The twenty-fourth chapter of the sutra deals with Avalokite vara (translated as Guanshiyin), and the cult began to flourish by the end of the fourth century. In a new translation made at the beginning of the fifth century by the Indian monk Kumarajiva, Guanyin had thirty-three appearances, seven of which were female. This figure was distinguished as a great being of forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. In their Sinified form, these attributes came to be seen as primarily feminine characteristics and, by Tang, Guanyin was portrayed as a goddess (Irwin, 1990, pp. 59–60). The femininity of Chinese Buddhism can be further associated with the myth of Mulian rescuing his mother from the fires of hell, which has been demonstrated to be a legend of a filial hero (Teiser, 1988, pp. 113–167). In the myth, the patriarchy of filial piety is inversed into a maternal complex. Postscript 1

Eliade’s ideas are systematically exhibited in his A History of Religious

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Ideas (1978–1986). As Leach (1982, p. 213) argues, cosmologies, such as that of the axial mundi, because they are human creations, consist in transformations of the real-life experience of those who invent them, and thus of the construction of the “other world” as well as the relationship between the “other world” of the imagination and the “this world” of lived experience. As Granet (1930) puts it, “The circulation of the Son of Heaven about the Ming t’ang [Mingtang] is assimilated by tradition to the circulation of the mythical sovereigns of the Empire. Both ought to be carried out in such a way that the king, placed at the east, promulgates the times and ordinances of spring; at the south, the times and ordinances of summer, etc” (p. 381). In Granet’s view, the “elementary structure” of ancient “Chinese society” was a kinship which was not only social but also “civilizational” (Granet, 1939). Kinship, richer than just a sum of terminologies, was a system of relationships which had to do with a kind of “performative formalism.” In this system, what matters is the “customary” or the “conventional” features of the practices of alliance and agnation, rather than the “doctrinal.” Granet’s approach was adopted by Lévi-Strauss, who was also inspired by structural linguistics. But in reformulating the theory of relationship into a “super-science,” Lévi-Strauss deserted all the rich materials of ancient China that Granet analyzed. Lévi-Strauss also abandoned Granet’s narratives of Chinese civilization. As a result, “structural anthropology” became detached from the sociology of civilization. For Granet, in ancient China, social changes did not take place by the adoption of successive systems of laws and regulations. Unlike the civil state based on Roman law in Europe, “Chinese society” was formed around changes in orientations consisting of cosmological and sociological principles of relationship. As we can postulate, the encompassing cosmocracy of Zhou made it possible for the fiefs or states lower in the hierarchy and the peoples known in terms closely related to animals (e.g., Man and Yi) to facilitate what Chinese ethnologists now call “national integration” (minzu ronghe). Granet focused upon the horizontalized verticality of relationship in contrasting the Chinese and Indo-European variations of civilization, and took China—a relationship-based “society”—as a counter-example to the Far West (1930, p. 6). Like Granet, Dumézil (1970) acknowledges the existence of the feminine outside the system of the three functions while Eliade admits that the holy was often beyond the ordered world. However, basing their interpretations on Indo-European mythologies and on the idea of the sacred, both Dumézil and Eliade make clear-cut demarcations between the inside and the outside and the known world and the unknown. Granet’s

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work, on the other hand, is much more flexible: the distinctions are there but not absolute. For Granet, “vertical” linkages between subordinated subjects, the sovereign king, and the sacred (or the Absolute Other) was what characterized the “other” world—the Indo-European system; by contrast, Chinese “civilization” relied heavily on horizontal extensions in its making of the vertical linkage between Heaven and Earth. 8 Granet’s points regarding the East-West cultural contrast can be demonstrated with recent archaeological findings. As Dorian Fuller and Mike Rowlands (2009) have shown, long-term continuities in food preparation and representational systems can be explored to suggest a contrast between first, a nexus in East Asia between sticky rice and ancestors who are drawn close by food offerings (where food is shared within familial groups); and second, a nexus from Western Asia to North India, in which sacrifice to remoter deities involves the roasting and baking of foods, a process which separates the odors/smoke that constitute the offerings from the material substances of meat, bread, and the like that are then consumed by the devotees, who are themselves drawn from across the community. 9 I favor an historiography which derives historical interpretations from “local knowledge,” but I do not take “local knowledge” as a “type”; rather, I regard it as a universally significant complexity of related perspectives of the world. 10 For instance, in the imperial period Chinese voyages to remote areas produced “gazettes of foreign territories” (Yiyu zhi), most of which, like their modern European counterparts (e.g., the “synthetic texts” of natural history and ethnography), “documented in detail a fundamental Chinese cultural conceit: the idea of China’s superiority over all other peoples of the world” (Smith, 1996, p. 7). Together these “gazettes” made a genre, whose origin could be traced back to the zhigongtu or the Illustrations of Tributaries, dating back to the sixth century A.D. Rejuvenated in the late imperial period, as Laura Hostetler (2001) has revealed by her extended analysis of the Miao albums of the early Qing, “[t]he Illustrations of Tributaries also played into the well-established Confucian schema of the emperor (whether of Han or non-Han origins) as the symbolic and virtuous center toward which peoples would naturally gravitate, paying homage, and offering obedience” (p. 205). These “gazettes” entertained a certain sense of diachronic time and the other. But in most cases, they did not render the diachronic contrast for inter-subjective retrospections; rather, they usually equated all the “you-groups” and “they-groups” with “barbarians” or even things, making Huaxia the only area of humanity. 11 A tributary “gazette” was what acted to bring the self and the other into a unity of diversity: “The tributes of the barbarians were obligatorily special

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products of their own country. Hence, in certain symbolic respects, the more bizarre they were the better: as signifying at once the inclusiveness of the imperial virtue, its capacity to encompass a universal diversity, and the Emperor’s ability to order the fluctuations of the world beyond the Chinese pale by the control of its monsters and its wonders” (Sahlins, 2000, p. 427). Being something more than an entity in which centers and peripheries as well as capitals and countries interact and rotate, Tianxia was often patterned as a system of metaphors and institutions that worked simultaneously to maintain the boundaries and relationships between humans, lesser humans, and non-humans in ways that included the inversions of high and low, and to draw vitality from the outside. Relevant to this point is Elvin’s reaction to Mauss’s “one-sentence encapsulation of China.” Elvin (1985) argues that Mauss mistakes China as a mere “Confucian” country. In “A category of the human mind,” Mauss (1985, pp. 1–25) briefly states that “nowhere is the individual more taken into account, in particular as a social being, and nowhere is he more subject to classification.” Elvin agrees that Confucian sentiments—which see a person as a node within a multiplicity of specifically defined social relationships— exist. Yet he stresses that not only were there other equally compelling ways of thinking about the self in China, including the reclusive perspective of the lonely individual on which he places more emphasis, but that these other ways also changed over time. Moreover, as indicated earlier, though the Chinese cosmos likewise entertained “the myth of the eternal return” (Eliade, 1971), the origin to which it sought to return was not the first stage of cosmic order but the preceding state, or “chaos” (hundun), namely the dividual whole of the universe, contrasted with the compartmentalized worlds of “civility,” bureaucracy, and social order. It was to return to the state of “chaos” (often found in the mountains or the realms beyond the mountains), to the “source,” rather than the “transcendent plane” of the sacred, “the world of axiological values,” that the emperors, in their efforts to attain autocratic prestige (Granet, 1930, pp. 389–397) or to ascend to Heaven and to achieve selfdivination (Puett, 2002), also “submitted” themselves to Heaven for the bliss of longevity and long peace in their worlds; that the Daoists sought “immortality”; and the monks pilgrimaged to distant lands for the Truth. According to Gernet, the “exit” was the precondition for several ethical, epistemological, and political reforms which opened China to the nonChinese “world religions”—Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity—and, by so doing, extended the archaic “anthropological ethic” of accepting the “Moral Other” to imperial times (Gernet, 1994, pp. 56–59). Before Zhou, in late Shang, the directionological terms of North, South,

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East, and West had already been used to relate directions to temples, altars, chambers, halls, and gates, and were applied in religious ceremonies. As Keightley (2000, pp. 86–87, 95–96) has pointed out, Shang gave priority to the axial line of the Northeast, while Zhou to the Northwest, because these two directions were seen as from where the ancestors of the dynastic founders respectively hailed. Elsewhere, I have conceptualized this kind of radicalization in terms of a “fetishism of novelty” (M. M. Wang, 2007a, pp. 3–20). The “fetishism of novelty” can be related with the particular radical Occidentalism of Mr. Sai (science) and Mr. De (democracy), which, while pretending to be a total novelty, has been nothing but a continued tradition. A further tragic fact, for me, has also been that the new Occidentalism has hardly been othercentric: the radicalization against China’s own pasts has been coupled with the radicalization against the other—the West. Living in a civilization undergoing transformation, Chinese anthropologists, for instance, have borrowed from the West certain “scientific methods,” including methods for studying the other. However, having domesticated such methods into an integral part of the citizens’ own modernizing project, they have also reduced anthropology into a national science. Except for several rare examples (see A. Li, 1937; Fei, 1985; Hsu, 1963), Chinese anthropologists have so far been devoted to the enterprise of studying “domestic issues.” They have, in turn, paid little attention to the core concept of anthropology—the other. Just like other notions of sovereignty, old Chinese conceptions of the “sovereign,” core to the constitution of imperium, had the same paradox of inside and outside; but cosmologically and ethnologically speaking, these conceptions were greatly more encompassing than our modern nativist and/ or nationalist “beliefs.” From the inside, the outside was not considered to be merely a personified God or an abstract object for imitation or obedience; it included all—other peoples, other materials, and other divinities. In the classical period, Kunlun was the outside; whereas in imperial times, the mountains and rivers located in the quarters that surrounded the center were the external sources of “power.” These things or landscapes far away from the capital were the greatly honored sites to which even the emperor had to pay tribute. As noted in Chapter Four, Fairbank and Goldman (2006) point out that since Zhou claimed their sanction to rule from Heaven (tian), its mandate (tianming) might be conferred on any family that was morally worthy of the responsibility. “This doctrine asserted the ruler’s accountability to a supreme moral force that guides the human community. Unlike a Western ruler’s accession through the doctrine of the divine right of kings, which

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rested on birth alone, the Chinese theory of Heaven’s mandate set up moral criteria for holding power” (p. 40).

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Glossary

Ai Ci 哀次 Ai Rulüe 艾儒略 An Lushan 安禄山 An Qingxu 安庆绪 Annam 安南 Anshi 安史 Anshi zhi luan 安史之乱 Anxi 安息 Ba (Pa) 巴 Baidi 白狄 baijia 百家 baijia zhengming 百家争鸣 Baima 白马 baixing 百姓 Baiyi 摆夷 Baiyue 百越 Balianfu 巴连弗 Ban Chao 班超 Ban Gu 班固 ban zhimindi ban fengjian shidai 半殖 民地半封建时代 Baoqing 宝庆 Baoyun 宝云 Bei Qi Shu 北齐书 Bei Shi 北史 Beihu Lu 北户录

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Beijing 北京 Beili (Pei-li) 北里 Beiping 北平 Ben Rong (Pen Jung) 奔戎 bi 璧 Bi’er (Pi-erh) 卑耳 Biandu 扁都 bianjiang 边疆 Bin Chun 斌椿 binfu 宾服 Bixia Yuanjun 碧霞元君 Bo 僰 Bo Shichang (Po Shih-ch’ang) 柏始昌 Bo Yao (Po Yao) 伯夭 Bohai (Po-hai) 渤海 Boma (Po-ma) 白马 Bowang (Po-wang) 博望 bu Tian (pu T’ien) 不天 bu yi Zhonghua 不异中华 bushi tili 不识体例 buzhi suo sheng 不知所生 Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 Cao Cao 曹操 Cen Zhongmian 岑仲勉 Cha Jing 茶经 cha sheng 茶圣

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332

GLOSSARY

Chama gudao 茶马古道 chama hushi 茶马互市 Chan 瀍 Chang Jun 常骏 Chang Naihui 常乃惠 Chang’an 长安 Changdi 长狄 Changguang (Changkuang) 长广 Changqiang (Ch’ang-ch’iang) 尝羌 Changsha 长沙 changzhi jiu’an 长治久安 Chanyu 单于 chen 臣 Chen Dazhen 陈大震 Chen Sheng 陈胜 Chen Xiaomei 陈小媚 Chen Yin 陈音 Cheng (Ch’eng) 成 Chengcha Biji 乘查笔记 Chens 陈氏 chenwei 谶纬 chequ (ch’ö-k’ü) 砗磲 chi (ch’i) 尺 Chidi 赤狄 Chimei 赤眉 Chiwushi 赤乌氏 chong 虫 Chong 舂 Chong Bi Tai 重璧台 Chongqing 重庆 Chu (Ch’u) 楚 Chu Ci 楚辞 chu yuni er buran 出淤泥而不染 chuan 川 Chun Hu 纯狐 Chun Qiu/Chun Qiu 春秋 Chun Qiu Zuoshi Zhuan 春秋左氏传 Chunyu 淳于 cicao zhi chen 刺草之臣 cishi 刺史 cong 琮

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Congling 葱岭 cun 寸 da fu (ta fu) 大福 Da Qin (Ta-ts’in) 大秦 Da Tang Xiyu Ji 大唐西域记 Da Wenkou 大汶口 Da Yu 大禹 dahuang jing 大荒经 Dai 傣 Daizong 代宗 Damingsi 大明寺 Dao 道 Dao wei wang 道未亡 daode geming 道德革命 daode qijie 道德气节 Daoguang 道光 Daoli 盗骊 daoshi 道士 daotong (tao-t’ung) 道统 daotong de qufu 道统的屈服 Daoyi Zhilüe 岛夷志略 Daozheng 道正 Daren 大人 Dashi 大食 Datong 大同 Daxia (Ta-hsia) 大夏 Dayuan 大宛 Dayuezhi 大月氏 Dazihe 达子合 de (Tö) 德 deyin (Tö-yin) 德荫 Di 氐 Di (Ti) 狄 Di/di 帝 Di Jiang 帝江 Dian (Tien) 滇 dianfu 甸服 didu 帝都 Dili zhi 地理志 ding 顶 Ding Qian 丁谦

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GLOSSARY

Ding Shan 丁山 Ding Wenjiang 丁文江 ding-wei 丁未 dingxiang 顶香 Diqiang 氐羌 disheng yang 地生羊 dishi 敌视 D en 道缘 Dong 东 dong 动 Dong Wanggong 东王公 Dong Xi Yang Kao 东西洋考 Dongfang 东方 Donghu 东胡 Donglai (Tung-lai) 东莱 Dongshanzui 东山嘴 Dongyang 东洋 Dongyi 东夷 Dongyue 东越 Dongyue Miao 东岳庙 Du Huan (Tu Huan) 杜环 Duan Gonglu 段公路 Dunhuang 敦煌 Duomoli 多摩梨 duoyuan yiti geju 多元一体格局 Enkei 延庆 Erya 尔雅 fa 伐 fa 法 Fa-hsien 法显 Fajia 法家 Fali 法力 Fan 番 fang 方 fangguo 方国 fangshi 方士 Fangzhang (Fang-chang) 方丈 fanjiang 番将 Fanyang 范阳 Fei Dasheng 费达生 Fei Xiaotong 费孝通

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333

Fen 汾 fen er zhizhi 分而治之 feng/Feng 风 feng 封 Feng Changqing 封常清 Feng Chengjun 冯承钧 feng Tian yi yuezhi wangquan 奉天以 约制王权 Feng Youlan 冯友兰 fengjian 封建 fengshan 封禅 fengshui 风水 fengsu 风俗 Fenyin (Fen-yin) 汾阴 fu 父 fu 服 Fu Sinian (Fu Ssu-nien) 傅斯年 Fu Xi (Fu Hsi) 伏羲 Fujian 福建 Funan 扶南 Funan Yiwu Zhi 扶南异物志 Fush 普照 Fuzhou 福州 Gan Ying (Kan Ying) 甘英 Ganhui 干麾 Gansu 甘肃 ganzhi 干支 Gao Pian 高骈 Gao Xianzhi 高仙芝 Gaozong 高宗 Ge Shuhan 哥舒翰 geng-chen 庚辰 gong 工 gong 公 gong 贡 gong 宫 Gong 龚 gonggui 躬圭 Gongsun Qing (Kung-sun Ch’ing) 公 孙卿 Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚

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334

GLOSSARY

Gu Qiu 榖丘 Gu Shi 顾实 Guan Zhong (Kuan Chung) 管仲 Guandong 关东 Guang Ying 广英 Guangdong 广东 Guanglu Dafu 光禄大夫 Guangxi 广西 Guangzhai 光宅 Guangzhou (Kwangchow) 广州 Guanshiyin 观世音 Guanyin 观音 guguo 古国 gui 圭 Guilin 桂林 Guli 古里 Gulong 古龙 Gumang 鹘莽 guo 国 Guo Pu 郭璞 Guo Songtao 郭嵩焘 Guo Xiang 郭象 Guo Yu 国语 Guo Ziyi 郭子仪 guoji guanxixue 国际关系学 guojihua 国际化 Guoxue 国学 Guzhu (Ku-chu) 孤竹 Hai 海 Haiguo Tuzhi 海国图志 haijin 海禁 Hainan 海南 hainei jing 海内经 haishang sichou zhi lu 海上丝绸之路 haiwai jiaotong 海外交通 haiwai jing 海外经 Haiwai Sanshan 海外三山 Haiwai Xianshan 海外仙山 Haixi 海西 Han 汉 Han 韩

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Han Shi 寒氏 Han Shu 汉书 Han Xiyu tukao 汉西域图考 Han Zhuo 寒浞 Hangzhou 杭州 Haoshang (Ho-shang) 鄗上 He (Ho) 和 He Bo 河伯 He Yan 何晏 He Zong 河宗 Hebei 河北 Hedong 河东 Heilongjiang 黑龙江 Hemu Du 河姆渡 Henan 河南 Heng 恒 heqin zhengce 和亲政策 Hetao 河套 Hexi 河西 Hezhe 赫哲 Hongshan 红山 Hou Han Shu 后汉书 houfu 侯服 Hu 胡 Hu Chuan 壶輲 hua 化 Hua 华 Hua-Yi 华夷 Huai 淮 Huaiyi 淮夷 Hualan Yao 花篮瑶 Huan 桓 Huang/huang 皇 huang 璜 Huang Di 黄帝 Huangdi 皇帝 huangfu 荒服 Huangjin 黄巾 Huangpu Zheng 皇甫曾 Huangwu 黄武 huanxiang dili 幻想地理

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GLOSSARY

huanyuan 还愿 Huating 华亭 Huaxia 华夏 Hubei 湖北 Hufu 胡服 Hufu kao 胡服考 Hufu qishe 胡服骑射 Huguo mingzhu Tianfei 护国明著 天妃 Huhanye 呼韩邪 Huicheng 惠成 Huijing 慧景 Huike 慧克 huimeng 会盟 Huisheng 惠生 Huiwen 惠文 Huiying 慧应 Hunan 湖南 hundun 混沌 hunjun 昏君 hunyi honggui 混一弘规 huwu 胡巫 Huzhou 湖州 I Ching (Yijing) 易经 ji 己 Ji 汲 Ji 季 Ji 济 ji 寄 ji 祭 ji 稷 Ji Chaoding 冀朝鼎 Ji Gong 积公 Ji Nian 纪年 Ji Xi 极西 jia 家 Jia Yi 贾谊 Jiading 嘉定 Jiajing 嘉靖 jian 监 jian gongde 建功德

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335

Jiang 姜 jiang 将 Jiang Shaoyuan 江绍原 Jiangsu (Kiang-su) 江苏 Jiangxi 江西 Jiangyin 江阴 Jiankang (Chienkang) 建康 Jiantuowei 键陀卫 Jianwei 犍为 Jianye 建业 Jianyuan 建元 Jianzhen 鉴真 jiao 郊 jiao 教 jiaosi 郊祀 Jiaoyang 交洋 Jiaozhou 交州 Jibei 济北 Jie 竭 jielu 揭露 Jieshi (Chieh-shih) 碣石 Jiexian 戒贤 jilie pai 激烈派 Jin 金 Jin (Chin) 晋 Jin Luxiang 金履祥 Jin shi Faxian Foguoji dili kaozheng 晋释法显佛国记地理考证 Jin Shu 晋书 Jing 泾 Jing 荆 Jing Li 井利 Jing Xing Ji 经行记 Jingchu 荆楚 jingjie 境界 Jingzhou 荆州 Jinque zhi 禁榷制 jinshen 缙绅 jiu zhou 九州 jiuchong tian 九重天 Jizi ben Chaoxian 箕子奔朝鲜

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336

GLOSSARY

ju 居 Ju 具 ju (chü) 枸 juan 卷 jue (tsüeh) 绝 jun 君 jun 郡 junxian zhi 郡县制 junzhang 君长 junzi 君子 Junzi bi de yu yu 君子比德于玉 Jusou (Chü-sou) 巨蒐 Kaiyuan 开元 Kang 康 Kang Tai 康泰 Kang Youwei 康有为 Kao Gong Ji 考工记 keji fuli 克己复礼 kexue de dongfangxue 科学的东方学 K ken (Xiaoqian) 孝谦 Kong Rong 孔融 Ku (K’u) 喾 Kuaiji (K’uai-chi) 会稽 Kuang Yuan 旷原 kui-chou 癸丑 Kunlun (K’un-lun) 昆仑 Kunlun chuanshuo yu Qiang-Rong wenhua 昆仑传说与羌戎文化 Kunlun nu 昆仑奴 Kunlun qiu 昆仑丘 Kunming (K’un-ming) 昆明 kuxi 袴褶 langguan 郎官 Langya (Lang-ya) 琅琊 Lanling 兰陵 Lanwuli (Lan-wu-li) 蓝无里 Lanzhou 兰州 Lao 崂 Laoshan 牢山 Laozi 老子 Ledu 乐都

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Leizhou 雷州 li 礼 Li 厉 li 里 li 醴 Li Daoyuan 郦道元 Li Guangbi 李光弼 Li Guangting 李光廷 Li Heng 李亨 Li Hongzhang 李鸿章 Li Ji 礼记 Li Ji 李济 Li Linfu 李林甫 Li Qiwu 李齐物 Li Sao (Li Sau) 离骚 li shi qiu zhu ye 礼失求诸野 Li Shuchang 黎庶昌 Li Si 李斯 Li Wan 李琬 Li Yi 李嶷 Li Youyi 李有义 Liang 凉 Liang 梁 Liang Gu 梁固 Liang Qichao 梁启超 Liangfu (Liang-fu) 梁父 Liangguang 两广 Liangshan 凉山 Liangzhou 凉州 Liangzhu 良渚 Liao 辽 Liaoning 辽宁 libeng yuehuai 礼崩乐坏 Licheng 历城 Lie Yukou 列御寇 Liezi 列子 lihuo (li hao) 藜藿 Lin Zexu 林则徐 Ling 令 Ling 灵 Ling Chunsheng 凌纯声

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GLOSSARY

Lingjiatan 凌家滩 Lingwai Daida 岭外代答 Lingwu 灵武 Linyi 林邑 lishi de yingzi 历史的影子 Liu 刘 Liu Bang 刘邦 Liu Chao 六朝 Liu Daolian (Liu Tao-lien) 刘道怜 Liu Shipei 刘师培 Liu Xiu 刘秀 Liujia 刘家 Liusha (Liu-sha) 流沙 liuxue 留学 liuxuesheng 留学生 lixiang jinyi 理想尽意 liyi 礼仪 Liyun 礼运 lizhi 礼制 Long’an 隆安 Longshan 龙山 Lou Jing 娄敬 Lu 鲁 Lü Hou 吕后 Lü Simian 吕思勉 Lu Yu 陆羽 Lü Yueren (Lü Yüeh-jen) 吕越人 Lu’er 绿耳 luan 乱 Luo 洛 Luoyang 洛阳 luren 鹿人 Lüshi Chun Qiu 吕氏春秋 Ma Huan 马欢 Man 蛮 Manfang 蛮方 Mang 駹 Mangshi 芒市 Mao 毛 Mao Zedong 毛泽东 Mazu 妈祖

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337

Meigu (Mei-ku) 昧谷 men 门 Meng Tian 蒙恬 miao 庙 Miao 苗 mie 灭 miejue (mie-tsüeh) 灭绝 Mimo (Mi-mo) 靡莫 Min 闽 Ming 明 ming 命 Mingtang (Ming t’ang) 明堂 Mingzhou 明州 Minzhong 闽中 minzu 民族 minzu ronghe 民族融合 Molin 摩邻 Motouluo 摩头罗 mu 木 Mu 穆 Mu Man 穆满 Mu Tianzi 穆天子 Mu Tianzi Zhuan (Mu T’ien Tzu Chuan) 穆天子传 Mu Tianzi Zhuan bu shi 穆天子传补 释 Mu Tianzi Zhuan jiangshu 穆天子传 讲疏 Mu Tianzi Zhuan kaozheng 穆天子传 考证 Mu Tianzi Zhuan xizheng jindi kao 穆天子传西征今地考 Mulian 目连 Muzong 穆宗 Na-ya-jia 那邪迦 Nan 赧 Nan Boli 南渤里 nanfang zhufan 南方诸番 Nanhai 南海 Nanjiao (Nan-chiao) 南交 Nanjing 南京

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338

GLOSSARY

Nankai 南开 Nanman 南蛮 nannü youbie 男女有别 Nanpi (Nan-p’i) 南毗 Nanyang 南洋 Nanyang shi 南洋史 Nanzhao 南诏 neidan 内丹 neiwai heyi 内外合一 Ning Hu yezhi 宁胡阏氏 Ningbo 宁波 Ninki 忍基 nong 农 Nüwa 女娲 Ouhua 欧化 Pang Yuanying 庞元英 Pangu 盘古 Panyu (P’an-yü) 番禺 Penglai (P’eng-lai) 蓬莱 Ping (P’ing) 平 Pinglin 平林 Pinglu 平卢 Pinyi (Phing I) 聘仪 qi 气 Qi (Ch’i) 齐 Qi 启 qi 栖 qian 迁 Qian Mu 钱穆 Qian Nanxiu 钱南秀 Qiang 羌 qiang 强 Qiang-Rong 羌戎 Qianlong 乾隆 Qianzhong 黔中 qicuo zhi shi 七萃之士 Qilian 祁连 Qilingka 齐灵卡 Qin (Ch’in) 秦 qin 寝 Qin Shi Huangdi 秦始皇帝

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Qin Shihuang 秦始皇 Qin-Han 秦汉 Qing 清 Qingdao 青岛 Qinghai 青海 Qinglian Gang 青莲岗 Qingzhou (Chingchow) 青州 qinqin 亲亲 qinyu bowen 勤于博问 Qiong (Ch’iung) 邛 Qiongdu (Ch’iung-tu) 邛都 Qiongqiong 蛩蛩 Qizhou 齐州 Qu Huang 渠黄 Qu Yuan (Chiu Yuan) 屈原 Quanrong 犬戎 Quanzhou 泉州 Quanzhou fangzhiban 泉州方志办 Ran (Jan) 厓 rang (jang) 让 ren 人 Ren 任 Rendao 人道 ri 日 Rong 戎 Rong Hong (Yung Wing) 容闳 Rong Qiqi 荣启期 Rongfu 戎服 Ru 溽 Ruan Ji 阮籍 Ruoshui (Jo-shui) 弱水 rusheng 儒生 Ry fuku 灵福 Sai 赛 Sai Xiansheng 赛先生 san li 三礼 san Miao 三庙 Sanguo Zhi 三国志 Sanhuang Wudi 三皇五帝 Sanlian 三联 Sanxingdui 三星堆

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GLOSSARY

Semu 色目 Shaanxi 陕西 shan/Shan 山 Shan 禅 Shan Hai Jing 山海经 Shandong 山东 shang 上 Shang/shang 商 Shang Chengzu 商承祖 shang guo (shang kuo) 上国 Shang Shu 尚书 Shangdang (Shang-tang) 上党 Shangdi 上帝 Shanghai 上海 Shanghai Guji Chubanshe 上海古籍 出版社 Shanshan 鄯善 shanshui 山水 Shanxi 山西 Shaohao 少昊 Shaoling (Shao-ling) 召陵 Shaoqi 苕溪 shaoshu minzu 少数民族 she 社 sheji 社稷 sheji tan 社稷坛 shen 神 Shen 莘 Shen Nong/Shennong (Shen Nung) 神 农 Shen Pei (Shen Pei) 参百 Shendao 神道 Shendu (Shen-tu) 身毒 sheng 升 sheng 生 sheng (cheng) 盛 Sheng Ji 盛姬 shengfan 生藩 shengren 圣人 shengshi 盛世 Shenren zhi Dao 神人之道

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339

shequ yanjiu 社区研究 Sheshou (She-shou) 社首 shezhong 蛇种 shi 士 shi 师 shi 嗜 shi 誓 Shi Ben 世本 Shi Bo Si 市舶司 Shi Chaoyi 史朝义 Shi Huangdi 始皇帝 Shi Ji 史记 Shi Jing (Shih Ching) 诗经 Shi Nianhai 史念海 Shi Siming 史思明 Shichuang 石床 shidaifu 士大夫 shijie huodong 世界活动 Shishuo Xinyu (Shih-shuo Hsin-yu) 世说新语 Shiyi Si 市易司 Shōmu 神武 Shōshū 澄修 Shu 蜀 Shu Shendu dao 蜀身毒道 shuai 衰 Shuda 叔达 shufan 熟藩 shui (shuei) 脽 shuiping 水平 shumin 庶民 Shun 舜 Shuowen Jiezi 说文解字 shuren 庶人 si 祀 si ye 四野 Si Yi Liezhuan 四夷列传 si-you 巳酉 Sichuan 四川 Sihai 四海 Sima Qian 司马迁

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340

GLOSSARY

Sima Xiangru (Ssu-ma Siang-ju) 司马 相如 simin 四民 sitong 私通 Sizhou Zhi 四洲志 Song (Sung) 宋 song 颂 Song Wuji 宋毋忌 Song-Yuan 宋元 Songyun 宋云 su 俗 Su Bingqi 苏秉琦 Su Xuelin 苏雪林 Sui 隋 Sui Shu 隋书 Sui-Tang 隋唐 Sun 孙 sushi 素食 Suzong 肃宗 ta 他 ta 它 ta shan zhi shi, ke yi gong yu 他山之 石，可以攻玉 taguo zhi ren 他国之人 Tai (T’ai) 泰 Tai Kun 太坤 Tai Shi Gong 太史公 Taibing (T’ai-ping) 泰丙 Taibo ben Wu 泰伯奔吴 Taikang 太康 Taipei 台北 Taisang 台桑 Taishan 泰山 Taishan Nainai 泰山奶奶 Taishan Shen 泰山神 Taiwan 台湾 Taizong 太宗 Tang (T’ang) 汤 Tang (T’ang) 唐 Tang Meng 唐蒙 Tang Yongtong 汤用彤

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Tangren 唐人 tanshan 坛禅 techan 特产 Tian (tian/t’ien) 天 Tian Rukang 田汝康 Tian Wen 天问 Tianbao 天宝 Tiandi 天帝 Tiangan 天干 Tianhou 天后 tianming 天命 tianming wuchang 天命无常 Tianshou 天授 Tianxia 天下 Tianzhu 天竺 Tianzi (T’ien ts ) 天子 Tiaozhi 条支 tiguo jingye 体国经野 tili 体例 Tingting (T’ing-t’ing) 亭亭 Tongguan 潼关 Tongshi (T’ung-shih) 桐师 Tongwen Guan 同文馆 tongzhi 同志 Tongzhi 同治 Tsinghua (Qinghua) 清华 tu 土 Tu 涂 Tubo 吐蕃 Tuoba 拓跋 Tuoli 陀历 tusi zhidu 土司制度 Tuyuhun 吐谷浑 wai chen 外臣 waidan 外丹 waiguo 外国 waiguo men 外国门 wang 王 wang 望 Wang Bi 王弼 Wang Dayuan 汪大渊

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GLOSSARY

Wang Gungwu 王赓武 Wang Guowei 王国维 Wang Hui 王恢 Wang Mang 王莽 Wang Mingke 王明珂 Wang Ping 王平 Wang Ranyu (Wang Jan-yü) 王然于 Wang Shenzhi 王審知 wang ta 亡它 Wang Yu Jieduan 王玉阶段 Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 wangzhi 王制 Wei 卫 Wei 威 Wei 渭 Wei 魏 Wei Juxian 卫聚贤 Wei Man 卫满 Wei Shu 魏书 Wei Yuan 魏源 Wei-Jin 魏晋 weishu 伪书 wen/Wen 文 Wen 温 Wencheng 文成 Weng Dujian 翁独键 wenhe pai 温和派 wenren 文人 wenyi 文艺 wenzhi zhengfu 文治政府 Wenzhou 温州 wu 巫 Wu 吴 wu 物 Wu 武 Wu Di 武帝 wu fang zhi min 五方之民 Wu Guang 吴广 wu Hu 五胡 Wu Huai 无怀 Wu Hung 巫鸿

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Wu Jian 吴鉴 Wu Liang Ci 武梁祠 Wu Shi Waiguo Ji 吴时外国记 Wu Wenzao 吴文藻 Wu Yu Jieduan 巫玉阶段 Wu Zetian 武则天 wu-wei 无为 wu-wu 戊午 wu-yin 戊寅 Wuchang 乌苌 wudi 五帝 Wuding 武丁 wufang 五方 wufu 五服 Wuguan 武关 Wujin 武进 Wuling 武灵 Wusun 乌孙 wuxing 五行 Wuxing 吴兴 wuyi 武艺 Wuyi Yuanjian 无弋爰剑 Wuzang Shan Jing 五藏山经 Wuzong 武宗 Xi 西 Xi (Hsi) 徙 Xi (Hsi) 羲 Xi Hai 西海 Xi He 羲和 Xi Wangmu 西王母 Xi Wangmu zhi shan 西王母之山 Xi’nan Hai 西南海 Xi’nan Man 西南蛮 Xi’nan Yi 西南夷 xia 下 Xia (Hsia) 夏 xia chen 下臣 Xia Nai 夏鼐 xia Xiyang 下西洋 Xiamen 厦门 xian 仙/仚/僊

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GLOSSARY

xian 县 Xian Men’gao 羡门高 Xian Tian Ba Gua 先天八卦 Xianfeng 咸丰 xiang 享 xiang 相 Xiang 项 Xiang (Hsiang) 湘 xiang 象 Xiang 襄 Xiang Da 向达 Xiang Xiu 向秀 Xiang Yu 项羽 xianghui 香会 xiangjian li 相见礼 Xiangjun 象郡 xiangtu Zhongguo 乡土中国 Xianheng 咸亨 xianxian 贤贤 Xianyang 咸阳 xiao 孝 Xiao Yan 萧衍 Xicheng 西城 Xihe 西河 Xihua 西化 Xilan (Si-lan) 细兰 Xiluo 醯罗 Xin 新 Xin Zhuangxue 新庄学 xing (hing) 兴 xing 性 xingui 信圭 xingxiang 行像 xingye 星野 Xinjiang 新疆 Xiongnu 匈奴 Xitian 西天 Xiutu (Hiu-ch’u) 休屠 Xixia 西夏 Xiyang 西洋 xiyang shengren 西洋圣人

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Xiyu 西域 Xiyu Zhuan 西域传 Xu Deheng 许德珩 Xu Fuguan 徐复观 Xu Shen 许慎 Xu Xusheng 徐旭生 Xu Yan Wang 徐偃王 Xuan (Hsüan) 宣 Xuan Di 宣帝 Xuande 宣德 Xuanxue (Hsuan-hsüeh) 玄学 Xuanyun 宣允 Xuanzang 玄奘 Xuanzong 玄宗 xugou zhijing 虚构之境 xun 旬 Xun Xu 荀勖 ya 雅 Yan 弇 yan 宴 Yan (Yen) 燕 Yan Di 炎帝 Yan Fu 严复 Yan Zhenqing 颜真卿 yang/Yang 阳 Yang 炀 Yang Guozhong 杨国忠 Yang Kuan 杨宽 Yang Qingkun 杨庆堃 Yang Tingjun 杨廷筠 Yang Xiangkui 杨向奎 Yang Zhu 杨朱 Yanggu (Yang-ku) 旸谷 Yangshao 仰韶 yangsheng 养生 Yangwu Yundong 洋务运动 yangyi 洋夷 Yangyu 阳纡 Yangzhou (Yangchow) 扬州 Yanqi 焉耆 Yantuoman (Yen-t’o-man) 晏陀蛮

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GLOSSARY

Yao 尧 yaofu 要服 yaoqian shu 摇钱树 Yecha (Jiecha) 竭叉 Yecheng 叶城 Yelang (Yeh-lang) 夜郎 Yenching (Yanjing) 燕京 Yeyu (Yeh-yü) 楪榆 yi/Yi 夷 yi 译 yi 易 Yi 益 Yi Li 仪礼 Yi Man Rong Di 夷蛮戎狄 yi Tianxia wei jiren 以天下为己任 Yi Xia zhi bian 夷夏之辨 yi Yi bian Xia 以夷变夏 yi yi zhi yi 以夷制夷 Yi-Xia 夷夏 yiguan nandu 衣冠南渡 Yijing 义净 Yijing (I Ching) 易经 yin/Yin 阴 Yin 殷 Yindu 印度 Ying 郢 yingming lingxiu 英明领袖 Yingya Shenglan (Ying-ya Sheng-lan) 瀛涯胜览 Yingzhou (Ying-chou) 瀛洲 yinshi 隐士 Yinxu 殷墟 yinyang 阴阳 Yinyi zhuan 隐逸传 Yiyu Zhi 异域志 yizhan 驿站 Yongjia 永嘉 Yongjia zhi luan 永嘉之乱 Yongle 永乐 Yongping 永平 Yongyuan 永元

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Y oer 荣瑞 You 幽 you 游 you ta 有它 Youdu (Yu-tu) 幽都 youshi 游士 Yu (Yü) 禹 Yü 嵎 yu 欲 Yu Gong 禹贡 Yu Zhangzhao 豫章邵 Yuan 元 yuan 愿 Yuan Ke 袁珂 Yuan Ming Yuan 圆明园 Yuan Shao 袁绍 yuangui 桓圭 Yuankang 元康 Yuanshou (yüan-shou) 元狩 Yuanzhen 元贞 Yude Tanghuo 欲得唐货 yue 乐 Yue (Yüeh) 越 yue ling 月令 Yue Wang 越王 Yumen Guan 玉门关 Yungang Shiku 云冈石窟 Yungui 云贵 Yunnan 云南 Yunyun (Yün-yün) 云云 Yushan 玉山 Yutian 于阗 Yuzhong 榆中 Zang 藏 Zang Yi zoulang 藏彝走廊 Zangke (Tsang-ko) 牂柯 Zao Fu (Tsao Fu) 造父 Zeng Guofan 曾国藩 Zeng Jize 曾纪泽 Zengcheng 增城 Zezhong 泽中

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GLOSSARY

Zhan Guo 战国 Zhan Guo Ce 战国策 Zhanbo 占波 zhang (chang) 丈 Zhang 张 Zhang Jiaju 张家驹 Zhang Qian (Chang Ch’ien) 张骞 Zhang Wengzhu 张翁翥 Zhang Xie 张燮 Zhang Xinglang (Chang Hsing-lang) 张星烺 Zhang Xun 张巽 Zhangye 张掖 Zhangye Gong 张掖公 Zhao (Chao) 赵 Zhao 昭 Zhao Gong 召公 zao kong 凿空 Zhao Rugua 赵汝适 Zhao Tuo 赵拓 Zhejiang 浙江 zheng 征 Zheng (Cheng) 郑 Zheng 政 Zheng Boqiao 正伯侨 Zheng He 郑和 Zhengde 正德 Zhengfahuajing 正法华经 Zhengsheng 证圣 Zhengshi 正始 Zhenguan 贞观 Zhenla Fengtu Ji 真腊风土记 zhenshi dili 真实地理 Zhenzhou 真州 zhi 志 zhi 制 zhi 质 zhi 治 Zhi 挚 Zhi Gang 志刚

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Zhi Guo 志国 Zhi Wu 志物 Zhifang Waiji 职方外纪 zhigongtu 职贡图 zhiguo yu zhijia 治国与治家 zhiluan 治乱 Zhishun 至顺 zhixing heyi 知行合一 Zhiyuan 至元 zhong 众 Zhong Shuhe 钟叔河 Zhong Yue 中岳 Zhongduli 中都里 Zhongguo 中国 Zhongguo yu shijie 中国与世界 Zhongguohua 中国化 zhongjianquan 中间圈 Zhongnan 终南 Zhongshan 中山 Zhongwai guanxi shi 中外关系史 Zhongwai shidi kaozheng 中外史地 考证 Zhongxi jiechu shi 中西接触史 Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan 中央研究院 zhongyuan 中原 zhou 州 Zhou (Chou) 周 Zhou Daguan 周达观 Zhou Gong 周公 Zhou Li 周礼 Zhou Muwang 周穆王 Zhou Qiyuan 周起元 Zhou Qufei 周去非 Zhou Shu 周书 Zhou xing Tianxia 周姓天下 Zhou Zhizhong 周致中 Zhouyi 周易 Zhouzhou 周周 zhu 祝 Zhu 珠

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345

zhu ke 主客 Zhu Ying 朱应 Zhuan Xu (Chuan Hsü) 颛顼 Zhuang Qiao 庄蹻 Zhuangzi/Zhuangzi 庄子 Zhuangzi yu Chu ci zhong de Kunlun he Penglai liangge shenhua xitong de ronghe 《庄子》与《楚辞》中 的昆仑和蓬莱两个神话系统的融 合 zhufan zhi/Zhufan Zhi 诸番志 Zhufu Yan 主父偃 zhuguan 主观 zhuhou guo 诸侯国 Zhulin qixian 竹林七贤 Zhuyu 竺屿 Zhuyushi 珠余氏 zi (ts ) 子 Zigui 秭归 ziran zhi faze 自然之法则 zongfa 宗法 Zongli Yamen 总理衙门 Zongzhou 宗周 Zu 祖 zuguo 祖国 zuguo de shensheng lingtu 祖国的神 圣领土 zunwang rangyi 尊王攘夷 zunzun 尊尊 Zuo (Tso) 筰 Zuodu (Tso-tu) 筰都

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Index

Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre, 213, 235 Achilles, 146 Agamben, Giorgio, 21, 287 Aleni, Giulio (Ai Rulüe), 248, 260 Allan, Sarah, 68 alliance, 54, 61, 64–66, 74, 83, 94, 119, 121, 186, 198, 225, 274, 298n2, 325n4 An Lushan, 178, 181–183, 186, 313n9 An Qingxu, 313n9 Anaximander, 17 Ancestors (Zu), 58, 59, 60, 67, 299n7 Ancient Tea-horse Road (Chama gudao), 204 anthropology, IX–XIV, 5–6, 10–12, 14–16, 21–22, 24, 60, 207, 217–218, 221–224, 227–229, 232–233, 238, 240, 246, 292n4, 292–293n6, 293n7, 293n9, 294n14, 316n13, 317n7, 320n20– 21, 325n4, 328n18 anthropological concepts, 11 Aphrodite, 35, 36 Appadurai, Arjun, 14 archaic legend, 4

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 367

Arnason, Johann P., 255 Athena, 65–66 Avalokite vara, 166, 167 Aveni, Anthony, 34, 35 axial mundi, 53, 56, 61, 87, 254, 271, 277–278, 325n2 Bai Shouyi, 185, 186 Ban Chao, 155, 156, 171 Ban Gu, 155, 262 Barth, Frederik, X–XI, 284 Beal, Samuel, 310n12, 311n14 Berr, Henri, 22, 282 bhikku, 134 Bhrikuti Devi, 309n4 Bin Chun, 1–7, 12, 16, 248, 292n4, 294n15 Bing Xin, 318n10 Birrell, Anne, 307n27 Bixia Yuanjun (Prime Monarch of Azure Clouds), 267–268 Bo Shichang (Po Shih-ch’ang), 160 Bo Yao (Po Yao), 30, 39, 42, 48 Boas, Franz, X–XI, 207 Bodde, Derk, 272 Brague, Rémi, 96

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368

INDEX

Brandewie, Ernest, 229 Buddha, 95, 96, 118, 134–137, 140, 148–149, 151, 158–159, 165, 168–169, 179–180, 197, 251, 310n9, 311n1 Burgess, Ernest W., 69, 226 Cai Yuanpei, 76, 231, 284, 300n15, 318n14, 319n18 calendar, 34–37, 53, 73, 94, 278–280 Campany, Robert Ford, 146 Cannadine, David, 270, 292n5 Cao Cao, 90, 108, 183 Cen Zhongmian, 40, 46, 47, 134, 311n12, 317n4 Central Kingdom (Zhongguo), XI, 3, 6, 19, 22, 50, 61, 67–68, 76, 79, 82, 84–85, 91, 93, 101, 110–111, 119–120, 127–129, 143–144, 155, 173, 175, 178–179, 183–185, 190–191, 196, 200–201, 203, 205–206, 208, 211, 232, 236, 248–249, 253–254, 257–258, 260, 270, 281, 287, 295n21, 300n15, 303n3, 308n35, 314n3, 315n5 Central Plain (zhongyuan), 57, 43, 46, 50, 57, 171, 178, 180, 298n2, 306n21, 308n35 Chang Jun, 172 Chang, K. C., 60 Chang Naihui, 130, 257 change (yi), 72 channeling the family and the country (zhiguo yu zhijia), 75 chaos (luan), XII, XIV, 23, 35, 56, 68, 75, 117, 120, 127, 129–130, 133–134, 140, 143, 147, 170, 178–180, 183, 266, 277–279, 282, 284, 291n1, 306n26, 322n11–12, 327n14 Chavannes, Édouard, 235

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 368

Chen Dazhen, 312n7 Chen Peng, 126 Chen Sheng, 107 Chen Xiaomei, 8, 15, 238, 292n3 Chen Xujing, 308n35 Chen Yan, 189, 201, 315n8 Chen Yin, 100 Chen Yuan, 176, 196 chenwei (political augury), 132 Chiao Chien, 221 China and the world (Zhongguo yu shijie), 12, 18 China-ism, XIII Chinese school of sociology, 221, 228, 231–232 chiseling through (zao kong), 156, 158, 170, 185, 262 Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn), 91–93, 95, 98, 103, 105, 141, 145, 157, 303n7, 305n16, 306n27, 308n1 Clifford, James, 293n10 Coedès, George, 239, 240 commoners (shuren/shumin), 77, 82, 95, 99, 130, 132, 143, 185, 196, 206, 210, 264, 268 community studies (shequ yanjiu), 227–228, 234, 318n13 Comte, Auguste, 224 Confucian scholars (rusheng), 124 Confucius, XVII, 69, 75, 82, 95–96, 98–100, 118, 121, 150, 261, 263, 287, 299n6, 301n18, 303n7, 305n17, 321n27 continental Silk Road, 184, 186, 188 cooked barbarians (shufan, or the partially Hanized others), 16, 295n21 Cordier, Henri, 239 cosmology, IX, XI, 18, 56, 60–61, 67–68, 72, 74, 87, 91, 94, 98, 105, 111, 117, 129, 234, 244,

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INDEX

254–255, 257, 260, 264–266, 272, 274–275, 279–282, 284, 286, 299n8, 300n13, 302n1, 307n34, 323n16 cosmologic, 35 cosmological order, 94 cultural enterprise, 9 culture, XI, XIV, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11–14, 17–20, 23, 52, 54–55, 66, 70, 76–77, 95, 101, 131–132, 140, 143, 161, 164, 171, 173, 185, 188, 196, 198–200, 207, 214, 216–218, 221, 225, 233–236, 238, 240, 242, 244–247, 254, 261, 265, 271, 274, 277, 288, 293n7, 297n29, 305n16, 305n20, 307n35, 312n6, 317n7, 318n12, 319n16, 319n18, 320n23, 322n10 culturologics, 2 customary, 3, 14, 37, 192, 261, 300n15, 325n4 da Cruz, Gaspar, 260 Damon, Frederick, XIV, 324n19 Dao, 123, 148 daotong (the Orthodoxy of the Way), 264 Daozheng, 135 Deney, Rabbo, 1 descent, 59, 64, 110, 121, 307n29 descent theory, 119 Deutero-Isaiah, 95 Dharmaraksa, 324n21 DiMarco, Louis, 208 Ding Qian, 49, 214, 311n12 Ding Shan, 214 Ding Wenjiang, 222, 281 divide and conquer (fen er zhizhi), 163 Dong. See East (Dong) Dong Wanggong (the Eastern King), 47, 297n3 Dongfang, 20

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 369

369

Douglas, Mary, X–XI, 10, 96–97, 112, 304n10–11 Du Huan (Tu Huan), 190 Duan Gonglu, 239 Dumézil, Georges, X, 56, 60, 254, 278, 325n7 Dumont, Louis, X, 190, 262, 321n6 Durkheim, Émile, X–XI, 223–224, 295n22, 296n24 Durkheimian sociology, 217, 222, 232, 238, 318n11 East (Dong), X, XIII, 3–4, 7, 9, 12–18, 20, 22–25, 27, 32–34, 41, 43–44, 46–48, 53, 57, 66, 73, 79, 81–82, 85, 88–90, 92, 95–96, 101–103, 105, 109–110, 112–115, 120, 122–123, 126–130, 133–134, 136, 138, 140, 153, 155, 158–159, 164–165, 169–171, 173–178, 184, 186, 189–190, 192, 194, 207–208, 213, 215, 221, 224, 236–247, 251, 253–255, 257–259, 262, 265, 267, 272–273, 277–278, 285, 288, 292n4, 296n22, 297n3, 298n9, 298n2, 301n20, 302n3, 303n4, 305n21, 306n23, 306n25, 308n35–36, 309n2, 316n13, 319n16, 320n23, 320n25, 323n13, 326n8, 328n16 Easternized West, 105, 112, 123, 130 Eberhard, Wolfram, 105 Eco, Umberto, XIII Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah, 255 Eliade, Mircea, X, 53, 56, 253–254, 265–266, 273, 277–279, 322n11– 12, 324n1, 325n7, 327n14 Elias, Norbert, 293n7 Elvin, Mark, 120, 274, 327n13 Emperor Daizong, 313n9

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370

INDEX

Emperor Muzong, 188 Emperor Qianlong, 260 Emperor Sh mu, 174 Emperor Suzong, 313n9 Emperor Taizong of Song, 193 Emperor Taizong of Tang, 139, 243, 309n4, 312n5 Emperor Xuanzong, 185–186, 313n9 Emperor Yang of Sui, 171 Empress K ken, 174 Empress K my , 174 ethnography, XIII, 10, 13, 194–195, 198, 211, 217–218, 227–230, 232, 234–235, 288, 316n13, 317n5, 317n8, 318n13, 326n10 Etiemble, Rene, 244 Euro-centrism, 15 Europeanization (Ouhua), 20–21, 23–24, 238–239, 241–246, 250, 261, 285 Extreme/Far West (Ji Xi), 28, 30, 39, 42, 47, 49, 52, 79, 85, 96, 134, 156, 175, 194, 208, 236, 239, 262, 284, 288, 298n9, 308n35, 315n11, 325n7 Fabian, Johannes, 14, 293n9 Fa-hsien, XVII, 133–140, 143, 165–171, 177, 183–184, 199, 213, 245, 258, 260, 311n12, 311n1–2 Fairbank, John King, 87, 210, 328n20 Fali, 139 fangguo, 57 Father-Heaven, 35 Fei Dasheng, 316n13 Fei Xiaotong, XIII, 161, 223, 225–226, 237, 263–264, 288, 316n13, 318n11–12, 328n18 Feng Changqing, 313n9

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 370

Feng Chengjun, XII, 135, 165, 174–176, 311n1, 312n2 Feng sacrifice(s), 103–104, 112–115, 122, 143, 158, 311n16 Feng Shi, 54 Feng Youlan, 106, 254, 273–274, 284, 291n1, 304n13, 305n18–19 fengjian (feudal/feudalism), 36, 61, 67–68, 78–79, 82, 84, 88, 93–94, 99–100, 103–105, 108, 155, 163, 251, 265, 272, 280, 302n2, 322n7 fengshui (geomancy), 31 Ferrand, Gabriel, 215–216, 250, 317n5 Feuchtwang, Stephan, XIII–XIV, 275 filial piety (xiao), 34, 134, 180, 324n21 FitzGerald, Charles Patrick, 183, 191 Five Dynasties, 129, 188 Five Elements (wuxing), 72–73, 131 foreign countries (waiguo), 12, 17, 24, 156, 158, 171, 173, 189, 193, 249–250, 260, 312n3 Fortes, Meyer, 58–59, 61, 298n5 fortune of Heaven, 6 Foucault, Michel, 97, 273, 293n9, 304n11–12 Frazer, James, 55, 81, 99 Freedman, Maurice, 222, 227–228, 296n25, 317n7 French sociology, 21 fu (father), 75 Fu Sinian (Fu Ssu-nien), XII, 20, 47–48, 58–59, 88–91, 101, 128, 179, 231–233, 235–236, 258, 285, 295n20–21, 300n14, 302–303n3, 303n4, 305n21, 307n35, 319n15–16, 319n18 Fu Xi (Fu Hsi), 104, 299n8 Fuller, Dorian, 326n8

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INDEX

Gan Ying (Kan Ying), 136, 156–157, 171, 262 Gao Xianzhi, 185–186, 313n9, 314n4 Ge Shuhan, 313n9 Geertz, Clifford, X–XI, 12–14 Geng Yinzeng, 311n15 Gernet, Jacques, 66, 92, 96, 98–100, 177, 189, 244, 280, 284, 304n9, 314n4, 327n15 Giles, Herbert A., 310n12 Goldman, Merle, 87, 328n20 gong (tribute-paying), 70 Gongsun Qing (Kung-sun Ch’ing), 115 Goody, Jack, 15, 241, 251, 255, 296n26 Granet, Marcel, IX, 22, 28, 36, 42, 57, 62, 66–67, 69, 73, 78, 91, 93–96, 99, 105, 112, 115, 118–119, 122, 180, 222, 225–226, 254–255, 261, 263, 265, 271–272, 279–283, 291n1, 296n25, 318n12, 321n1–2, 325n3–5, 325–326n7, 326n8, 327n14 Great Man (Daren), 119, 124–125, 257 Great Unity (Datong), 20, 75–76, 78, 140, 143–144, 196, 250, 269, 285, 323n17 Gu Jiegang, XII, 20, 37, 43, 49, 70, 75, 77, 81, 93, 101–103, 105–109, 124–125, 179, 214, 236, 268, 295n20–21, 298n6, 305n20–21, 306n23, 317n2, 319n19, 322n8 Gu Shi, 49, 83, 214 Guang Ying, 1 Guo Pu, 31, 39–44, 46, 80–81, 83, 298n4, 301n20

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 371

371

Guo Songtao, 248 Guo Xiang, 131 Guo Ziyi, 313n9 habitation (ju), 161, 165, 289 Han Dynasty, 20, 22, 27, 50, 73, 77, 88–89, 107–111, 113, 115, 121–132, 136–137, 139–146, 148–149, 153, 155–159, 161–165, 170–171, 176, 178–180, 208–211, 242, 245, 253, 257–259, 263, 268–270, 295n18, 297n1, 297n3, 303n5, 306n25, 307n31–33, 308n35, 309n3–4, 310n8–9, 314n3, 318n12, 322n7 Hanes, William Travis, 206 Harris, Peter, 315n10 Hawkes, David, 145, 298n3 He Yan, 130 He Zhiguo, 159 Heaven (Tian), 6, 16, 20, 33, 35–41, 43–44, 52, 54–56, 62–63, 65–69, 71–74, 79, 84, 87, 91, 93–94, 98–100, 102, 104–105, 110, 112–113, 118–119, 122–125, 146, 155, 171, 201, 207–208, 251, 253, 255–256, 258, 260, 265–266, 268–270, 272, 274, 279, 282, 284–285, 287, 300n15, 307n29, 307n34, 322n10, 324n18, 326n7, 327n14, 328–329n20 heavenly polity, 3, 6 Heavenly Stems (Tiangan), 60 Heavenly Supremacy (Tiandi), 2, 39, 117 Hephaestus, 65–66 Heraclitus, 95 Hesiod, 34–35 Hevia, James, 260

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372

INDEX

Hirth, Friedrich, 156, 213, 219, 315n11 Hsu, Francis, 229, 328n18 Huang Chunyan, 203–204, 316n12 Huang Di (Yellow Emperor), 19–20, 30, 66, 103–104, 131 Huangpu Zheng, 182 Huaxia, 18, 20, 50, 75, 101, 171, 173, 178, 236, 294n17, 295n21, 306n27, 309n3, 326n10 Hua-Yi (Chinese-foreigners/barbarians), 296n27 Huhanye, 126 Huijing, 135 Huike, 135 Huisheng, 139 Huiying, 135 humans, X, 22, 24, 59–60, 80–83, 88, 103, 111, 125, 145–147, 169, 199, 201, 211, 223, 226, 237, 251, 256, 267, 274, 279–280, 291n1, 297n29, 303n9, 315n11, 327n12 hybridity (you), 19, 165, 216 Hymes, Dell, 320n21 illusionary geography (huanxiang dili), 49, 165, 170, 173, 207, 312n5 imperial capital (didu), 37, 46, 70, 73, 75, 112, 159, 267 Imperial Eye, 18, 155, 203, 262, 283 imperialist eye, 16 inaction (wu-wei), 131, 264 internal Orientalism, 16 internationalization (guojihua), 12 Irwin, Lee, 123, 202, 272, 324n21 Jaspers, Karl, 95, 111, 118, 284 Ji Chaoding, 128–129, 179–180, 183, 258, 285, 303n5, 309n6

TheWestAsTheOther_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 372

Ji Xianlin, 139 Jia Yi, 108 Jiang Shaoyuan, 81–82 Jiang Xingyu, 181–182, 321 Jianzhen, 173–175 jiao (outskirt ceremonies), 72, 269 Jin (Chin) Dynasty [A.D. 265–420], 31, 83, 129–134, 140, 143, 147, 171, 183, 210, 245, 309n3 Jin Dynasty [A.D. 1115–1234], 129, 205, 209 Jin Luxiang, 83 jun (king), 75, 77 Kang Tai, 312n3 Kang Youwei, 98–99, 248, 304n14–16 Keightley, David N., 27, 61, 69, 87, 274, 300n11, 302n1, 328n16 Khan, Kublai, 205 King Cheng, 67, 302n2 King Erichthonius, 65–66 King Kang, 302n2 King Li, 302n2 King Mu (Mu Tianzi), 28–32, 39–52, 78–84, 87, 90, 114, 119–120, 123–124, 143–144, 148–149, 201, 208, 214, 251, 253, 255–257, 272, 288, 298n5, 301n20, 302n2, 308n2 King Ping, 91 King Shun, 41 King Wen, 28, 62–66, 78, 117, 163, 256–257 King Wu of Liang, 149 King Wuling of Zhao, 209 King Xuan (Xuan Di), 109, 302n2 King You, 88, 91 King Zhao, 52, 109, 302n2 King’s Mother in the West (Xi Wangmu), 2–4, 7, 20, 30–31,

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INDEX

41–49, 51, 79–81, 83–85, 90, 103, 114, 120, 123, 126–127, 144, 148, 153, 158–159, 179, 200–202, 208, 214–215, 236, 251, 256, 269, 272, 285, 294n15, 297n3, 298n8, 307n29, 310n9, 315n11 Kiroku, Adachi, 311n12 Klaproth, Julius, 235 Kroeber, Alfred, 8, 224 Kronos, 34–36 Kubin, Wolfgang, 299n7 Kunlun, 20, 30–31, 39, 45, 47, 72, 81, 83, 90, 101–103, 105, 114, 140, 143–144, 148, 154–155, 158, 171, 179, 202, 208, 214–216, 236–237, 250–251, 253, 256–257, 262, 284, 305n20, 307n29, 317n4, 317n6, 328n19 Lai Zhide, 71 Laozi, 130–131 Lattimore, Owen, 128, 177 law (fa), 61, 95, 106, 150, 203, 228, 287, 298n7, 325n5 Leach, Edmund, X–XI, 34–36, 164–165, 325n2 Legge, James, 34, 62–63, 68–69, 138, 141, 213, 283, 298n7, 301n18, 311n12, 321n26 levels (shuiping), 4 Levinas, Emmanuel, 288 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, X–XI, 14, 60, 177, 207, 288, 292n6, 294n14, 320n20, 325n4 Li An-che, 328n18 Li Daoyuan, 83, 56 Li Guangbi, 313n9 Li Guangting, 311n12 Li Hongzhang, 246 Li Ji, XII, 18–20, 233, 236, 295n19,

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373

303n3 Li Linfu, 313n9 Li Qiwu, 181 Li Shuchang, 248 Li Si, 107 Li Wan, 186 Li Xueqin, 88 Li Youyi, 166, 168, 223, 311n1 Liang Qichao, 179, 248, 286 Liao Dynasty, 129 Lie Yukou, 28, 297n1 Lin Geng, 117, 120, 298n3 Lin Han, 155 Lin Huixiang, 72, 93, 101, 109 Lin Peng, 77 Lin Zexu, 248–249 lineage regulations (zongfa), 74 Ling Chunsheng, 215, 233–236, 250, 267, 319n18, 322–323n13, 323n14 Liu Bang, 107–108, 125–126 Liu Daolian (Liu Tao-lien), 168 Liu Shipei, 214 Liu Xicheng, 323n15 Liu Xiu, 306n25 liyi (rites and styles), 67, 70, 300n12, 305n16 Loewe, Michael, 110 Lou Jing, 126 Lü Hou, 126 Lü Simian, 73–74 Lu Sixian, 56 Lu Xinsheng, 295n20 Lu Yu, 181–183, 259 Lü Yueren (Lü Yüeh-jen), 160 Lyle, Emily, 254, 321n1 Ma Changshou, 155 Ma Huan, 177, 313n8 Macartney, George Lord Viscount, 260

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374

INDEX

magician (wu), 10, 21, 28–30, 39, 42, 48, 53–57, 60, 114, 116, 121, 123, 130, 170, 181, 256 magician-scholars (fangshi), 102, 120, 124, 143. See also recipe gentlemen (fangshi) Malinowski, Bronislaw, 223, 228, 316n13, 317n8 Mandate of Heaven, 68–69, 104, 117, 306n26 man-god, 55 Mao Zedong, 4, 12, 287 Marcus, George E., 293n10 maritime Silk Road, 184, 186, 188–189, 259, 314n3, 315n7 Mathieu, Remi, 110 Mauss, Marcel, X–XI, 215, 223–224, 235, 296n22, 296n24, 321n2, 327n13 May Fourth Movement, 15, 231, 261 Mazu, 202 McGrane, Bernard, 11, 293n9 McKenzie, Roderick D., 69, 226 men of letters (wenren), 15–16, 74, 140, 176, 181, 203 Mencius, 263 mimesis, 6–7, 291–292n2, 322n13 mimetic practice, 6, 292n2 ming (fate), 58–62, 84, 274 Ming Dynasty, 21, 89, 175–178, 188–189, 202, 205, 208, 242, 246, 248–249, 259–260, 267–268, 270, 309n6, 315n7, 320n25 Mingtang, 36–37, 73, 278–279, 325n3 Mintz, Sidney, 320n23 modern concepts, 291n1 modern world-system, 14 money trees (yaoqian shu), 158–159 moral instruments (daode qijie), 61

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moral revolution (daode geming), 61 Morgan, Henry, 224 Mother-Earth, 35 motion (dong), 27, 302n1 mountains (shan), 2, 23, 36–39, 41–46, 48, 56, 71–72, 79–80, 83–85, 87, 94–95, 99, 101–103, 105, 110, 114–115, 119, 122, 127, 144–148, 153–155, 157–158, 171, 181, 188, 194, 197, 208, 236, 256–258, 264–270, 278–279, 285, 287, 298n1, 301n17, 322–323n13, 323n14, 323n16, 327n14, 328n19 mountains and rivers (shanshui), 36, 41–42, 45–46, 48, 80, 84–85, 94–95, 105, 119, 127, 144, 148, 154, 171, 181, 188, 194, 256–258, 270, 285, 301n17 Mr. De (democracy), 15, 238, 328n17 Mr. Sai (science), 15, 229, 238, 328n17 Mulian, 324n21 myth, 3–4, 14, 20, 32, 34–35, 45, 50–53, 68, 82–84, 88, 101–103, 105, 112, 114, 155, 202, 253, 272, 281, 285, 298n6, 305n20, 307n34, 324n21, 327n14 mythology, XII, XVII, 23, 47, 51–52, 54, 65, 68, 83, 101, 105, 117–118, 263, 272, 281, 288, 305n21, 307n34, 324n21, 325n7 Nakamaki, Hirochika, XV nationalities (minzu), 160–161, 295n21. See also nations (minzu) nations (minzu), 19–20. See also nationalities (minzu) Nealon, Jeffrey Thomas, 296n26 Needham, Joseph, X, 16–17, 53, 70, 111, 145, 253, 259, 278, 296n23

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INDEX

Neo-Daoism (Xuanxue), 131–132, 142–143, 147, 190, 257 nine prefectures (jiu zhou), 93, 117, 307n30 Nishihara, Daisuke, 294n12 Nüwa, 272, 299n8 Occidental imperialism, 8 Occidentals, 7 ocean barbarians (yangyi), 6 offering (xiang), 70, 77 Opium War, 2, 7, 206, 244–246, 321n25 order and chaos (zhiluan), 179, 266, 278–279, 291 Orientals, 7, 12 other-centrism, 24, 139, 141, 150, 274–275, 288, 292n4 other things, X, 24, 45, 87, 148, 201, 237, 260, 291n1, 304n13 Pang Yuanying, 192 Pangu, 307n34 Pankenier, David, 67 Park, Robert E., 69, 225–228, 237, 318n12 Parker, Edward, 235 Paul, J. Gilman d’Arcy, 195, 315n10 Pelliot, Paul, 213, 315 Penglai, 101–103, 114–115, 175, 305n20 pentology (wufang), 69, 87, 124, 256, 259, 300n11, 302n1 Peradotto, John, 66 Pereira, Galeote, 260 philological tree, 11 pilgrimages (fengshan), 23, 37, 267–269 Plato, 96 Plinius Secundus, Gaius (Pliny the Elder), 239 Polo, Marco, 16, 259

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375

Porter, Bill, 321n4, 322n9 Pratt, Mary Louise, 16, 18 Princess Wencheng, 309n4 prolonged order and peace (changzhi jiu’an), 108 Puett, Michael J., 60–61, 67, 96, 124–125, 257, 274, 281, 296n25, 303n9, 327n14 Pusey, James Reeve, 6 Pythagoras, 95 Qi (Ch’i) Kingdom, 23, 92–93, 101–106, 113, 115, 305n21 Qian Mu, XII, 17–18, 51–52, 78, 141–142, 175, 209 Qin (Ch’in) Dynasty, 20, 22, 31, 50, 90–91, 103, 107–110, 113–114, 121, 125, 129, 142–144, 146, 148–149, 153, 157, 159, 162–163, 170–171, 179, 257, 281, 297n4, 300n12, 306n23, 308n35 Qin (Ch’in) Kingdom, 23, 90, 92–93, 101, 105–109, 298n6, 305n21 Qin-Han, 20, 170 Qing Dynasty, 2, 6–7, 89, 205–206, 214, 243, 246–248, 250, 253, 260, 267, 270, 286, 295n17, 299n9, 309n6, 310–311n12, 317n10, 323n17, 324n20, 326n10 Qu Yuan (Chiu Yuan), 57, 71, 105, 117–121, 123–124, 145, 147–148, 298n3 quarters (fang), 23, 36–37, 56–57, 69, 71, 87, 124, 179, 256, 259, 266, 269, 277, 283, 300n11, 328n19 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., X–XI, 216–225, 228–229, 238 raw barbarians (shengfan, or the

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376

INDEX

totally un-Hanized others), 16, 295n21 realistic geography, 109, 158, 170, 173, 214, 286, 288, 312n5 recipe gentlemen (fangshi), 112. See also magician-scholars (fangshi) reciprocal understanding, 8 Ren Xiuhua, 33, 64–66 Renaissance and Enlightenment, 11 ri (sun), 60 Ricci, Matteo, 248, 260 rites (li), 34, 47, 62–63, 75–78, 82, 92–93, 95, 101, 106, 108, 121, 125, 150, 256, 270, 279–280 rivers (chuan), 2, 33–34, 36–38, 41–43, 45, 48, 79–80, 84–85, 94–95, 99, 105, 119, 127, 144, 148, 154–155, 157, 171, 181, 188, 194, 197, 256–258, 270, 279, 285, 287, 298n1, 301n17, 328n19 Rivet, Paul, 235 roaming shi (youshi), 124. See also wandering scholar (youshi) Rockhill, W. W., 213, 219, 315n11 Rong Hong (Yung Wing), 246 Rowlands, Michael, XIV, 326n8 royal palace (gong), 28, 60, 78, 92 royal tombs (qin), 60 sacrifice (si), 63, 70 Sahlins, Marshall, X–XI, XIII–XIV, 9, 47, 74, 206–207, 220, 257, 261, 278, 286, 288, 293n7, 296n26, 327n12 Said, Edward, IX, 7–12, 14, 22, 253, 292n3–4, 294n11 Sanello, Frank, 206 Schien, Louisa, 294n13 Schmidt, Wilhelm, 229 science of international relations

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(guoji guanxixue), 12 scientific Orientalism (kexue de dongfangxue), 232, 302n3 self and other, 8, 146, 266, 279, 293n9, 305n18, 307n31 semi-colonial and semi-feudal period (ban zhimindi ban fengjian shidai), 4 Shan sacrifice(s), 103–104, 112–115, 143, 158, 311n16 Shang Dynasty, 28, 36, 48, 51, 54, 57–69, 73–74, 84, 87–90, 93, 99, 104, 110, 117, 120, 141, 159, 181, 233, 255–257, 274, 281, 298n2, 299n6–9, 300n11, 300n14–15, 302n1–2, 303n6, 303–304n9, 306n27, 307n31, 309n3, 319n16, 321n3, 327n16 Shaohao, 66 shaoshu minzu (ethnic minorities), 40–41 she (enclosed community and state), 72, 269 sheji, 72 sheng (life or birth), 59 Sheng Ji, 32, 301n20 Shennong (Shen Nong/Shen Nung), 66, 104, 278, 299n8 shi (men of letters), 74–79, 92, 95, 100, 105–107, 111, 120, 123–125, 129–130, 132–133, 140–144, 149, 153, 158, 176, 178, 180–182, 200, 241, 248, 250, 256, 262–266, 281, 287, 301n17, 316n14, 322n7–8 shi (teacher), 48, 75 Shi Chaoyi, 313n9 Shi Huangdi (the “First Emperor” of Qin, also known as Qin Shihuang), 107, 112–115, 143, 267, 297–298n4, 299n8, 306n24

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INDEX

Shi Nianhai, 70, 75, 93, 107–109, 171 Shi Siming, 313n9 shidaifu, 77 Shirokogoroff, Sergei M., 229–232, 234 Silk Road, 49, 175, 184, 186, 188–189, 259, 314n3, 315n6–7 Sima Qian, 31, 50, 102–103, 114, 124–125, 154–156, 159–165, 262, 295n18, 308–309n2 Sima Xiangru (Ssu-ma Siang-ju), 122 Smith, Richard, 17, 326n10 social classes, 60, 66, 76 Son of Heaven (Tianzi), 2, 32–34, 36–44, 47, 68, 77–81, 84–85, 94, 100, 103, 112, 119, 123, 127, 144, 206, 214, 251, 257, 270, 278–282, 301n20, 307n29, 325n3 Song (Sung) Dynasty, 129, 142, 187–189, 192–196, 199–205, 208–210, 215, 218, 245, 249, 259–260, 310n7, 315n11–12, 316n14, 323n17 Song Wuji, 103 Songtsän Gampo, 309n4 Songyun, 139 Sophocles, 60 Southern and Northern Dynasties, 129, 133, 142, 171, 183, 209, 245, 311n2 Southern Sea (Nanhai), 20, 23, 165, 176–178, 183–184, 186–187, 191, 195, 201, 203, 216, 236–237, 243, 253, 317n4, 317n7 Spence, Jonathan D., 16, 260 Spencer, Herbert, 224 star-fields (xingye), 72 Stein, R. A., 298n8 Stocking, George, 10–11 su (customs), 75

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377

Su Bingqi, 57 Su Xuelin, 83, 117–118 Sui Dynasty, 129, 138, 142, 171–173, 183, 210, 294n16, 310n10, 312n4 Sui-Tang, 294n16 supra-societal systems, XIV, 241 Supremacy (Di), 58–60, 67–68, 269, 274 Synthetic Way of Gods and Humanity (Shenren zhi Dao), 305n15 Tai Kun (Supreme Female), 1–2, 7, 123 Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja, 149, 271, 278, 283 Tan Zhong, 311n15 Tang Dynasty, 21, 129, 138–140, 142, 171, 173–175, 178, 181–189, 191, 199–200, 208–211, 216, 239, 243, 245, 253, 258, 269–270, 285, 309n4, 310n7, 310n10, 312n5–6, 313n9, 315n5, 315n11, 323n17, 324n21 Tang Meng, 162 Tang Yongtong, XII, 130–131, 143, 150, 257 Taussig, Michael, 6, 291n2, 296n26 tea-horse trade (chama hushi), 203–204, 208 Teiser, Stephen F., 180, 324n21 temple (miao), 60, 133, 265–267, 269, 278, 328n16 They-groups, 279, 291n1, 295n21, 326n10 things (wu), X, 24, 40, 45, 69, 79–81, 83, 87, 96, 199, 211, 237, 251, 278, 284, 295n17 thorny grass serving people (cicao zhi chen), 77 Three Immortality Mountains Overseas (Haiwai Sanshan), 20,

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378

INDEX

102–103, 144, 148, 171, 175, 257, 285 three Miaos (san Miao), 57 Tian Rukang, 318n11 Tianxia (All under Heaven), IX, XIII–XIV, 3, 24, 38–39, 41, 46, 49, 62, 69, 75, 78, 93, 95, 103, 105, 108–111, 113–115, 118, 120–122, 143–144, 157, 173, 183, 196, 199–200, 250, 254, 256, 260, 265, 269, 271, 283–287, 291n1, 295n21, 296n27, 299n6, 303n3, 307n34, 323n17, 324n18, 327n12 tiguo jingye (embodying the city and experiencing the wilderness), 68, 74 Tongwen Guan, 1 Tongzhi, 1 transcendence, 96–97, 112, 148, 169, 269, 273, 284 Trescott, Paul B., 317n9 tribal contexts, 6 true knowledge, 4 Tuyuhun, 309n4 Tylor, Edward, 224 uncivilized peoples, 6, 201 universal concepts, 3 Vansina, Jan, 10 Vernant, Jean-Pierre, 96–98, 100, 145–146, 278, 280, 284 Victorian anthropology, 11, 21 virtue (de), 21, 30, 33–34, 37, 40–41, 62–63, 65–66, 82, 99, 117–118, 133, 141, 150, 275, 280, 282, 299n8, 301n18–19, 324n18, 327n11 vulgar poetry, 4

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wai chen (external serving people), 77 Waley, Arthur, 75, 100, 262, 299n6, 305n17 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 246, 271, 324n19 Walters, Derek, 60 wandering scholar (youshi), 182. See also roaming shi (youshi) Wang Bangwei, 311n12 Wang Bi, 130 Wang Chengzu, 46 Wang Dayuan, 177, 197–199, 251, 260, 312n7 Wang Fansen, 232, 295n20 Wang Gungwu, 195, 315n9 Wang Guowei, XII, 27, 61, 63, 209, 211, 273 Wang Hui, 162 Wang Mang, 155, 306n25 Wang Mingke, 309n3, 319n19 Wang Mingming, 7, 124, 201, 288, 295n21, 301n19, 311n16, 318n13, 321n5, 323n17, 328n17 Wang Ping, 299n7 Wang Ranyu (Wang Jan-yü), 160 Wang Rongpei, 33, 64–66 Wang Shenzhi, 187 Wang Tonghui, 223 Wang Tongling, 309n4 Wang Zhaojun, 126, 129 Watson, Burton, 102, 104, 114–116, 145, 154, 160, 162–163 Watson, James, XIII, 202 Way of Gods (Shendao), 98, 304–305n15 Way of Humanity (Rendao), 99, 287, 305n15 Weber, Max, XI We-groups, 279, 291n1, 295n21 Wei Juxian, 214 Wei Yuan, 3, 5, 187, 248–250,

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INDEX

321n27 Wei Zheng, 172–173 Weng Dujian, 50 West (Xi), IX–X, XIII, 1–7, 9–11, 15–18, 20, 22–25, 27–28, 30–32, 34, 37, 39–42, 44, 46–52, 61–62, 67, 73, 78–83, 85, 87–90, 92–93, 96, 101–103, 105, 109–110, 112, 114, 119–120, 123, 125–130, 133–135, 138–140, 143–145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155–156, 158–160, 169–171, 173–179, 183–184, 186, 188, 192, 199, 201–203, 208, 213–215, 220–221, 233, 236–240, 242–243, 245–249, 251, 253–256, 258–262, 265, 267, 272, 277–278, 284–285, 287–288, 292n4–5, 295n19, 297n3, 298n9, 298n2, 301n20, 302n3, 303n4, 305n21, 307–308n35, 308n36, 308n2, 309n4, 310n9, 310n11, 313n8–9, 314n3, 315n11, 316n13, 319n16, 320n21, 320n23, 320n25, 321n6, 323n13, 324n19, 325n7, 326n8, 328n16–18. Western concepts, 3 Western contact Eastern react, 15 Western Heaven (Xitian), 20, 22, 144, 151, 159, 165, 174, 179, 190–191, 199, 245, 285, 314 Western Territories (Xiyu), 23, 130, 135, 153–159, 165, 170, 175–176, 185–186, 215, 237, 253, 258, 262, 312n5–6 Western/West Ocean (Xiyang), 20–21, 23, 175–178, 183–184, 195, 199, 201, 221, 237, 249, 253, 259, 285, 312–313n7, 313n8, 314n3, 320–321n25

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379

Westernization Movement (Yangwu Yundong), 6 Westernized East, 123 Wheatley, Paul, 266 Wittrock, Björn, 255 Wolf, Eric, X–XI, 188, 207, 220–221, 240–241 Wong Lili, XV wood (mu), 27 Wood, Frances, 112 world activities (shijie huodong), 1, 21, 24, 50, 239–241, 244, 246, 255, 259–260, 262, 275, 287 world conceptions, IX, 21, 111–112, 281–282, 284–286, 291n1 world system, XI, XIV, 14, 158, 175–177, 206, 238, 241, 270–271, 282–283, 286, 297n28, 323n18 worldview, X–XI, 5, 10, 13, 61, 87, 94, 129, 210–211, 244–245, 274, 278, 283, 292n5 worship (si), 70 Wu Di (Emperor Wu), 109–110, 112, 115, 121–125, 155, 163, 267, 269 Wu Hung, 310n9 Wu Fusheng, 148 Wu Guang, 107 Wu Jian, 198 Wu Wenzao, XII, 221–229, 231–232, 234, 316n13, 317–318n10, 318n12–13 Wu Zetian, 174 wufu, 69, 71–72, 300n12 Xi. See West (Xi) xia chen (serving lower rank official), 77 Xia (Hsia) Dynasty, 41, 52, 54, 57–58, 71, 73, 77, 87, 89–91,

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380

INDEX

104, 110, 117–118, 141, 255–256, 298n2, 298n4, 299n8, 306n21, 306n27 Xia Nai, 298n4 xian, 145–148, 266 Xian Men’gao, 103 Xiang Da, 18, 184–186, 312n6, 314n2 Xiang Xiu, 131 Xiang Yu, 107–108, 125 Xiao Gongquan, 304n14 xing (essence), 59 Xu Deheng, 223 Xu Fuguan, 148 Xu Shen, 27, 111, 145, 307n33 Xu Xusheng, 57, 308–309n2 Xu Yan Wang (King Xu Yan), 301n20, 308–309n2 Xu Yuan-chong, 58, 72 Xuanzang, 138–139, 245, 311n14, 312n5 Xun Xu, 31, 297n4 Yan Fu, 247 Yan Zhenqing, 182 Yang Boda, 54 Yang Bojun, 263, 284 Yang Guozhong, 313n9 Yang Jianxin, 50, 135, 140, 190 Yang Kuan, 30–31, 33, 49, 64, 69–70, 75, 77–78, 298n5, 299n9 Yang Kun, 222, 296n25 Yang, Mayfair, XV Yang Qingkun (C. K. Yang), 226 Yang Tingjun, 260 Yang Xiangkui, 299n9 Yang Ximei, 302n3 Yi (barbarians), 17, 70, 76, 89, 92–93, 106, 124, 295n17, 306n21, 319n16, 325n6 Yijing, 173–175, 183–184, 192, 245,

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258 Yingzhou (Ying-chou), 2, 102 yinyang, 131–132 Yi-Xia (foreigners/barbariansChinese), 88, 296n27 Yongjia, 131, 180 You-groups, 291n1, 295n21, 326n10 Yu the Great (Da Yu), 71, 104, 117–119 Yuan Dynasty, 83, 175–178, 194–197, 199–202, 205, 242–243, 245, 253, 259–260, 270, 309n6, 312n7, 314n3, 315n9, 323n17, 324n20 Yuan Ke, 51, 297n3 Yuankang, 131 Yue king (Yue Wang), 100 Yule, Henry, 239 Zang Yi zoulang (Zang-Yi corridor), 161 Zao Fu (Tsao Fu), 30–31, 42 Zeng Guofan, 246 Zeng Jize, 248 Zeus, 98 Zhan Guo (Warring States), 91, 93, 95, 101, 105, 108, 111, 139, 141, 145, 155, 157, 210, 257, 297n4, 303n7, 306n21–22, 306n27, 308n1 Zhang Jiaju, 310n7 Zhang Jueren, 145 Zhang Qian (Chang Ch’ien), 136, 154–156, 159, 171, 214, 262 Zhang Xie, 186 Zhang Xinglang (Chang Hsing-lang), XII, 18, 24, 239–247, 259–260 Zhang Xun, 311n12 Zhang Zhan, 297n2 Zhao Dianzeng, 159 Zhao Rugua, 193–194, 196, 198,

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INDEX

381

218–219, 260, 315n11 zheng, 32–34, 36–38 Zheng Boqiao, 103 Zheng He, 178, 183, 259, 313n2, 314n2, 315n8 Zhengshi, 130–131 Zhong Shuhe, 1–2, 4, 50, 157, 239 Zhongguo. See Central Kingdom (Zhongguo) Zhou (Chou) Dynasty, 23, 28, 33, 36, 42, 46–49, 51–52, 54, 57, 61–70, 72–80, 82–83, 87–93, 95, 99–100, 104–108, 110, 117, 120–121, 123, 127, 137, 141, 148, 163, 196, 208, 251, 254, 256–257, 269, 274, 278, 281, 284, 298n5, 298n9, 298n2, 299n6, 299n9, 300n12–15, 301n16, 302n1–2, 303n8, 303–304n9, 306n27, 307n29, 308n35, 308n2, 309n3, 312n7, 321n3, 325n6, 327–328n16, 328n20 Zhou Daguan, 195–198, 200, 260, 288 Zhou Gong (Duke of Zhou), 67–68, 150, 302n2 Zhou Qiyuan, 186, 188–189 Zhou Qufei, 192–193 Zhou Zhizhong, 312n7 Zhu Ying, 312n3 Zhuan Xu (Chuan Hsü), 66, 104 Zhuang Qiao, 161, 309n3 Zhuangzi, 28, 105, 124, 130–131, 273–274, 305n18 Zhufu Yan, 108 Zoroaster, 95 Zürcher, Erik, 140, 258

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