by An Liu
Translated by John S. Major
1. We take sai (or sou) , deng , and pin as untranslated numerative adjuncts for ze , feng , and shui , thus avoiding a more “literal” but very awkward translation as “Of marshes there are nine wetlands,” and so on.
2. This list of wind names differs from that in 3.12 and repeated in 4.18; perhaps it represents a different tradition.
3. Tai Zhang and Shu Hai are identified by Gao You as “good walkers” who served Yu as ministers. The Shanhaijing also reports that Yu ordered them to pace out the dimensions of the world. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:432–33n.4.
4. Ren , a linear measure of eight feet, is thus equivalent to the xun . See 3.31 and app. B. The term ren also occurs in chaps. 2, 6, 12, 15, 17, 18, and 20; it seems to connote especially the height or depth of features in the natural landscape. This sentence as written appears to require that ren be understood as a measure of breadth. The sentence does not make good sense and appears to be textually corrupt. Lau (HNZ 4/33/3) omits “hundred” so that his text reads “three ren”; he also omits the word li . These changes do not improve the situation.
5. Busi shu . This phrase has two interpretations: either the trees themselves are undying, or they are a kind of elixir of immortality or an ingredient thereof. For similar phrases, see Ying-shi Yü, “Life and Immortality in the Mind of Han China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 25 (1964–1965): 90–91.
6. Lang’gan is often taken to mean “coral.” Edward H. Schafer argues that its usual meaning is “malachite,” in “The Transcendent Vitamin: Efflorescence of Lang-kan,” Chinese Science 3 (1978): 27–38.
7. Bi and yao are two types of jade. The terms are untranslatable but signify roughly “jade suitable for disks” and “perfect jade” or “precious jade.”
8. This sentence is apparently a line of commentary that has crept into the text.
9. Note that our punctuation of this sentence differs from that suggested by Lau. See Major 1993, 305, technical n. 4.III.10. For wei as cords binding the “corners” of the cosmos, see 3.3.
10. Mount Buzhou is the unmoving pivot at the center of Heaven and Earth. See 3.1 and chap. 3, n. 20.
11. The Changhe Gate is the Gate of Heaven, allowing communication between Heaven and Earth.
12. Wang Yinzhi argues that the sentence “The Weakwater issues from the southwest corner” belongs much later in the chapter, in the section dealing with the rivers of China, and that much of the text of this passage is superfluous. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:439nn.22, 23. We translate the entire text here (not being persuaded that it is extraneous), with the exception of the phrase “east of the Vermilion River” (chishui zhi dong ). We also duplicate the sentence about the Weakwater in the later sections on rivers.
13. Most of the “distant regions” are given alternative names as such-and-such marsh. Derk Bodde pointed out that the word ze , conventionally translated as “marsh,” does not imply a swamp or bog but a well-watered meadow, in “Marshes in Mencius and Elsewhere: A Lexicographical Note,” in Ancient China: Studies in Early Civilization, ed. David T. Roy and Tsuen-hsuin Tsien (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978), 156–66.
14. The name Juqu does not yield a satisfactory translation; perhaps this is a transcription of a non-Chinese name.
15. The doors in Chinese houses typically face south, to let in sunlight. The implication here is that the territory called Duguang lies south of the equator, and so the doors must face northward to let in the sun.
16. Xun , yu , and qi are names of types of jade, whose significance is now unclear.
17. Qiu , lin , and lang’gan are, again, types of jade, mostly not identifiable with certainty. For lang’gan (possibly malachite), see n. 6.
18. For example, tiger and leopard skins.
19. Li normally means “profit, advantage”; here it is a paired opposite with chi , “slow, sluggish,” so it must mean something like “hastening after profit.” Perhaps here it could be translated as “hustling.”
20. Busi zhi cao ; another interpretation would be “herbs of no-death”—that is, a natural elixir of immortality. See n. 5.
21. Xing Can was a mythological figure who contended with the Supreme Thearch for control of the world. After the thearch beheaded him, he used his nipples as eyes and his navel as a mouth, singing and dancing while brandishing a shield and an axe. Cosmologically, this gruesome account befits the correlation of West with metal and weapons.
22. There is a pun here using the word zhi , which means both “straight” and “true”; thus zhi meng means both “straight dreams” and “true dreams.”
23. Such water creatures were thought to grow larger or smaller in synchrony with the phases of the moon. These eight lines are a sort of doggerel verse, perhaps putting conventional wisdom into easily remembered form.
24. This line is transposed from 4/35/24, where it is clearly out of place.
25. Supposedly this refers to bears, which rip apart dead trees in search of grubs and honey.
26. The chronograms (chen ) are the twelve earthly branches in their role as markers of the twelve lunar months of the year. See 3.19 and 3.27.
27. Oviparous animals are considered yin, but swimming and flying are yang forms of locomotion.
28. The word yi here is ambiguous and could refer to different types of variation among birds— for example, the difference in spring and autumn plumage in many species. We chose to translate it as “migrate,” as yi often refers particularly to spatial change.
29. The line that follows in the Chinese text, pingtu zhi ren hui er yi wugu , is clearly out of place here and has been moved up to the middle of 4.9.
30. This refers to the “ascending and descending” method of deriving the twelve-tone scale from a fundamental note. See 3.29 and app. B.
31. These presumably are personifications of the twenty-eight lunar lodges (xiu ). See 3.35.
32. In the “nine continents” scheme associated with the third-century B.C.E. thinker Zou Yan, China was located in the southeastern corner of a great continent. Mount Kunlun was therefore thought to be northwest of China proper, at the center of the terrestrial world. See the introduction to chap. 4 and fig. 4.1; and, in greater detail, John S. Major, “The Five Phases, Magic Squares, and Schematic Cosmography,” in Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology: Papers Presented at the Workshop on Classical Chinese Thought Held at Harvard University, August 1976, ed. Henry Rosemont Jr., Journal of the American Academy of Religion Studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (1984; repr., Charleston, S.C.: Booksurge, 2006), 133–66, esp. 134–37.
33. Kuafu , “Bragging Father,” was a mythical strongman who raced the sun. See also 2.9.
34. The supposed birthplace of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, who is also known by the cognomen Chariot Frame.
35. Shaman Xian , a legendary figure who was supposedly an official at the court of Tai Wu, the seventh Shang king. His name is associated with the mythical place-name and constellation the Pool of Xian (Xian chi ). See chap. 3, n. 12, and chap. 11, n. 35.
36. Jian Di was the legendary first ancestress of the Shang people. She gave birth after swallowing an egg dropped by a dark bird sent by Heaven. Jian Ci was the younger sister of Jian Di. Both were consorts to the divinity Di Gu.
37. Queen Mother of the West , a goddess who ruled over a western paradise in the Kunlun Mountains and is said to have been visited by King Mu of the Zhou. She is conventionally depicted wearing a distinctive hair ornament called a sheng . In later times, she became a popular Daoist deity. See Suzanne E. Cahill, Transcendence and Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993); and Elfriede R. Knauer, “The Queen Mother of the West: A Study of the Influence of Western Prototypes on the Iconography of the Taoist Deity,” in Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, ed. Victor H. Mair (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 62–115.
38. This could be read either as le min , “happy people,” or (wit
h the same characters) yue min, “music people.” The pun on music/joy is integral to the Chinese phrase but impossible to convey in English. It appears elsewhere in the text as well. See, for example, 14.59.
39. Possibly a personification of the aurora borealis.
40. Lord Millet or Hou Ji , the legendary first ancestor of the Zhou people. He is said to have been born after his mother trod on the footprint of a god.
41. The name of the source of the Hao River is missing from the text.
42. This sentence has been duplicated here from 4/33/12. See n. 12.
43. The figures mentioned here are mythical divinities, in some cases (She Ti, Chifenruo) personifications of the Jupiter years, for which, see 3.42.
44. The wind names in this section are the same as those in 3.12 but quite different from the list in 4.1; perhaps the two lists represent two separate traditions.
45. The luan , a mythical bird supposedly of very large size and with beautiful plumage, is described here as the evolutionary descendant of the “phoenix” (fenghuang ).
46. The qilin is a composite mythical beast whose appearance was regarded as an omen of sagely government.
47. The preceding paragraph is garbled in the original, without any satisfactory way to sort it out. As it stands, the passage does not make very much sense.
48. Ai literally means “dust” but here implies something more like “smog,” an impure miasma that rises from subterranean realms to become a purified cloud.
49. The phrase yin yang xiang bo also occurs in 3.2 and 17.174. See chap. 3, n. 5.
Five
SEASONAL RULES
“SEASONAL RULES” is the third part of a trilogy with chapters 3 and 4. Having established, in those chapters, the patterns of Heaven (and their astrological significance) and the shape of Earth (and how creatures interact with topography), the Huainanzi’s authors turn here to the role of monthly and seasonal ritual time in the proper governing of the empire. Reflecting the annual waxing and waning of the powers of yin and yang and the successive seasonal potency of each of the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water), the chapter prescribes ritual behavior, colors of vestments, and actions of government for each of the year’s twelve months; proscribes certain other behaviors and actions; and warns of the bad consequences of applying the rules appropriate to any one season inappropriately to any of the others. The year is divided not into the four natural seasons of the solar year but into five seasons (with the third month of summer being treated as an artificial fifth season, “midsummer”) so as to make all the ritual prescriptions of the seasons conform to the correlative cosmology of the Five Phases. The chapter thus integrates yin–yang and Five Phase theory in a detailed and holistic fashion for the guidance of government policy throughout the year.
The Chapter Title
The title of this chapter is “Shi ze” . Shi means “season” and, by extension, “time.” Ze is one of several words in classical Chinese sharing a spectrum of meanings such as “law,” “pattern,” “model,” “rule,” “ordinance,” and “commandment.” (Other words in this group include fa , lü , du , and ling .) We translate the chapter title as “Seasonal Rules.” The grouping of the chapter’s twelve monthly sections into five “seasons” (the four natural seasons plus an artificial “midsummer”) emphasizes the importance of seasonal time. The connotations of the English word “rules” capture the cosmic and impersonal nature of the chapter’s prescriptions, which allow no latitude for modification or abrogation.
Chapter 5 is one of three versions of a text otherwise known as Yueling (Monthly Ordinances). One version is found as the first section of each of the first twelve chapters of the Lüshi chunqiu, the so-called Almanac chapters of that work.1 Another version, substantially identical to that in the Lüshi chunqiu but collected into a single chapter, is found as chapter 6 of the Liji (Record of Rites).2
Summary and Key Themes
“Seasonal Rules” prescribes appropriate ritual and administrative behavior for the ruler throughout the year, according to a scheme based on the annual cycles of yin and yang and the Five Phases. The chapter begins with twelve sections corresponding to the twelve months and concludes with three more sections that supplement and amplify the prescriptions contained in sections 5.1 through 5.12. The first month of spring—that is, the second lunar month following the month in which the winter solstice occurs—is designated by the third earthly branch, yin. (This is the first civil month according to the so-called Xia calendar, followed throughout the Huainanzi.) Each of the monthly sections follows a set pattern of correlations, with the correlates varying systematically from section to section:3
In the nth month of season A, zhaoyao4 points to [the direction indicated by] earthly branch B. Lunar lodge C culminates at dusk; lodge D culminates at dawn.
Season A occupies direction E; the season’s heavenly stems are XY. The fullness of power is in [seasonal] phase F. The [seasonal] class of creatures is G. The pentatonic note is H [seasonal], the pitch pipe is I [monthly]. The number is J, the taste is K, the smell is L [all seasonal]. Sacrifices are made to the M household god; organ O is offered first [seasonal].
Omens and portents from the world of living creatures; signs of the changing year [monthly].
The Son of Heaven wears [seasonal] P-colored clothing. He rides in a chariot drawn by dragon horses of [seasonal] color P, wears P-colored jade pendants, and flies a P-colored banner. He eats grain Q and meat R (for ritual meals). He drinks water gathered from the eight winds and cooks with a fire kindled from stalks of [seasonal] plant S. The ladies of the court wear P-colored clothing with P-colored trim. They play musical instruments T and U. The weapon of season A is V; its domestic animal is W.
The Son of Heaven holds court in the [monthly] chamber N of the Mingtang, from where he issues appropriate orders.
Inauguration of season A [first month of each season only]. The Son of Heaven personally leads the Three Sires, Nine Lords, and the great nobles to meet the A season at the altar in the (direction E) suburb.
The Son of Heaven issues regulations for sacrifices and promulgates prescriptions and prohibitions appropriate to the month and the season and makes pronouncements regarding the people’s livelihoods. The Son of Heaven issues charges to appropriate officials.
The chapter warns of the disastrous consequence of applying, in any given season, the rules appropriate to each of the other seasons.
Month N governs office Z; its tree is AA.
There are minor but systematic differences between monthly sections that begin a season and those that do not. The signs and portents from the natural world, the orders given to officials, and the prohibitions and prescriptions naturally vary from month to month, but overall this outline is followed closely in the twelve chapter sections corresponding to the twelve months of the year.
The chapter concludes with three sections that build on the twelve monthly sections:
1. Section 5.13, the “five positions” (wu wei ), provides information, partly geographical and partly mythographical, about five regions: east, south, the center, west, and north, with the rules governing each. These rules are prescriptions for the conduct of government and are similar but not identical to those for the five “seasons” contained in the twelve monthly sections of the text.
2. Section 5.14, the “six coordinates” (liu he ),5 are six pairs of months linked conceptually as if by diagonals drawn across the celestial circle, similar to the “six departments” found in Huainanzi section 3.13. The pairs thus are of opposites—for example, first month of spring–first month of autumn, middle month of spring–middle month of autumn, and so on. (Note that in this scheme the third month of summer is not singled out as a special “midsummer” season.) Each of the twelve months is characterized in a phrase or two, followed by formulas for the pairs: “If government fails in its duties in month N, in month N + 6, there will be bad consequence X.” The section ends with a set of prognostications similar t
o those concluding each of the twelve monthly sections of the text: “If in season A the ordinances of season B (C, D) are carried out, there will be bad consequence X (Y, Z).”
3. Section 5.15, the “six regulators” (liu du ), is a fu (poetic exposition) celebrating six measuring instruments—the marking cord, the level, the compass, the balance beam, the square, and the weight—that are correlated with Heaven, Earth, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, respectively. Each instrument is the subject of a poetic paean to its virtues as a standard, and later lines tell how each should be applied “in the regulation of the Mingtang,” or in other words, to the annual calendar of ritual observances. (The Mingtang, a term sometimes translated as “Hall of Light,” was a special building in which monthly and seasonal rituals were conducted.)
Throughout the chapter, appropriate monthly and seasonal rules, rituals, and other human and natural phenomena are linked to the two complementary annual cycles of yin and yang (expressed through the correlation of the twelve months with the twelve earthly branches and their associated directions) and the Five Phases. The yin–yang cycle is seen as an annual round of months in which yang begins to grow in the first month of spring, becomes dominant in summer, is at its maximum in the midsummer month, and wanes in autumn and winter as the power of yin emerges and grows. The Five Phases are most apparent in the ritual colors associated with each of the five seasons, but these chapters embrace many other Five Phase correlations as well.6
The extent to which these prescriptions and prohibitions formed, or even could have formed, the basis for Han ritual and public policy is an important historical question worthy of consideration. Approached from a modern sensibility, they strike the reader as fanciful. Even with some knowledge of Han ritual and politics, two arguments point in the direction of considering “Seasonal Rules” no more than an unreachable ideal of imperial behavior. The first is the sheer complexity and rigidity of the rules themselves. It is difficult to imagine a busy and overburdened emperor taking the time and trouble to carry out these measures in person, as the text demands. The second is the artificiality of the prescriptions themselves. There was, of course, general agreement on key points: the branch correlations of the months, the annual cycle of yin and yang, and the color and directional correlations of the Five Phases. These had been widely understood and accepted since at least the mid–Warring States period. But other correlations—seasonal weapons, monthly trees, and the like—were not as securely established, and the correlations given in the Yueling (in the Huainanzi or any other version) represented the prescriptions of only one text. Many other texts circulating at the time also contained ritual calendars, with lists of prescriptions, prohibitions, and correlates that differed to greater or lesser degree from those of the Yueling. The choice of which text to follow would not have been uncontested, and the decision would have inevitably been as much a political one—which advisers were backing which text, and why—as one based on ritual and cosmological principles alone.