The Huainanzi

by An Liu

  Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that the Han emperors did attempt to carry out a ritual program like that prescribed in “Seasonal Rules,” at least in its broadest outlines. First, considerable attention was paid to selecting the ruling phase of the Han dynasty itself. This was a matter of state policy and was the subject of heated debate and (in 104 B.C.E.) an actual change in the ruling phase, from Water to Earth.7 From the beginning of the dynasty, emperors had carried out suburban sacrifices to the Five Thearchs (wudi )—not the traditional sage-rulers of mythical antiquity, such as the Divine Farmer and Lord Millet, but personifications or deifications of the Five Phases, conceived of as the Bluegreen, Red, Yellow, White, and Black thearchs. (Later their altars were made subordinate to another deified principle, the Grand One.)8 At these rites, the emperor and his attendants would have been dressed in vestments of the appropriate color, just as prescribed in the “Seasonal Rules.” Moreover, several Mingtang buildings were constructed in the Han period, not only at the capital but also at the foot of the holy Mount Tai. In these simple structures, emperors could sit in the correct monthly room, face in the appropriate direction, and issue edicts and instructions, just as envisioned in the “Seasonal Rules.” And at a more general level of government operation, the annual and seasonal cycles of yin and yang and the Five Phases were respected in practice. It was a matter of settled policy, for example, to avoid carrying out executions in the spring and summer and to schedule them for the fall and winter, thereby matching the supposed cycles of leniency and severity of the cosmos itself.

  Overall, it appears that while “Seasonal Rules” may not have been the keystone of Han ritual and public policy (which involved many other kinds of observances and actions as well), the emperors and their advisers and ministers did make a serious effort to carry out their prescriptions and prohibitions, although perhaps not in every detail.

  Sources

  “Seasonal Rules” belongs to a genre of early Chinese almanacs that give astronomical, stem–branch, yin–yang, and Five Phase correlations for each of the twelve months and prescribe appropriate ritual and administrative behavior for the ruler throughout the year. As noted earlier, the Huainanzi’s “Seasonal Rules” is one of three extant versions of a text usually known as the Yueling (Monthly Ordinances). This text may once have existed as an independent work, but if so, it was not transmitted independently in the received tradition. The earliest extant version of the Yueling (possibly quoted from this now-lost hypothetical independent source) is found in the first twelve chapters of the Lüshi chunqiu, a text whose earliest portions date to about 239 B.C.E.9 The other version, substantially identical to that in the Lüshi chunqiu (and either derived from it or based on the same now-lost original source), is a chapter of the Liji (Record of Rites). These texts also are similar to other texts prescribing behavior for the ruler in accordance with the seasons and the months and based on the concept of ganying (resonance) between the cosmos as a whole and the actions of humans.10 These texts include the “Zhou yue” (Months of Zhou) chapter of the Yizhou shu (Remnant Writings of the Zhou Period); the “You guan” (Dark Palace), “Sishi” (Four Seasons), “Wuxing” (Five Phases), and “Qingzhong ji” (Light and Heavy) chapters of the Guanzi (Book of Master Guan);11 as well as the “Xia xiaozheng” (Lesser Annuary of Xia), which is usually published with the Da Dai liji (The Elder Dai’s Record of Rites) as an appendix to that text;12 and the Chu silk manuscript.13 The previously unknown text Sanshi shi (Thirty Periods), excavated at Yinqueshan in 1972 and dated to about 134 B.C.E., is similar to the Guanzi’s “You guan” chapter. Several sections of the third chapter of the Huainanzi, “Celestial Patterns”—particularly 3.16, 3.17, 3.22–24, and 3.26—are also closely related to this cluster of texts dealing with calendrical astrology.14

  Chapter 5 of the Huainanzi therefore must be seen in the context of a substantial body of calendrical works (probably including some now-lost works that have not been transmitted from the past) that, while differing widely in details, all agreed that it was imperative for the ruler to match his personal, ritual, and political conduct to the annual rhythms of yin and yang and the Five Phases. But it seems very likely that in that context, “Seasonal Rules” is directly descended from the Lüshi chunqiu. The Lüshi chunqiu’s “Annals” and the Huainanzi’s “Seasonal Rules” are not identical, but their differences are significant and systematic rather than minor and random; that is, they are likely to reflect deliberate editorial choices rather than copyists’ errors. It also is possible that both the Lüshi chunqiu and the Huainanzi versions of the text (and, as noted earlier, the Liji version as well) were derived separately from a now-lost original source. The possibility that the Lüshi chunqiu and the Huainanzi are related only by common descent fades, however, with the observation that other portions of the Huainanzi (for example, 4.1 and 4.2, as noted in the introduction to chapter 4) are also quoted verbatim from the Lüshi chunqiu. Liu An, the king of Huainan, was not only a famous scholar and patron of scholarship but a bibliophile as well. It would therefore be surprising if his famous library at the court of Huainan did not include a copy of the Lüshi chunqiu,15 which would have been available to the king’s court scholars to serve as the source for “Seasonal Rules.” The reasons for the systematic differences between the current Lüshi chunqiu and Huainanzi versions may be (1) that Liu An’s copy of the Lüshi chunqiu was different from the present received version, in ways reflected in the current Huainanzi “Seasonal Rules”; and (2) that as the Lüshi chunqiu material was incorporated into the Huainanzi, it was systematically edited and revised to suit the beliefs and preferences of Liu An and his circle.

  Whichever of those possibilities is correct, the differences among the Lüshi chunqiu, Liji, and Huainanzi texts are consistent and not random. One of the most conspicuous variations between the Lüshi chunqiu and Huainanzi versions is the use of the formula “Zhaoyao points to branch X” instead of “the sun is in lunar lodge Y” to begin each of the twelve monthly sections of the text. This substitution probably represents a tendency in the second century B.C.E.—the time of Liu An and his circle—to use the shi (cosmograph) for determining the astronomical and astrological positions of the heavenly bodies, rather than the direct visual observation that would have been employed a century or so earlier in the time of Lü Buwei. Other differences include the additional correlations that were systematically added to the Huainanzi version, including seasonal correlations of weapons, domestic animals, fuel for the ruler’s ritual cooking fire, and monthly correlations of offices and trees. The Lüshi chunqiu version includes a seasonal thearch (di ) and god (shen ) in the text for each month. These are omitted in the Huainanzi version, perhaps because a similar (although not identical) roster of planetary gods and their “assistants” already appears in section 3.6 and again as deities of the five directions in 5.13, the “five positions.”

  Chapter 5 of the Huainanzi and the Lüshi chunqiu /Liji Yueling versions have two other conspicuous differences. The first is the treatment of the artificial fifth season of “midsummer.” Early ritual calendars from the Warring States period, such as the Guanzi’s “Four Seasons,” base their ritual prescriptions on the self-evident fact that the year contains four, and only four, seasons. These are correlated in the customary fashion with the phases Wood, Fire, Metal, and Water; phase Earth and its correlates play little or no role. In the Lüshi chunqiu/Liji Yueling, the section for the sixth month treats it as the third month of summer, and all correlations for that month are to phase Fire. This section also contains a short supplementary (or alternative) section that gives phase Earth correlations for a midsummer season of unspecified date and duration. In chapter 5 of the Huainanzi, however, Earth correlations are substituted for Fire ones throughout the sixth month; in other words, the sixth month is treated as a separate midsummer “season,” in defiance of astronomical reality but incorporating the theoretical resonances of the Five Phase system.

  The other significant d
ifference is that the three additional sections of chapter 5 of the Huainanzi (5.13–15) are neither found in nor closely related to the Lüshi chunqiu. They do not seem to be derived from any extant Warring States or early Han text. Therefore, they either may be original to the Huainanzi or were copied or derived from now-lost ancient texts. The fact that each of these three sections has a “set piece” quality to it—that is, each could stand alone as an independent short treatise—argues (entirely speculatively) for the latter possibility.

  Regardless of how the differences between various versions of the text came about, chapter 5 of the Huainanzi and the Lüshi chunqiu and Liji versions of the Yueling are all, in effect, the same text in the sense that their commonalities are far more substantial than their differences.

  The Chapter in the Context of the Huainanzi as a Whole

  “Seasonal Rules,” “Celestial Patterns,” and “Terrestrial Forms” comprise a distinct subunit of the Huainanzi. Their treatment of the key issues of Heaven, Earth, and Time demonstrates to readers that the entire cosmos is an integrated whole and that the phenomena of the universe are in constant resonant contact with one another through the workings of yin and yang and the Five Phases, and the subtleties of qi matter-energy. An understanding of these matters, sufficient for a ruler to understand and acquiesce in or modify ritual procedures as suggested by his technical advisers, was an integral part of the curriculum for a young ruler-in-training devised by the Huainan masters.

  The summary of “Seasonal Rules” in chapter 21 of the Huainanzi, “An Overview of the Essentials,” says that

  “Seasonal Rules” provides the means by which to

  follow Heaven’s seasons above;

  utilize Earth’s resources below;

  determine standards and implement correspondences,

  aligning them with human norms.

  It is formed into twelve sections to serve as models and guides.

  Ending and beginning anew,

  they repeat limitlessly,

  adapting, complying, imitating, and according

  in predicting bad and good fortune.

  Taking and giving, opening and closing,

  each has its prohibited days,

  issuing commands and administering orders,

  instructing and warning according to the season.

  [It] enables the ruler of humankind to know the means by which to manage affairs. (21.2)

  The program of this chapter thus fits smoothly into that of the work overall, in training a ruler to govern the empire with sagelike wisdom and enabling him to harmonize with the rhythms and cycles of the cosmos itself.

  John S. Major

  1. Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 60–64, 77–79, 95–98, 115–18, 133–35, 153–56, 172–75, 189–92, 206–9, 223–26, 241–44, 258–61.

  2. James Legge, trans., Li Chi: Book of Rites, Sacred Books of the East, vols. 27 and 28 (1885; repr., New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1967), 1:249–310.

  3. Compare the schematic outline of the LSCQ/Liji version of the Yueling in Major 1993, 220–21.

  4. Zhaoyao , “Far Flight” (in Schafer’s translation; a more literal rendering would be “Resplendent”), is a bright star in Boötes that in Chinese astronomy was taken to be an extension of the “pointer” of the handle of the Northern Dipper. See Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 52. See the reference to the star Yaoguang (Gemlike Brilliance, the last star in the handle of the Dipper) in 8.5. The direction in which the Dipper’s handle points could be observed directly in the sky, or indirectly by means of the cosmograph (shi ). For the cosmograph, see Donald Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board (Shih ),” Early China 4 (1978–1979): 2; and Christopher Cullen, “Some Further Points on the Shih,” Early China 6 (1980–1981): 31–46, esp. 37, fig. 6.

  5. Note that the meaning of liu he here is different from its usual meaning (as in the opening lines of chap. 4) of “up and down, left and right, back and front.”

  6. For tables of chap. 5’s earthly-branch correlations with the twelve months and associated phenomena, and the Five-Phase correlations with the seasons and associated phenomena, see Major 1993, 222–23.

  7. Michael Loewe, “The Concept of Sovereignty,” in The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 b.c.–a.d. 220, ed. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe, vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 730, 737–39. See also Gopal Sukhu, “Yao, Shun, and Prefiguration: The Origins and Ideology of the Han Imperial Genealogy,” Early China 30 (2005): 91–153, esp. 118–21.

  8. These matters are discussed in detail in Shiji 28, “The Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices.”

  9. Some scholars, notably E. Bruce Brooks of the Warring States Project, argue that portions of the Lüshi chunqiu postdate the 235 B.C.E. date of the suicide of Lü Buwei.

  10. On ganying resonance, see John B. Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 22–28; and Charles Le Blanc, “The Idea of Kan-Ying in Huai-nan Tzu,” in Le Blanc 1985, 191–206.

  11. “You guan” is translated in Rickett 1985, 169–92. The other chapters mentioned are translated in Rickett 1998: “Sishi,” 108–17; “Wuxing,” 118–28; and “Qingzhong ji” (in several parts), 446–516.

  12. Translated as an appendix to William Soothill, The Hall of Light: A Study of Chinese Kingship (London: Lutterworth Press, 1951).

  13. Noel Barnard, ed., Ch’u and the Silk Manuscript, vol. 1 of Early Chinese Art and Its Possible Influence in the Pacific Basin (New York: Intercultural Arts Press, 1972), esp. Jao Tsung-yi, “Some Aspects of the Calendar, Astrology, and Religious Conceptions of the Ch’u People as Revealed in the Ch’u Silk Manuscript,” 113–22, and Hayashi Minao, “The Twelve Gods of the Chan-Kuo Period Silk Manuscript Excavated at Ch’ang Sha,” 123–86.

  14. Discussions of the Yueling texts, with reviews of the appropriate scholarly literature, can be found in Major 1993, 217–21; Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 35–43; Henderson, Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology, 20–24; and Rickett 1985, 148–69. See also Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952–53), 1:164–65; Joseph Needham, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth, vol. 3 of Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 194–96; Derk Bodde, Festivals in Classical China: New Year and Other Annual Observances During the Han Dynasty, 206 b.c. to a.d. 220 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975); Hsü Dau-lin, “Crime and Cosmic Order,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 30 (1970): 111–25; and William G. Boltz, “Philological Footnotes to the Han New Year Rites,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 99 (1979): 425–39.

  15. Or parts thereof, specifically the first twelve chapters, which at that time might have circulated as an independent text. It is likely that the Lüshi chunqiu, like many other early Chinese texts, had not yet achieved its familiar final form by the time the Huainanzi was written.

  Five

  5.1

  In the first month of spring, Zhaoyao1 points to [the earthly branch] yin [ENE]. [The lunar lodge] Array culminates at dusk; Tail culminates at dawn. [Spring] occupies the east. Its days are [the heavenly stems] jia and yi. The fullness of Potency is in Wood. Its beasts are [those of the] scaly [class]. Its [pentatonic] note is jue. The pitch pipe [of the first month] is Great Budding. The number [of spring] is eight. Its flavor is sour. Its smell is rank. Its sacrifices are made to the door god. From the body of the sacrificial victim, the spleen is offered first.

  The east wind dispels the cold. Hibernating creatures begin to stir and revive. Fish rise and [rub their] backs [against] the ice. Otters sacrifice fish.2 Look for the geese [to return] north. The Son of Heaven wears bluegreen clothing. He mounts [a carriage drawn by] azure dragon [horses]. He wears azure jade [pendants] and flies a bluegreen banner. He eats wheat with mutton. He drinks water g
athered from the eight winds3 and cooks with fire [kindled from] fern stalks. The imperial ladies of the Eastern Palace wear bluegreen clothing with bluegreen trim. They play qin and se [musical instruments]. The weapon [of spring] is the spear. The domestic animal [of spring] is the sheep.4 [The Son of Heaven] holds the dawn session of court in the corner [chamber of the Mingtang] to the left of [i.e., counterclockwise from] the Bluegreen Yang Chamber in order to promulgate the spring ordinances. He extends his Moral Potency, bestows favor, carries out [rites of] celebration and praise, and reduces corvée exactions and tax levies. [5/39/3–7]

  On the first day of spring, the Son of Heaven personally leads the Three Sires, the Nine Lords, and the great nobles to welcome the year at [the altar of] the eastern suburbs. He repairs and cleans out the place of sacrifice and [employs] wealth offerings to pray to the ghosts and spirits. Only male animals are used as sacrificial victims. It is prohibited to cut down trees. Nests must not be overturned nor the unborn young killed, likewise neither young creatures nor eggs. People must not be assembled [for labor duty] or fortifications erected. Skeletons must be reburied, and corpses interred. [5/39/9–11]