The Huainanzi

by An Liu

  21. Xi Fuji gave Duke Wen of Jin some food when the latter wandered through Cao in exile, thus establishing himself in the duke’s good graces after he assumed the title of hegemon. See Zuozhuan, Xi 23. See also 12.22 and 18.18. Duke Xian of Jin used the offer of the Chuiji jade as a ruse to destroy the states of Yu and Guo. See 7.16, 10.47, 17.87, and 18.5; and Zuozhuan, Xi 2.

  22. Zhao Dun (Xuanmeng) gave some dried meat to a starving man who later spared Zhao’s life. See Zuozhuan, Xuan 2; and LSCQ 15.4/84/8–18. Earl Zhi used the gift of a great bell as a ruse to destroy the Qiuyou people. See ZGC 24/8/22–29 and LSCQ 15/2/82/8–14.

  23. Gongxi Hua was a disciple of Confucius. See Analects 7.34 and 11.22, 26.

  24. Goujian ruled Yue from 491 to 465 B.C.E. See Shiji 41.

  25. Following the gloss in Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1145n.34.

  26. That is, the lengthy mourning period advocated by Confucius and his followers.

  27. The brief mourning period advocated by Mozi and his followers.

  28. Following Xu Shen. See Zhuang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1148n.3.

  29. The authors of the Huainanzi are distinguishing between feelings (such as sorrow and grief ), which are internal, and actions (such as specific rites of burial and interment), which reflect learned behavior (nurture) and thus are external.

  30. The Caiqi and Sixia were music purportedly played at state occasions at the Zhou court. When the occasion called for walking, the Sixia would be played, and when protocol demanded hurrying, the Caiqi would be played. See Zhou li (Rites of Zhou), Spring Offices, the Master of Music (yue shi).

  31. Wang Yinzhi feels that this sentence should be omitted. See Lau, HNZ, 98n.1.

  32. The Youhu were a clan that rebelled against the Xia upon the investiture of their second king, Qi.

  33. Youyu —that is, the sage-king Shun.

  34. The musicological history outlined in this section roughly parallels that laid out in Lüshi chunqiu 5.5. The two texts share most of the same basic elements and sequence them in the same chronological order. LSCQ, however, begins the sequence earlier, before the reign of the Yellow Emperor, so the two texts do not closely accord until the latter eras of the Shang and Zhou.

  35. For the referent of “Pool of Xian,” see 3.4 and 4.16. “Pool of Xian” is listed as accompanying a Zhou-dynasty ritual dance in Zhou li 3.21/41/16. “Bearing Clouds” is invoked in CC 5/18/17; Wang Yi’s commentary equates it with the “Cloud Gates” , an ancient musical form mentioned throughout the early literature. The “nine harmonies” are also mentioned in the Zhou li as part of the ritual repertory of the Zhou, where they are rendered as .

  36. This and the following three paragraphs describe the historical succession from the era of sage-kings through Xia, Shang, and Zhou, according to the “mutual overcoming” order of the Five Phases as indicated by the attributes and colors described for each reign. Earth (yellow) is overcome by Wood (green), which is overcome by Metal (white), which is overcome by Fire (red). The next stage in the sequence would be Water (black). An implicit argument is being made here for Water and black to be the appropriate emblems of the current dynasty.

  37. The sha was a fan-shaped shroud draped over the coffin of the entombed.

  38. Lau takes the phrase to refer to two proper nouns: the “Pipes of Xia” and the “Nine Perfections.” There is little corroboration for the reading of “Nine Perfections,” however, so we followed Knoblock and Riegel’s 2000, 150, translation of the parallel passage in LSCQ 5.5, rendering as “nine movements.”

  39. The “Pipes of Xia” are mentioned in Liji 29.4/137/15. The “Six Dance Troops” , “Six Lines” , and “Six Blossoms” are unique to the Huainanzi and its parallel Lüshi chunqiu text.

  40. The “Great Melody” is translated on the acceptance of Lau’s proposed emendation from to . The latter is a form of ancient music mentioned in Zhou li 3.21/41/12. “Morning Dew” is first mentioned as a form of ancient music in the Lüshi chunqiu.

  41. “Grand Martiality” is given as the name of a Zhou musical form in the Zhou li. “Three Elephants” and “Beneath the Mulberry” are first mentioned in the parallel Lüshi chunqiu text.

  42. The syntax of the original text is convoluted, but this seems to be the sense of the metaphor. Chinese zitherlike instruments, such as the twenty-five-string se, had wooden bridges that could be moved back and forth along the strings to adjust their pitch. A Three Kingdoms (220–265 C.E.) text contains this anecdote: “A man of Qi went to a man of Zhao to study the se. He relied on [the teacher] to first tune it, then glued the bridges in place and went home. For three years he could not play a single melody” (Handan Chun [fl. ca. 221 C.E.], Xiao lin ). Something akin to this anecdote seems to be the context of the Huainanzi ’s imagery.

  43. We follow Sun Yirang’s comments in translating wenju shuduan as “round and square patterns.” We also follow Sun in dropping the final character, xie , from the end of the sentence. Xie literally means “shoes,” and Sun notes that it would be incongruent for the text to begin discussing shoes at this point. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1156n.27.

  44. The character in the original text, zhuan , literally means “to turn.” It comprises the semantic element zhuan (to concentrate) plus the “cart” radical on the left. The latter zhuan (concentrate) seems to fit the context of the passage better.

  45. This refers to two forms of ancient ritual practice. Straw dogs were made to carry the transgressions of the community, and earthen dragons were fashioned to pray for rain.

  46. This refers to a particular martial ritual dance performed in the ancestral temple.

  47. Yu and zhi were two of the tones on the Chinese pentatonic scale; thus this phrase means something like “they laugh at F sharp on the basis of A flat.”

  48. The feng and shan sacrifices were considered the most august prerogative of the imperial government from Qin times onward. Their preimperial origins (if any) are obscure. The earliest information on them is recorded in Shiji 28.

  49. Although the current text of the Huainanzi gives this figure’s name as , several commentators suggest emending this to on the basis of Tang citations. No extant early texts mention Hu Liang, but the commentaries to two Tang-era encyclopedias gloss the name as that of “an excellent singer of antiquity” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1163n.20).

  50. A fabled sword, comparable to Excalibur in Arthurian legend.

  51. Ou Ye (Smelter Ou) was a fabled sword maker of Yue during the reign of King Goujian (r. 496–465 B.C.E.). He is mentioned in texts such as the Yue jue shu and Wu Yue chunqiu.

  52. Emending the text to preserve the parallelism with the context that precedes it. The original reads: “A pure steel sword can not be cherished, but Ou Ye’s skill can be valued [gui].”

  53. Wang Qiao and Chi Songzi (usually rendered ) were fabled adepts whose personal cultivation had elevated them to the level of “immortals” and imbued them with uncanny powers. Hanfeizi 20 mentions Chi Songzi; both figures are prominent in lore about immortals from the Han onward.

  54. For the terms yu (extension in space) and zhou (extension in time), see chap. 3, n.1.

  55. Qin Fu is evidently the same legendary figure who appears in a roughly parallel passage in Zhuangzi 6. There his name is given as Kan Pi . See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1167n.3.

  56. Bian Que was physician of legendary skill who lived in the late sixth century B.C.E.

  57. That is, stringed instruments, wind instruments, bells, and chimestones.

  58. Han Feng , Qin Ya , and Guan Qing were fabled horse assessors of olden times and are mentioned in tandem as adhering to mutually distinctive methods in LSCQ 20.8/138/5–9, although the names of Han Feng and Guan Qing are rendered slightly differently. For Bo Le, see 11.10 and 12.25.

  59. Guanzi 29 records this incident but gives no further information about Butcher Dan.

  60. Cook Ding is a sagely chef famously portrayed in Zhuangzi 3.

  61. Following Xu Shen’s gloss of as . See Zhang Shuangdi 1997,
2:1172n.23.

  62. The term lianji is reasonably securely identifiable as a “repeating crossbow.” Translations of the other terms in this sentence are tentative. The sliding shutter mechanism of the famous Han gilded lamp in the shape of a servant, from the tomb of Dou Wan, may be an example of a yun kai ,“revolving aperture.” See Historical Relics Unearthed in New China (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1972), pl. 99. For xuanzuo , which seems to mean “fool-the-eye inlay,” see the cunningly contrived and deceptive objects named as “extravagances of wood” in 8.9. See Lau, HNZ 8/65/1–3.

  63. This is an example of musical resonance often cited as a demonstration of greater “cosmic” resonance. Gong and jue are tones in the pentatonic scale. If two stringed instruments in the same room are tuned to each other, when the gong string on one is struck, the corresponding string on its counterpart will vibrate.

  64. This paragraph echoes a passage in 6.4.

  65. Some of the sense of the Chinese has been sacrificed to smooth English usage here. The original text literally reads “Each age rights [shi ] what it rights and wrongs [fei ] what it wrongs.”

  66. The text is somewhat unclear at this point. We translated it to agree with the overall sense of the passage. Tao Hongqing suggests that the text may be corrupt at this point and that it might have read originally as something like “This is the right and wrong of one corner, not the right and wrong of the cosmos” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1175n.4).

  67. Following an emendation of the text suggested by Chen Guanlou, eliminating the characters bu zhi before “which is right and which is wrong” (Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1176n.5).

  68. Laozi 60.

  69. A more detailed version of this anecdote appears in HFZ 36/115/22–25.

  70. The current text of the Hanfeizi does not give this judgment verbatim, but it does record a very negative assessment of Music Master Kuang’s actions.

  71. This anecdote appears in ZGC 257/136/22–25.

  72. Mi Zijian (b. 511 B.C.E.) was a disciple of Confucius. He is mentioned in Analects 5.3.

  73. The character translated as “visitor” here (bin ) is the same as that translated as “guest” in the previous sentence, but the context makes clear that the referent is different in both cases. The text seems to have been corrupted in transmission. See Lau, HNZ, 100n.8; and Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1177n.13.

  74. The text refers here to “the demeanor of the guest,” but again the reference is to the person who was introduced to Mizi, not to the “guest” who introduced him.

  75. Emending the text as suggested by Wang Niansun. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1179n.26.

  76. The type of weather vane used in ancient China would have been a plume or a pennant on a staff set to blow in the wind. Thus the next line, “he is not stable for an instant.”

  77. Emending the text in accordance with Wang Niansun and others. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1183n.2.

  78. This translation breaks the parallelism of the two clauses shenji yinbi , jijue wuji . It is possible that wuji should also be translated nominally, referring to some artifact of the Western Han known as a “traceless,” the record of which has been lost. Alternatively, yinbi might be meant to modify shenji; thus the first clause would read “the repeating crossbow with its hidden lock,” and the second phrase would then mean something like “the engraving tool that leaves no traces.”

  79. Gongsun Long (b. 498 B.C.E.) was a renowned logician of the Warring States period, famous for his assertion that “a white horse is not a horse.”

  80. The legendary figure Beiren Wuze appears in LSCQ 19.1 and ZZ 28.

  81. Mozi 49 records that Lu Ban (also known as Gongshu Ban [fl. ca. 450 B.C.E.]) constructed an ingenious bird, which Mozi himself derided as impractical.

  82. A liang was an ancient unit of weight roughly comparable to an ounce. One liang was equal to twenty-four zhu.

  83. Yaoniao and Feitu were famous horses of legend, sire and foal.

  84. That is, even a sage could not make it consistently “the east house” or “the west house”; the terminology always depends on the frame of reference.

  85. Cai Shu and Guan Shu were, like the Duke of Zhou, younger brothers of King Wu. They defied the Duke of Zhou’s assumption of the regency on behalf of the underage King Cheng. Their punishment by the Duke of Zhou is described in the Documents. See Shang shu 37/32/21– 37/34/6. See also 20.14 and 20.25; and chap. 21, n. 31.

  86. Yan He was reportedly a hermit-knight of Lu during the reign of Duke Ai (r. 494–467 B.C.E.). A slightly altered version of this tale appears in ZZ 28 and LSCQ 2.2.

  87. That is, the Duke of Lu was willing to overlook Yan He’s desire to decline office; but if a Legalist had been in control of the state, Yan He would have been liable to drastic punishment for the same act.

  88. Prince Bi Gan was the uncle of King Djou, the wicked last ruler of the Shang dynasty. He admonished the ruler for his excesses and was put to death. Here he is implicitly contrasted with Jizi , another uncle and retainer of King Djou, who was able to escape Bi Gan’s fate by feigning madness.

  89. Shu Qi was the younger brother of Bo Yi. Both died of starvation together on Mount Shouyang. See Shiji 61.

  90. Yao Li was a retainer of King Helü of Wu who consented to being falsely incriminated and to his wife’s being executed so that he might get close to one of his king’s enemies. His story is recounted in LSCQ 11.3.

  91. A parallel saying is found in 10.33.

  92. Huizi (Hui Shi ) was a sophist who served as chief minister of King Hui of Liang (r. 370– 319 B.C.E.).

  93. Zhuangzi’s gesture was one of disgust at the display of excess he had just witnessed.

  94. Following Sun Yirang’s proposed emendation. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1194n.26.

  95. Lin Lei was, according to Xu Shen, a “worthy recluse.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1195n.28.

  96. These two pairs are meant to exemplify cold and hot, curved and straight. For ice and charcoal, see also 16.14.

  97. Zhangfu , “a full-grown man.”

  98. Cheng Jing was a knight of Qi renowned for his courage during the Spring and Autumn period. He is mentioned in LSCQ 8.2.

  Twelve

  RESPONSES OF THE WAY

  “RESPONSES OF the Way” is summarized in chapter 21 of the Huainanzi as follows:

  [It] picks out and draws together the relics of past affairs,

  pursues and surveys the traces of bygone antiquity,

  and investigates the reversals of bad and good fortune, benefit and harm.

  It tests and verifies them according to the techniques of Lao and Zhuang,

  thus matching them to the trajectories of gain and loss. (21.2)

  Thus the qualities of the ideal ruler unfold through negative and positive examples from the past. This comprehensive vision of rulership is expressed through fifty-six anecdotes, each capped with a citation from the Laozi that supports the anecdote’s didactic claims.1 These anecdotes and many others of the same kind appear to have circulated in various forms (written, oral, or both) during the Warring States and Han periods and may be considered a distinctive genre. Those collected in “Responses of the Way” contain everything from profound and recondite accounts of mystical wandering to moralizing speeches, ethical prescriptions, and practical political counsel. They illustrate the manner in which the Way may be known to the ruler and be used to ensure the success and prosperity of his reign.

  Rhetorically, these anecdotes and their “capping” passages from the Laozi also demonstrate the versatility of that text as an authoritative source of sagely rule. Read as “the relics of past affairs,” they were the ideal literary medium to illustrate the relationship between the Way and human affairs as unfolding in the context of change.2 In addition, the citations from the Laozi demonstrate that text’s wide scope and its ability to address nearly every occasion that might arise. The combination of illustrative anecdote and apposite citation created a mix of didactic principles (in chapter 21, called “
the techniques of Lao-Zhuang”) that the compilers of chapter 12 saw as instrumental to a ruler’s success. Moreover, the Laozi here is given a canonical authority3 that enhanced the credibility of the vision of empire and sage-rulership promoted in the Huainanzi more generally.

  The Chapter Title

  The title of this chapter is “Dao ying” , which we translate as “Responses of the Way.” Here dao denotes an all-embracing, singular, and abstract concept that lies beyond the multiplicity of things as well as the particular, varied, and concrete ways that come into play in different situations. Ying, meaning “response,” has strong resonances with the Han ganying stimulus–response cosmology (see chapter 6). In “Responses of the Way,” ying suggests that the ruler must choose the appropriate response (ying) grounded in the Way that is evoked (gan) by the circumstances of the moment. When rulers of bygone days did so, they succeeded; when they did not, they failed. Separately and cumulatively, these illustrative anecdotes address issues of royal responsiveness and virtuous rule, such as how a ruler should orient himself toward his people and his bureaucracy.

  Other translators have rendered the title “The Response of Matter to the Movement of the Cosmic Spirit”4 or “Des résonances du ‘dao.’”5 We have chosen “Responses of the Way” to emphasize the chapter’s central concern with demonstrating the relevance and applicability of the Way and its methods of resolving the often complex and multifarious challenges of rulership. Accordingly, this chapter portrays the ruler as the conduit enabling Moral Potency and the virtues of the Way to work through him to respond to whatever may arise.