The Huainanzi
Page 110
“Humaneness” means to love others;
“Wisdom” means to understand others.
If you love others, you will refrain from cruel punishments;
if you know others, you will refrain from chaotic governance.
When [political] order derives from culture and principles, there will be no perverse or erroneous endeavors.
When punishments are not excessive, there will be no violent and cruel conduct.
If
above there is no troublesome and disorderly governance,
below there will be no resentful and expectant hearts,
so that the one hundred forms of cruelty will be eradicated and centrality and harmony will be created. This is the means by which the Three Dynasties flourished.
Thus the Documents says,
“If [the ruler] is wise and kind,
the black-haired people will cherish him.
Why fear Huan Dou?
Why banish the Miao?”122
Earl Zhi possessed five talents that surpassed others, but he could not avoid dying by another’s hand, for he did not love others.
The king of Qi had skills in three areas that surpassed those of others, but he was taken prisoner in Qin, for he did not understand worthy men.
Thus,
there is no Humaneness greater than loving others;
there is no Wisdom greater than understanding others.
If you have neither of these, even if you are perceptive and smart, clever and skillful, and work hard and untiringly, you will not avoid disorder. [20/223/11–17]
Translated by Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major
1. A reference to a system of watchtowers in border areas that make warning fires to signal the approach of mounted enemies.
2. This image also occurs in 9.4, 10.97, and 16.59.
3. Zhouyi 37/61/1.
4. Odes 273.
5. Odes 192.
6. The same story appears in LieZ 8/45/13, where, however, the material is said to have been jade.
7. For the nine provinces (jiu zhou ), see 4.1. For an extended discussion of the meanings of jiu zhou as both “nine provinces” and “nine continents,” see 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), 134–45.
8. A mu is about one-sixth of an acre, and a qing is a hundred mu.
9. Zhang and chi , roughly, “fathoms and feet”; a zhang is ten Chinese feet.
10. A dou is a dry measure, sometimes translated as a “peck”; a hu is five dou.
11. Odes 165, stanza 2. Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:2043n.14, refers to the Erh Ya, which gives shen , “carefully,” as a reading for the shen in the text. Thus the original meaning of the poem is
“Carefully we listen [to the song of the bird]
so that in the end there may be harmony and peace.”
In the context in which the Huainanzi cites the poem, however, it appears to follow an alternative reading that was accepted by many traditional scholars, so it is that version we give here. Waley/Allen 1996, 137, also follows the reading with shen, “spirits.”
12. Odes 256.
13. Compare the opening lines of 20.10.
14. One ren is eight Chinese feet (chi ).
15. Reading mu for mu .
16. On the use of multiple interpreters to communicate with the “barbarian” tribes, see 11.5.
17. In other words, the Yi and Di peoples arrive expecting to deal with issues of mutual interest through verbal communication—hence the interpreters—but the sage-ruler acts through nonverbal Quintessential Sincerity instead.
18. Odes 253.
19. Danfu was the (legendary) grandfather of King Wen, founder of the Zhou dynasty. The story is told more fully in 12.15, which in turn is almost identical to the version in Zhuangzi 28 (ZZ 28/81/23–28; Mair 1997, 285–86); another, abbreviated, version appears in 14.14. See also LSCQ 21.4/141/11–17; and Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 557–58.
20. A fuller version of this story appears in 13.18. See also LSCQ 5; and Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 202–3.
21. For the story of Mizi and the small fish, see 12.43.
22. Reading jing cheng in place of jing qi .
23. Compare 20.6.
24. These are sections of the Odes.
25. Reading xiao for shun . See Lau, HNZ, 212n.6.
26. Xiang yin , “rural libations,” was a village festival in which participants drank in order of seniority.
27. For canwu , “(procedures of ) threes and fives,” see also 9.19 and 21.2.
28. Jie are nodes on the stem of a plant (such as bamboo); by extension, they refer to regular periodicities of various sorts, such as calendrical intervals of time. See app. B.
29. For the twelve lü and their mutual transformations, see 3.27.
30. Yao’s unworthy son. See also 10.64 and 19.4.
31. A mythical figure, said to be the music master of Yao and Shun.
32. Following this passage are six sentences (20/213/21–22) that are repeated almost verbatim from 20.13. Following Wang Niansun, Lau (HNZ, 213n.9) notes that the six sentences beginning with “Thus, the shortcoming of the Changes” probably were inserted here erroneously some time after the text had been written. Accordingly, we have deleted them from the main text of our translation. They read as follows:
Thus, the shortcoming of the Changes is divination.
The shortcoming of the Documents is verbosity.
The shortcoming of the Music is lewdness.
The shortcoming of the Odes is falsity.
The shortcoming of the Rites is censoriousness.
The shortcoming of the Spring and Autumn Annals is [excessive] criticism.
33. Laozi 40.
34. A Confucian canonical text lost since ancient times.
35. The argument here is that overrelying or, even worse, relying exclusively on any one of these classics turns its strengths into shortcomings through exaggeration; each of the six has to be used in conjunction with the other five to allow their strengths to moderate and balance one another.
36. All these are ingredients used in making lacquerware.
37. The inside pair of a quadriga pulls more of the weight of the load.
38. The first poem in the Odes; it begins with the cry of birds traditionally identified as ospreys.
39. Odes 161; it begins with the cry of the deer.
40. A reference to the Duke of Zhou’s own brothers, who turned against him when he became regent for King Cheng. See 11.18 and 20.25; and chap. 21, n. 31.
41. See 18.4; and Shiji 44/4b, 7l/4b, and 80/1a.
42. ZZ 2/4/25–26.
43. There is a pun here: some troops are lightly armed and highly mobile, and some are heavily armed and less mobile. But also some are brave and take life and death lightly; some are less brave and look upon life and death as weighty matters.
44. That is, those that take death lightly.
45. This line breaks the symmetry of the discussion of the four kinds of troops and may be a later intrusion.
46. A zhang is ten Chinese feet.
47. A zhu is a very tiny amount; a dan (sometimes translated “picul”) is 120 jin (catties). At about 250 grams to the catty in the early Han period, a dan weighed about 65 pounds.
48. Bian and ou were two types of vessels used on the ancestral altar. This paragraph describes petty details of sacrificial rites.
49. This is the person who acts as an intermediary between the world of the spirits and that of the living during the sacrificial ceremony.
50. This is the person who represents the spirits receiving the sacrifice.
51. This is an allusion to ZZ 1/2/11.
52. Ji and huan usually mean “fast” and “slow,” respectively,
but in reference to stringed instruments, they refer to string tension, “tight” and “loose,” respectively. We are grateful to qin player Jung-Ping Yuan and musicologist Bo Lawergren for helping us with the terminology of Chinese stringed-instrument playing.
53. This is a section of the Odes.
54. The same image appears in 14.54.
55. The same statement attributed to the Yellow Emperor appears in 10.3 and in LSCQ 13.2/64/23– 24; and Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 284.
56. Gong Zhiqi was a grandee of Yu during the Spring and Autumn period. Duke Xian offered horses to the prince of Yu, saying he wanted to cross Yu to attack the small state of Guo. Gong Zhiqi advised the prince not to accept them, for he knew that after annexing Guo, Jin would attack Yu. Another account of this incident is given in 18.5. See chap. 18, n. 33.
57. Zang Wuzhong was a grandee and minister of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period.
58. Changes 34/55.
59. This is presumably a reference to the customs of scarification (i.e., creating decorative patterns of scars on the body) and tattooing.
60. Under the Zhou dynasty, as described in the Zhouli, or Rites of Zhou, these were the taishi , or grand tutor; the taifu , or grand preceptor; and the taibao , or grand guardian.
61. The nine ministers under the Zhou, as described in the Zhouli, were the prime minister, minister of instruction, minister of religious ceremonies, minister of war, minister of crime, minister of public works, junior tutor, junior preceptor, and junior guardian.
62. This is a reference to Analects 12.19.
63. Lü Shang, spotted by the king fishing in a creek and elevated to high office.
64. Xi Peng (d. 645 B.C.E.), a grandee of Qi recruited into the government of Duke Huan by Guan Zhong, served as chief messenger to the court. Guan Zhong recommended that Xi Peng succeed him as prime minister on his death.
65. Li Si (d. 208 B.C.E.), a disciple of Xunzi and fellow student of Han Feizi, entered the government of Qin under the patronage of Lü Buwei and ultimately rose to be prime minister to the First Emperor. He was the driving force behind key policies such as a comprehensive ban on much of pre-Qin literature and the annihilation of local hereditary power. His biography is in Shiji 27.
66. Zhao Gao (d. 207 B.C.E.) was a powerful eunuch official at the court of the First Emperor. When the emperor died on an imperial tour, Zhao and Li Si conspired to forge orders commanding the suicide of the heir apparent and placing the ineffectual Prince Huhai on the throne in his place.
67. Prince Lufu was a son of the tyrant Djou enfeoffed by King Wu to carry on the sacrificial rites of the Shang royal house. When King Cheng acceded to the throne, with the Duke of Zhou as his regent, the prince rose in rebellion with the support of Guan Shu and Cai Shu. See 11.18 and 20.14; and chap. 21, n. 31.
68. Nanzi, the wife of Duke Ling. See LY 11/6/28.
69. Mi Zixia was a favorite of Duke Ling of Wey.
70. As it should, according to an earlier code of conduct.
71. That is, the people became homeless refugees. A very similar phrase appears in 19.6.
72. This is an allusion to Analects 19.21: “Zigong said, ‘The Superior Man’s errors are like an eclipse of the sun or the moon; when he errs, everyone notices it; but when he makes amends, everyone looks up to him.’”
73. The same phrase appears in 7.11.
74. Odes 239; Waley translates these lines as “Happiness to our lord! / In quest of blessings may he never fail” (Waley/Allen 1996, 234–35). See LSCQ 20.3/131/16.
75. Reading xin as ren . See Lau, HNZ, 218n.10.
76. This description reflects the orientation of Chinese maps, with south at the top of the page. The places named correspond approximately to the Yellow Sea, the Gobi Desert, Vietnam, and the Inner Asian frontier grasslands. This passage echoes the description of the Divine Farmer’s realm in 9.3.
77. This image of King Wu at war appears also in 6.1.
78. Used for signaling on the battlefield.
79. According to chap. 5, these are mao , “spear”; ji , “glaive”; jian , “sword”; ge , “halberd”; and sha , “partisan” (long-handled sword). Other lists of five weapons exist; all are products of late Warring States and Han environments and do not reflect the realities of early Zhou warfare.
80. The jade tablets were conferred on vassals as badges of office by the king. The Zhou’s gathering up the jade insignia tablets of the vassals of the Shang was a final sign of their triumph.
81. King Helü of Wu (r. 514–496 B.C.E.) was the father of King Fuchai. He usurped the throne of King Liao and went on to greatly increase the power of Wu, by some accounts becoming one of the Five Hegemons of the Zhou.
82. King Zhao of Chu (r. 515–489 B.C.E.), the son of King Ping.
83. Qiji was an earlier name of King Ping, the younger brother of King Ling. In 529 B.C.E., taking advantage of the absence of King Ling, he conspired with Prince Bi to murder the crown prince and set up Prince Bi as king. Later, he forced Prince Bi to commit suicide and set himself as up as King Ping.
84. Earl of Fan , a grandee of Zhou, was kidnapped by the Rong “barbarians” while on an embassy to Lu. See Zuozhuan, Yin 7.
85. Tiandu , the “Celestial Capital,” a constellation surrounding the celestial north pole.
86. A sighting tube, or aledade (guan ), is a thin tube (like a gun sight but without lenses) used to aim surveying instruments or astronomical instruments. See, for example, 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), 262. Using a level and a sighting tube, one can easily find the height of something (e.g., a tree or a wall) by means of triangulation.
This line and the two following lines echo Mencius 1A:7: “If you weigh [something], then its weight can be known; if you measure [something], then its length can be known.”
87. Yu is probably an error for jiao ; in seal-script orthography, yu and xiao (an alternative form of jiao ) are very similar; hence the translation “teach.”
88. “Metal eyes” must refer to some sort of sighting device; guan and zhun and quan and heng are real devices, so jinmu also should be a real instrument of some sort. The phrase jinmu appears, however, to be otherwise unknown. Needham does not mention it in his section on surveying techniques in Mathematics and the Sciences, 569–79. Possibly, it refers to a rudimentary theodolite used to find distances by means of triangulation.
89. A sighting device of some kind for a crossbow. Compare 15.5: “In archery, if the calibration of the sights is not correct, the target will not be hit.”
90. The “man-made lake” and “earth piled up high as mountains” refer to rulers’ fondness for making ornamental projects that waste the labor of the common people. Compare the five kinds of “profligate indolence” in 8.9.
91. LY 24/12/24.
92. Guoyu 4/11a/127.
93. Zuozhuan, Xi 20/1. Originally a reference to decisions about opening or closing gates, bridges and roads, walls and moats, to be made according to the requirements of a given point in time. Shang Yang used this term to refer to rewards and punishments, respectively.
94. Shen Buhai was a legalist philosopher and prime minister of Han. These “three tests” are alluded to in a commentary by Gao You but are not explicitly discussed in the surviving fragments of Shen’s writings.
95. The title of part 4, chap. 11, of the Hanfeizi (HFZ 11/19/19–11/21/11). It alludes to Han Feizi’s indignation over a situation in which influential men who curry favor by pandering to the ruler’s likes and dislikes prevail at court, but worthy and disinterested men are passed over for appointment to official posts. For a discussion of this chapter of the Hanfeizi, see Bertil Lundhal, Han Fei Zi: The Man and the Work (Stockholm: Institute of Oriental Studies, Stockholm University, 1992), 142–43.
96. Mentioned also in 21.4. During this era, Qin and Chu were the most powerful states vying through warfare to unite the Central Sta
tes. The Vertical Alliance refers to an alliance against the state of Qin in the west by six eastern states whose territory stretched vertically from south to north. The Horizontal Alliance was an alliance of six states whose territory stretched from east to west, organized by the Qin state to oppose the state of Chu.
97. Zinang (d. 559 B.C.E.) was a son of King Zhuang who served as prime minister under King Kang of Chu. He is often cited as a paragon of loyalty. See LSCQ 19.2/120/22ff.
98. See 12.40, 13.10, and 18.11.
99. These are sections of the Odes.
100. Said to have been written by Shun and Yu, respectively.
101. There is a play on words here, because the character means “music” when pronounced yue but means “joy” when pronounced le.
102. King [Youmu] of Zhao (r. 235–229 B.C.E.) was the penultimate ruler of Zhao before its destruction. He was captured by the army of Qin in 229 B.C.E. and released into penal exile inside the victor’s territory.
103. The assassination attempt took place in 227 B.C.E. Jing Ke tried to stab the king with a poisoned dagger but was thwarted and later was put to death. Jing Ke’s friend Gao Jianli, a noted musician, later also tried to assassinate the same monarch (by then known as the First Emperor of Qin) by striking him with his zhu while playing a recital; that attempt also failed, and Gao was executed.
104. Zhu , a five-stringed instrument.
105. According to commentators, the former refers to caps worn by high officials at court; the latter, to the royal carriage.
106. Taigeng was a meat broth used at sacrifices to the spirits.
107. That is, Shang Yang, Shenzi, Han Feizi, Su Qin, and Zhang Yi, as mentioned at the beginning of 20.35.
108. Master Yan ; but most accounts list this as Master Juan . See LSCQ 11.5/57/7; and Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:2111n.7. The latter points out that the historical person referred to here lived long after this incident is supposed to have occurred.
109. Reading kong . See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:2112n.9. Note ZZ 8/4/7; LSCQ 15.3/82/30; and LY 16/9/8. Arthur Waley translates the kung as “in all sincerity,” in The Analects of Confucius (London: Allen & Unwin, 1938), 140.