by An Liu
the sound [was so thunderous that] all the pheasants outside the city walls cried out.
In a single morning [session of court] he distributed three thousand bushels [of grain] as largesse. Liangqiu Ju and Zijia Kuai41 led him about from the left and the right.42
Thus, the admonitions of Master Yan were born.43 [21/228/13–14]
In the twilight of the [Zhou] era, with the lords of the six states
the gorges were differentiated and the valleys were set apart,
the rivers were divided up and the mountains parceled out.
Each
governed his own realm
and defended his allotted territory
by seizing the handles of power
and by enforcing his governmental ordinances.
Below there were no regional governors,
while above there was no Son of Heaven.
They launched violent military campaigns in their struggles for power,
and the victor became the most honored.
They
relied on alliances with states,
bound themselves through important exchanges,
divided pledge tallies,
and established relations with distant regions,
thereby
preserving their principalities
and maintaining their ancestral altars.
Thus, the Vertical and Horizontal44 Alliances and the Long- and Short-Term Coalitions were born. [21/228/16–18]
Master Shen45 was the assistant of Marquis Zhaoxi of Hann46 when the state of Hann broke off from the state of Jin. The land of these states was barren and their subjects were hostile, being wedged between powerful states.
The ancient rituals of the Jin state had not yet been destroyed,
while the new laws of the Hann state were repeatedly promulgated.
Ordinances of the previous rulers had not yet been rescinded,
while the ordinances of the later rulers were also being handed down.
Since new and old contradicted each other
and before and after undermined each other,
the various officials [of the state of Hann] were at cross-purposes and in confusion;
they did not know what [practices] to employ.
Thus, the writings on performance and title47 were born. [21/228/20–22]
The customs of the kingdom of Qin were covetous and wolfish, forceful and violent.
They diminished Rightness and pursued profit.
Though they could awe others through punishments,
they could not transform them through goodness.
Though they could encourage others through rewards,
they could not restrain them by [appeals to] their reputations.
Shielded by precipices and encircled by the Yellow River,
the Qin’s four borders were thereby fortified.
The land was fertile and the topography advantageous
so that the Qin stockpiled reserves and burgeoned wealth.
Duke Xiao of Qin48 wanted to swallow up the Lords of the Land with the ferocity of a tiger or wolf. Thus, the laws of Shang Yang49 were born. [21/228/24–26]
In this book of the Liu clan [i.e., the Huainanzi], [we have]
observed the phenomena of Heaven and Earth,
penetrated past and present discussions,
weighed affairs and established regulations,
measured forms and applied what is suitable,
traced to its source the heart of the Way and its Potency,
and united the customs of the Three Kings,50
collecting them and alloying them.
At the core of the Profound Mystery,
the infinitesimal movements of the essence have been revealed.
By casting aside limits and boundaries
and by drawing on the pure and the tranquil,
[We have] thereby
unified the world,
brought order to the myriad things,
responded to alterations and transformations,
and comprehended their distinctions and categories.
We have not
followed a path made by a solitary footprint
or adhered to instructions from a single perspective
or allowed ourselves to be entrapped or fettered by things so that we would not advance or shift according to the age.
Thus,
situate [this book] in the narrowest of circumstances and nothing will obstruct it;
extend it to the whole world and it will leave no empty spaces. [21/228/28–31]
Translated by Sarah A. Queen and Judson Murray
1. For jigang and jingwei as verbs, see the related description of the Grand One as one who “knots the net of the eight directional end points and weaves the web of the six coordinates” in 8.7.
2. For the various usages and meanings of li , see app. A.
3. Zhongshi .
4. Literally, “float and sink.”
5. Literally, “go and stop.”
6. This list of chapters is in rhymed trisyllabic verse. For its rhyme-scheme, see the introduction to this chapter.
7. The phrase lu mou is rather obscure. Most commentators take it as equivalent to lu mou , “pupil of the eye”; the implication is that the six coordinates (i.e., the three dimensions: up–down, front–back, left–right) are compressed to the size of the pupil of an eye.
8. The term zhen literally means “carriage crossbar” but also is a synecdoche for “chariot frame” and, by extension, for a framework of any kind.
9. Deleting hui as an erroneous intrusion, and rejecting Lau’s (HNZ 21/224/9) emendation of hui to dong .
10. Wei chu , taking wei here as a modifier implying a singular inception of the cosmos.
11. Reading sheng as shi . See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:2136n.29.
12. Canwu , “(correlations of ) threes and fives,” is a system for analyzing problems; “threes” refers to the triad of Heaven, Earth, and Man; “fives,” to the Five Phases. See 9.19 and 20.11.
13. That is, Laozi and Zhuangzi.
14. “Ragged seams and hems” and “gaps in crooked and chattering teeth” are metaphors for the various shortcomings of the age, the consequences of persistent decline from the primordial era of sage-rulership.
15. This is a reference to both the primordial age’s radical reliance on the Way and the inherent nature of the sage-ruler.
16. Bing , literally, “illness,” but here used in a more general sense to mean “harm” or “misfortune.”
17. Yan ni , metaphorically, “constancy and change,” but literally, “the path of the sun across the sky”—which is constant in the sense of being entirely predictable but also ever-changing as the position of sunrise and sunset on the horizon and the height of the sun’s arc across the sky shift every day throughout the seasons of the year.
18. The term we translate as “diagnose,” zuanmai , means “needle and pulse,” both used as verbs: to insert an acupuncture needle (into someone) and to take (someone’s) pulse.
19. That is, it allows you to investigate these things from their faint, almost archaeological, traces (metaphorically, footprints and eroded boundary markers).
20. These two lines reiterate the knotting and weaving metaphors (jigang and jingwei ) found in the opening paragraph of this chapter.
21. That is, the myriad things are fired (tao) like ceramics and smelted (ye) like metal.
22. Profoundly Illustrious (Honglie ) was an early alternative title for the Huainanzi.
23. For clarity, the corresponding chapter titles are in brackets.
24. Bian .
25. Bi Gan is the most famous example of a person executed for remonstrating with the vicious King Djou of the Shang dynasty.
26. The expression er chui , which also occurs in 12.35, is variously interpreted as meaning “two-thirds” or “one-half.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1273n.1.
27. The tutor to Kings Wen and Wu, the Grand Duke (ta
igong , also known as Grand Duke Wang of Lü) was said to have assisted the Zhou in their conquest of the Shang. In the Lüshi chunqiu, he is cited on numerous occasions for the good influence he had on these kings. See, for example, Knoblock and Riegel 2000, 2/4.2A, 4/3.1, 24/2.1. Several works attributed to him are listed in Han shu 30 under the rubric dao jia, or “Daoist school.” See Han shu 30/1729.
28. Following Xu Shen’s reading of the character fu “tax” as bing , “soldiers.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:2153n.7.
29. Muye was the location of the decisive battle in the Zhou conquest of the Shang.
30. The Yi and Di tribes were people living beyond the Central States. The people of the Central States considered their customs barbarous and uncivilized.
31. Cai Shu and Guan Shu were the two eldest of the younger brothers (shu) of King Wu; they were deputed to govern parts of the former Shang territory after King Wu conquered the Shang. When King Wu died, his heir, King Cheng, was still a minor, and the youngest brother of King Wu (Dan, the Duke of Zhou) became his regent. Cai Shu and Guan Shu, apparently dissatisfied with that arrangement, rebelled against the Zhou house. They supported an attempted restoration of the Shang under Prince Lufu but were defeated by the Duke of Zhou in the ensuing civil war. See 11.18, 20.14, and 20.25.
32. The youngest brother of King Wu of Zhou, the Duke of Zhou acted as regent to King Cheng when he was a minor; he is regarded as a paragon of good government and filial piety.
33. This was in order that the drum signal to retreat could not be given.
34. That is, the ru. See the discussion of this term in the general introduction to this book.
35. Although still not securely historically attested, the Xia dynasty was believed to have preceded the Shang dynasty. Its dates are thought to have been approximately 1950 to 1550 B.C.E. In Mozi’s time, any knowledge of Xia rituals would have been highly speculative.
36. Yu, the legendary tamer of China’s version of the Great Flood, was also considered the founder of the Xia dynasty.
37. That is, no special effort was made to find auspicious sites for tombs.
38. Duke Huan of Qi (r. 685–643 B.C.E.) was the first of the Lords of the Land to be named a hegemon (ba ).
39. These writings have likely come down to us as the work entitled Guanzi, named for Guan Zhong, the most famous (but possibly legendary) minister to Duke Huan of Qi. He is often credited with reforming his state and assisting the duke in his rise to become the first of the Five Hegemons of the Central States.
40. Duke Jing of Qi (r. 547–509 B.C.E.) reigned as a hegemon.
41. Liangqiu Ju is depicted in the Yanzi chunqiu as a sycophant who had a deleterious influence on Duke Jing. The identity of Zijia Kuai is unclear; he may be Hui Qian (also known as Yi Kuan ), a minister often depicted as being in cahoots with Liangqiu Ju.
42. That is, in their capacity as his civil and military ministers.
43. The admonitions of Master Yan has likely come down to us as the work entitled Yanzi Chunqiu (The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan), a collection of admonitions delivered by Yan Ying (ca. 589–500 B.C.E.) principally to Duke Jing of Qi. The admonitions and other anecdotes about Yanzi depict and convey his virtuous character.
44. See chap. 20, n. 95.
45. Master Shen, or Shen Buhai, served Marquis Zhao of Hann and, in that capacity, advocated government by strict laws. He particularly emphasized administrative techniques—the devices by which a ruler can examine and test his bureaucracy. In particular, he advocated that officials were to act in strict accordance with the prescriptive titles of their posts. This technique was intended to consolidate the ruler’s power.
46. Marquis Zhaoxi of Hann reigned from 362 to 333 B.C.E.
47. H. G. Creel, “The Meaning of Hsing-ming,” in What Is Taoism? And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 79–91.
48. Duke Xiao of Qin died in 338 B.C.E.
49. Shang Yang helped carry out a series of reforms in the Qin state when he served Duke Xiao.
50. The Three Kings were Yu of the Xia, Tang of the Shang, and Wen or Wu of the Zhou.
Appendix A
KEY CHINESE TERMS AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS
THIS APPENDIX explains the translation decisions that we as a team made concerning the most significant terms in the conceptual framework of the Huainanzi. Most of the following entries address both translational and interpretive issues, partly because the two are inextricably intertwined. The Huainanzi is such a sophisticated and unusual text that many terms require unconventional or flexible translations, and these decisions cannot be justified without discussing how each term is used in the larger perspective of the text as a whole. Beyond this, however, we felt that a detailed discussion of both the background and the contextual usage of the central concepts of the Huainanzi would be helpful. Readers may encounter some repetition of themes or ideas both in this appendix and between these entries and the general and chapter introductions earlier in this volume, but we hope that such redundancies are excusable in the interest of making them more convenient to use. At the end of this appendix is a list to help track the Chinese transliterations of terms from their English equivalents. We have tried to translate key terms consistently, but in a work this large there will undoubtedly be some inconsistencies. Thus certain translations of common terms that appear in the body of the translation may not appear here, even though a synonym that serves as an alternative translation of the term may offer the same information.
ba hegemon
The ba was an office created during the Spring and Autumn period (770–481 B.C.E.) to authorize the ruler of one or another of the states that made up the Chinese polity to act as primus inter pares of state rulers on behalf of the Zhou king. The invention of the office is credited to Guan Zhong, the prime minister of Qi; the ruler whom Guan served, Duke Huan of Qi, was the first to hold the office. The office of hegemon was created in response to the declining power of the Zhou kings. Duke Huan (and subsequent hegemons) held a commission from the Zhou Son of Heaven to summon the other Lords of the Land to council, where he would adjudicate interstate disputes and organize the defense of the Zhou realm against non-Sinic peoples. The legitimacy of the hegemon as an institution became a hotly contested issue in pre-Han literature, with texts such as the Mencius decrying it as an aberrant devolution from the moral authority of the sage-kings, and other texts such as the Guanzi celebrating its progressive efficacy. The Huainanzi generally agrees with earlier texts like the Xunzi, which take a medial position. It views the office of hegemon as a provisionally efficacious response to a particular time but ranks the legitimacy and excellence of such a figure far below that of a true king or emperor.
ben root, basis, foundation, fundamental, basic
Throughout the Huainanzi, the “root” signifies the fundamental organic principle of all cosmic, cognitive, physiological, personal, historical, and political realms. All things are conceived as having emerged from an undifferentiated yet dynamically generative root and to have achieved a progressively elaborate form through a process of ramification and individuation. Thus the cosmos progressed from the Grand One (that is, the Way) to yin and yang, the Five Phases, and the myriad things. The mind progresses from unified tranquillity and vacuity to ever more complex states of perception, emotion, and cognition. The human body develops from a protean embryo to an intricate structure of organs, limbs, and extremities. The person evolves from unself-conscious infant through increasingly sophisticated stages of self-awareness and maturity. History moves from the earliest eras of unalloyed simplicity through eras of successively more sophisticated and complex forms of economic, political, and social organization. Finally, the political realm begins with the simple apophatic self-cultivation of the ruler but extends through increasingly differentiated moral and cultural realms until it arrives at the minute contingencies of standards, measures, methods, and procedures. Intrinsic to the Huainanzi’s conceptual
ization of the root is the principle that the root is not consumed or dissipated by the process by which it differentiates into posterior phenomena. Rather, it persists and continues to pervade and control the ramified structure that it generated. For example, even in a latter age of intense elaboration, the Way remains the initiating and motive force at the basis of all processes and the single root that must be accessed if one hopes to influence or control events.
benmo root and branch, fundamental and peripheral
“Root and branch” designates the basic structural relationship informing all cosmic and human realms. In all domains, “root” and “branch” constituents may be identified. For example, in the cosmos the Way is the root, and Heaven, Earth, yin, and yang are branches; in the mind, tranquillity is the root, and perceptions, feelings, and thoughts are branches. In all root–branch relations, the root stands in a position of both diachronic, temporal priority and synchronic, normative priority to the branches. Thus the Way is prior to Heaven and Earth in that it existed first and continues to impel and control the latter phenomena even after they come into existence. In the same way, the mind’s basic tranquillity precedes all perception, emotion, and thought and normatively should control and regulate all the operations of the mind even after its tranquillity has been stimulated to motion by external phenomena. Other root–branch structural relationships described by the Huainanzi likewise stand in the same position of relative temporal/normative priority and posteriority to one another (see ben).
bian to alter, to vary, to change; permutations
Several words for “change” are used throughout the Huainanzi, and in our translation we have tried to distinguish among them consistently. Bian has the sense of alteration among states of being (for example, from a yin to a yang state, or vice versa) or of variation within defined parameters. It differs from hua , “transformation,” in implying alternation or variation rather than fundamental and lasting change. The change from a caterpillar to a butterfly, for example, which is both substantive and irreversible, is a frequently cited instance of hua in the earlier literature. By contrast, a change that involves the realignment of constituent parts in a dynamic system (and that may be or is regularly reversed), such as that from day to night and back again, would be considered an instance of bian. In a few instances, we translate bian simply as “to change.” See also hua , yi , and yi .