Divination and the State
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.54n4.200Abstract
Aiming at diversification and expansion of classification research, this in-depth study examines one of the six main classes in a two-thousand-year-old Chinese library catalog, the Seven Epitomes (Qilue 七略). The target class, the Epitome of Divination and Numbers, represents a group of divination manuals that are further divided into six subcategories. Through a contextualized analysis of the Epitome itself and other related texts, the study identifies a number of classificatory principles at work. The scope of the Epitome was evidently determined by government functions rather than objective observations of similarities and differences between topics represented in the library collection. In other words, the Epitome included technical manuals, as opposed to philosophical writings, collected by the offices in charge of divination in the imperial government. The study also examines the order between divisions and between individual texts within the Epitome. Further, the nature of the Epitome and its association with two modern-day concepts, science and religion, are clarified in the appropriate cultural and historical context. The final section discusses the significance of the current study and offers suggestions for future classification research.
References
Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books & Inscriptions (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr. 2004): 4-nFor example, see George Lakoff,
Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1987)nIn this paper, Chinese names and terms are rendered in
pinyin
, a popular Chinese romanization scheme. Chinese personal names are given in the Chinese custom, i.e., the family name followed by the given name. I have adopted the periodization of Chinese history used by the Library of CongressnYao Mingda 姚名達, Zhongguo muluxue shi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 2005)nMark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany, N.Y.: State Univ. of New York Pr. 1999): 327-nYao,
Zhongguo muluxue shinFor example, see Lai Xinxia 來新夏,
Gudian muluxue qian-shuo
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981)nIbidnXu Youfu 徐有富, Muluxue yu xueshushi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju 2009)nPan Gu [i.e., Ban Gu 班固],
The History of the Former Han Dynasty
, trans. Homer H. Dubs, 3 vols. (Baltimore: Waverly, 1938–55) [unfortunately, this partial translation does not include the Bibliographic Treatise]; Ssu-ma Ch’ien [i.e., Sima Qian 司馬遷],
Records of the Grand Historian of China
, trans. Burton Watson, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 1961)nDeng Junjie 鄧駿捷, preface to Liu Xin 劉歆,
Qilue yiwen
, with Liu Xiang 劉向,
Qilue bielu yiwen
, comp. Yao Zhenzong 姚振宗, ed. and suppl. Deng Junjie (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2008)nFor a full-length study on the Han Treatise, see Fu Rongxian 傅榮賢,
Hanshu “yiwenzhi” yanjiu yuanliu kao
(Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2007). For a brief introduction to the catalog in a text on traditional Chinese bibliography, see Cheng Qianfan 程千帆 and Xu Youfu 徐有富,
Jiaochou guangyi. Mulu bian
, 2nd ed. (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1998)nMany of these are cited in Fu, Hanshu
“yiwenzhi” yanjiun Xu Youfu 徐有富,
Muluxue yu xueshushi
nZuo Yuhe 左玉河, Cong sibu zhi xue dao qike zhi xue: xueshu fenke yu jindai zhongguo zhishi xitong zhi chuangjian (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe 2004)nSong Huiqun 宋會群, Zhongguo shushu wenhua shi (Kaifeng: Henan daxue chubanshe 1999)nLi Ling 李零, Zhongguo fangshu zhengkao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju 2006) Marc Kalinowski, “Technical Traditions in Ancient China and
Shushu
Culture in Chinese Religion,” in
Religion and Chinese Society
, ed. John Lagerwey (Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. Pr., 2004): 223–48; Zhao Yi 趙益,
Gudian shushu wenxian shulun gao
(Beijing Shi: Zhonghua shu ju, 2005)nLionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions & Universal Civilization (Durham: Duke Univ. Pr. 1997)nSee Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Michael Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions through Exemplary Figures in Early China,”
T’oung Pao
, no. 1–3 (2003); Donald Harper, “Warring States Natural Philosophy and Occult Thought,” in
The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C.
, ed. Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, 813–84 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1999)nLiu Xin,
Qilue yiwennIbid., 105. Ming Tang was the name of a palace where state divinatory rituals were performed for religious and diplomatic purposes. “Xihe” could be the name of one person or the family names of two or four individuals according to different sourcesnFung Yu-Lan, Derk Bodde, A History of Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr. 1952)nZhang Xuecheng 章學誠, Jiaochou tongyi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 2002)nHur-Li Lee, Wen-Chin Lan, '“Purposes and Bibliographic Objectives of a Pioneer Library Catalog in China,”' Library Quarterly 79 no. 2 (2009): 205-31nYu Jiaxi 余嘉錫, Muluxue fawei; han, Gushu tongli (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin daxue chubanshe 2004)nMark Csikszentmihalyi, Livia Kohn Ed., Harold David Roth Ed., '“Traditional Taxonomies and Revealed Texts in the Han,”' Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Pr. 2002): 81-101nThe quotation under each of the divisions is from the original text of the Han Treatise, somewhat abbreviated, translated by Bodde (in Fung,
A History of Chinese Philosophy
, 1: 26–28). Romanization in that translation is Wade-Giles. To help readers understand the translation, I have added several notes in brackets. Many works on excavated texts similar to those in the Epitome of Divination provide valuable information regarding this class; for example, see Li Ling 李零,
Jianbo gushu yu xueshu yuanliu
(Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xizhi sanlian shudian, 2004)nMost scholars describe
tianwen
as astrology or astronomy because no clear-cut distinction was made then between the two. See Michael Loewe, “The Religious and Intellectual Background,” in
The Cambridge History of China
, ed. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe, 649–725 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1986). In addition, a prominent astronomer Chen Zungui 陳遵媯 explains that
tianwen
before the modern time included study of elements and phenomena in both the outer space and the earth’s atmosphere, which means that
tianwen
also covered meteoromancy. See Chen Zungui,
Zhongguo tian wen xue shi
, 3 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2006). Three of the books listed in the division of Patterns of Heaven clearly mentioned in their titles clouds, rain, and rainbownOxford English Dictionary Online (Oxford, England: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2000), s.v. “Chronology” [proprietary source] (accessed June 15, 2010)nThe text quoted from the
Book of Changes
(
I
) in this summary is actually from two separate passages. The translator mistakenly puts them into a single set of quotation marks. Hence, correction is made with additional punctuationnA couple of books in this division seemed to cover divination topics relating to agricultural activities such as planting trees and raising silkwormsn“Siting” is an English term used by Bennett to replace the old translation, “geomancy,” to mean the selection of a site with good energetic qualities that is suitable for a walled city or any building, relying on observation of celestial phenomena and other mantic methods. See Steven J. Bennett, “Patterns of the Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology,”Chinese Science 3(1978): 1–26nChen Lai 陳來, Gudai zongjiao yu lunli: Rujia sixiang de genyuan (Taipei: Yunchen wenhua 2005)nHans Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Pr. 1980)nZuo, Sibu zhi xue, 48; see also
Zhonghua wenmingshi,
vol. 1, comp. Yan Wenming 嚴文明 and Li Ling李零 (Beijing: Beijingdaxue chubanshe, 2006): 397nLewis,
Writing and Authority in early ChinanFor more information about this dichotomy, see Hur-Li Lee and Wen-Chin Lan, “Proclaiming Intellectual Authority Through Classification: The Case of The
Seven Epitomes
,”
Knowledge Organization
(forthcoming)nZuo,
Sibu zhi xue
, 19nRichard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently—and Why (New York: Free Press 2003)nElaine Svenonius, The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization (Cambridge: Mass.: MIT Pr. 2000)nSee, for example, Lü Shaoyu 呂紹虞,
Zhongguo muluxue shi gao
(Hefei shi: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 1984)nKalinowski, “Technical Traditions”; Nathan Sivin, “Science and Medicine in Chinese History,” in
Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections
(Aldershot, Great Britain: Variorum, 1995): VI:164–96nJeeLoo Liu, An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy: From Ancient Philosophy to Chinese Buddhism (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell 2006)nLoewe, “Religious and Intellectual Background”; Bielenstein,
BureaucracynS. R. Ranganathan, Prolegomena to Library Classification (New York: Asian Publishing House 1967)nYu-Lan,
A History of Chinese Philosophy
, 26nMichael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr. 2001)nMichael Loewe, '“Divination by Shells, Bones and Stalks During the Han Period,”' Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr. 1994): 160-90nFor example, Bodde translates
zazhan
as “miscellaneous divinations” and Lloyd translates it as “miscellaneous prognostic procedures.” See Fung,
Chinese Philosophy
, 1: 28; G.E.R. Lloyd,
Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections: Philosophical Perspectives on Greek and Chinese Science and Culture
(Oxford, England: Clarendon, 2004): 27. The same division is also translated as “other methods of divination” by Richard E. Strassberg,
A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas
(Berkeley: Univ. of CaliforniaPr., 2002): 15nScholars encounter the same problem of interpretation in the
zajia
, the eighth division in the Epitome of the Masters. Increasingly “Eclectics” or “Eclectic School,” instead of “Miscellaneous School,” is used as the translation for this division. For an example in English, see R.P. Peerenboom,
Law and Morality in Ancient China: The Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao
(Albany: State Univ. of New York Pr., 1993): 230nYang Xiong 揚雄, Fangyan (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu 1975) Xu Shen 許慎,
Shuowen jiezi
(Taipei: Shijie, [1986])nThis is the translation used in Kalinowski, “Technical Traditions.”nDavid Hinton, The Analects (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint 1998)nZuo,
Sibu zhi xuenLü,
Zhongguo muluxuenIbid., 13–14nFor example, Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin,
The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece
(New Haven: Yale Univ. Pr., 2002)nSivin, “Science and Medicine in Chinese History.”nIbid., 190nLloyd and Sivin,
The Way and the Word
, 4nChristopher Cullen, '“The
Suan shu shu
‘
Writings on Reckoning
’: Rewriting the History of Early Chinese Mathematics in the Light of an Excavated Manuscript,”' Historia Mathematica 34 no. 1 (2007): 10-44nGu Hongyi 顧宏義, '“
Qilue
weihe weishou falü tushu?: Qiantan Xi Han falü tushu de jiaoli,”' Gui tu xue kan 37 (1989): 48-49 Liu Yizheng 柳詒徵,
Zhongguo wen hua shi
(Taipei: Zheng Zhong shu ju, 1982)nKalinowski, “Technical Traditions”; Harper, “Natural Philosophy and Occult Thought.”nJeeLoo Liu, An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy : 59-60nLoewe, “Religious and Intellectual Background,” 706nRandall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap 1998): 154-n
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after it has been accepted for publication. Sharing can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
