Organizer and Chair: Mark E. Lewis, University of Cambridge
Discussant: Michael Nylan, Bryn Mawr College
Although stererotyped in the West as the very image of changelessness, Chinese civilization has always placed the phenomenon of change at the center of its analyses of the natural world and human society. In contrast to Western thinkers after Plato, who have tended to seek order or meaning in unchanging essences or laws hidden behind transitory phenomena, Chinese writers have accepted the reality of change and claimed to find truth and authority through their insights into the transitory and shifting. This was particularly true in the late Warring States and early imperial periods, when change was regarded as the defining characteristic of reality, and authority in all its forms was held to derive from an ability to recognize the patterns within change and bring those patterns to fruition. In our panel we propose to examine various ideas about change that were prominent during the Han dynasty and to show how those ideas were closely linked to models of authority in the state, the family, and the intellectual community.
In the first paper Mark Edward Lewis will examine the roots of the change based cosmology which dominated Han thought, and he will show the relation of this cosmology to the emergent political ideal of the ruler as the sage who mastered change. This paper will include a discussion of how the Han cosmology based on change (yi) emerged from divinatory practices (the Yi jing and related texts) and calendrics (wu xing theory), and how these were all related to the developing theory and practice of imperial power. It will also discuss the theory of the sage ruler as prophet, particularly as embodied in the figure of Confucius. It will link these themes of divination and prophecy with the image of authority that had emerged in the Warring States military texts, where reading the patterns of flux and seizing the pivotal moments of change were the keys to power. These political theories will be linked with the changed based hermeneutic that emerged in the philosophical schools and commentarial traditions of the period, a hermeneutic embodied in the duality of classic (jing) and transmission (zhuan). Finally, it will examine the theory of the evolution of rites and music, which insisted on the necessity of regular change in the central performances of government and entrusted the sage with the introduction of such changes.
In the second paper Roel Sterckx will deal with another element of Han ideas about change, the metamorphosis or prodigy (bian). This paper will examine the fundamental role in Han thought of the idea that one species of animal could turn into another, that animals could turn into men, or that men could turn into animals. It will also look at the tremendous importance assigned to those animals regarded as the exemplars of metamorphosis (dragons and tigers) or which were composed of multiple species (the phoenix, qilin, and the hybrids of the Shan hai jing and Han art). It will demonstrate the role of such transformations and hybrids as models for government policy, responses to imperial conduct, tests or challenges that demonstrated understanding and generated power, or elements in the regalia and miranda of imperial power described in the treatises on chariots and court costumes. It will also use demonographies, divination manuals, and critical compendia of religious beliefs to demonstrate the importance of metamorphosis at the level of the household.
The final paper by Ken Brashier will deal with the problem of change as the defining feature of human development and the constitution of the family. In Han theory men were created through a process of controlled change (hua), and each stage in the human life cycle was a transition that had to be secured through mastery of transformation. Due to limits of time it will deal largely with the last and most important of these changes, the process of dying, in which living beings were transformed into ancestors or powerful "immortal" spirits. Using Han funerary inscriptions supplemented by tomb art and literary texts, it will examine Han ideas about the possible changes undergone by human beings in the course of dying, the rituals or forms of action that sought to guide these changes, and the means by which authority was created in the world of the living through the control of the changes undergone in and after death. This examination will deal with the importance of guiding the process of dying both at the state level and the levels of the household, the kin group, the local community, and scholarly associations.
Mark E. Lewis, University of Cambridge
The sage was the ideal man of Warring States and early imperial China, both for the scholar and the ruler, and in this period the sage was above all a master of change. In this paper I will examine the origins of the links between change and sagehood, and show the various aspects of imperial theory and practice which demonstrated the centrality of change to imperial power.
One of the most important and ancient sources of the pivotal role assigned to mastery of change in Chinese civilization was the contribution of divination to social practice and political power. Divination was above all a means of interpreting and mastering change, and it played a crucial role in the emergence and evolution of the state in China. The existence of the Shang oracle bones and their diverse contents already highlight the primordial importance of divination in the early Chinese state, and divination remained crucial under the Zhou. The ability to select the correct or divinely sanctioned course of action in the midst of changing circumstances was crucial to authority throughout the period of the archaic polity in China. The image of ruler as diviner continued to be of importance in a variety of guises during the Han. The Huainanzi insists repeatedly that the sage ruler is the man who can see the hidden patterns in the flux of events and master them. In the Confucian school the Yijing, which was based directly on a divination manual and had been absent from the major texts appealed to in the Lun yu, became one of the two most studied classics. It was interpreted as a text on the cosmic underpinnings of human society and the state, and this link of rulership to the divination of patterns of change became the subject not only of numerous commentaries but also of elaborate philosophical development, notably the Tai xuan jing of Yang Xiong. The ability to read the signs of nature-in prodigies, dreams, or a host of other phenomena-also figured prominently as a defining trait of rulers or ministers in the didactic literature and the monographs of the dynastic histories.
Closely linked to the identification of the ruler or his advisors as supreme diviners was the theory of the sage as prophet. Such theories developed in the Warring States, and were the subject of criticism by such thinkers as Han Fei, but they reached their highest development in the image of Confucius developed within the commentarial tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals, the single most influential "classic" in Han China. In this tradition the text of the classic was understood as Confucius's prophetic modeling of laws for the future Han state. As the "uncrowned king" of his day, Confucius foresaw the future Han state and legislated its institutions in the form of his coded judgments. Such a theory figures not only among the dominant "New Text" Confucian schools but also appears as a statement of fact in the writings of the "skeptical" Wang Chong. The image of Confucius as seer was also the fundamental presupposition of the entire body of chan wei literature.
In addition to the links to divination and prophecy, the theory of the sage ruler as the master of change also had a basis in the early military texts. These texts, which had been of central importance in the Warring States and were still significant in the Han as shown by tomb finds, developed a theory of authority defined by the ability to recognize the dynamic tendencies of circumstances, identify the first moment of incipient change, and then strike. The close links between these theories and some Han theories of rulership are demonstrated in several chapters of the Huainanzi.
A final element of early imperial political theory and practice that insisted on the ruler as master of change was the theory of the formalized modification of rites and music. This doctrine, which emerged in the writings of various thinkers of the fourth and third centuries B.C., insisted that each dynasty had to change the rites and music received from its predecessor in order to demonstrate its own independence and assert its legitimacy. The ability to make such changes in rites and music without losing their deeper significance and power was the hallmark of the sage ruler. Such theories were prominent amongst leading Han theoreticans of ritual, including Shusun Tong who argued that rituals had to be adapted to the spirit of the age, or Jia Yi who insisted that the Han had to modify its calendar, court robes, and other features of imperial ritual in order to distinguish itself from the Qin. Like several of the features discussed above, these ideas allowed Han thinkers to develop a theory of political order which claimed authority from the past for radical innovations intended to confront a transformed world.
Roel Sterckx, University of Cambridge
This paper examines the aspect of change defined by the phenomena of metamorphosis and hybrids. I will argue that the classic Chinese perception of the world did not insist on clear categorical or ontological boundaries between animals, human beings, ghosts, and spirits, but that rather these were understood within a paradigm of constant change, spontaneous generation, mutation, and metamorphosis. Such metamorphoses and hybrids figured as regular occurrences that provided models for authority, anomalous events that signaled misconduct, and agents of daemonic power who could alternatively bless or destroy.
Based on a cosmogonic theory of the emergence of all things from a primal unity or an undifferentiated energy (qi), many early Chinese texts (Huainanzi, Liezi, Zhuangzi) elaborated theories in which the various animal species and even mineral elements developed through a process of metamorphosis in which all species mutated from primal types. Such normative animal metamorphosis also appears as a regular feature in the calendrical literature of the period, and the knowledge of such transformations and the principles guiding them was essential to the conduct of the ruler. Indeed, since the political and religious thought of the period insisted on the extension of imperial power to the animal realm, the mastery of animal transformations and the ability to transform animals, e.g., to humanize them through music, were essential aspects of imperial power.
In addition to such regular or repetitive transformations, late Warring States and Han texts contain numerous accounts of uncanny or anomalous transformations in which men turn into animals or develop animal traits, e.g., horns, or in which animals turn into men. The products of such mutations possessed daemonic properties which could affect the lives of individual households or the entire state. Such metamorphoses-including physical transformation, gender changes, miraculous births, sexual union between different species, and the appearance of hybrids-are a central feature of Han portent literature. Physical metamorphoses of animals were interpreted as transcending the normal limits of the natural world and were consequently significant indications of social or cosmological changes induced by the "transcendent" powers of the emperor. Such metamorphoses were understood as responses to actions of the emperor or his officials, and their interpretation was a fundamental element of the political discourse of the period. Such prodigies were also a part of life at the level of the household, as is shown by accounts of metamorphoses with advice on their significance and the appropriate responses to them in religious manuals (the Yunmeng demonography) or critical compendia of religious beliefs (Lun heng, Fengsu tongyi). Animal metamorphoses became so standard as themes of analysis that interpreters introduced terms such as "chicken calamities" or "dog calamities" as routine categories of natural signs.
Closely related to the products of metamorphosis were the hybrid creatures who blurred the distinctions between species. Hybrids figured prominently in Han art and literature, and they operated as potent signs and influences throughout the whole tissue of imperial power. Indeed all the sacred animals of Han China were understood either as hybrids or as beings gifted with the power of metamorphosis, and many of them were both. These hybrid and transforming creatures figured not only as divine responses to imperial action but also in accounts of the emperor's music and his sacred processions, and they served as recurring motifs of imperial regalia. In mounting chariots and wearing robes decorated with the image of dragons and other transforming creatures, the emperor and his officials sought to take on the attributes of the hybrids and those with the powers of change.
Thus animal transformations and hybrids figured in the constitution of power both in the state and the household. As cosmic ruler and Son of Heaven, the emperor's power by definition extended into the animal world and drew its powers therefrom. Regular transformations provided models for the rulers actions, his powers elicited human conduct from lower creatures, bizarre metamorphoses or prodigies appeared as responses to misconduct, while hybrid animals and those gifted with powers of change appeared in response to proper government and figured as permanent elements of imperial costume and regalia. At lower levels of society, the products of metamorphosis also figured in the life of the household or in political careers, and responses to prodigies and daemonic creatures could determine whether families experienced prosperity or disaster.
Ken Brashier, University of Cambridge
The Liezi described the course of human life as four great transformations (hua) extending from birth to death. Underlying this was the idea that there was no fixed or eternal self, but rather a series of pivotal mutations that marked the key points in a constant process of change. Each of these transformations entailed significant risks which had to be negotiated through appropriate rituals and moral conduct. Han thinkers thus developed theories of fetal education (tai jiao) that would secure a proper birth, insisted on the centrality of education (jiao hua) in creating proper humans and preserving the social order, and devoted considerable attention to the last transformation, death. However, this "great transformation" (da hua), as it is described in Eastern Han stone inscriptions, lacked clear cut borders or a decisive moment-there was no "black minute" of death as Robert Browning called it. Instead it was part of a continuous process which began long before physical death and continued into the after-life. Thus an Eastern Han divination guide, the Yilin, described the spirit withering away even as the aging body became ugly and the teeth began to rot. This same idea of death as a process that runs throughout the human life span figured prominently in Xi Kang's and Ge Hong's theories on the cultivation of immortality. Likewise, Han scholastics described the metal phase of the five phases not as a point of death but as the beginning of the emergence of the killing vital energy. As in Yi jing divination, there were no absolute breaks, but only pivotal moments of incipient change which had to be correctly perceived and dealt with in order to secure desired results.
Just as there was no clean break or decisive moment in the continuum of dying, so funerary rites and theories of the afterlife identified death as an ongoing process of change. The various stages of the preparation of the corpse and the transformation of the spirit are carefully laid out in the ritual manuals, and the funerary inscriptions indicate that up to a year could pass between physical death and the completion of burial. The funerary ritual of the ancestral temple also identified the state of the deceased as a continuous process of change, a slow fading into oblivion. When discussing the zhaomu placement of temple tablets, the Zuo zhuan distinguished between the big ghosts of the recently dead and the small ghosts of those long dead. The Chun qiu fan lu likewise discussed temple tablets, and it argued that the soul of the dead and his remembrance fade together into nothingness. Eastern Han stelae, which seem to have evolved from temple tablets, also drew parallels between the soul and the remembrance of the dead. The shifting of the tablets with each generational change and their ultimate abandonment marked a controlled process of transformation in which a man's descendants first turned him into a serviceable ancestor who could provide blessings, and then directed the steps of his gradual descent into nothingness. Thus physical death was described as a continuous process subject to divination, control, and potential alteration. The ability to master this process was crucial to health, a successful career, and the creation of kin groups.
Since the kin group was constituted as a unit through patterns of mourning and memory, the ability to turn deceased kin into ancestors, to preserve them cultically and in memory, and to control the sequence of their transformations was fundamental to authority both within the family and in the state. This idea is clearly marked by the Warring States and Han ritual doctrine in which the number of generations preserved in cult was directly proportional to status and power. The power to make offerings also marked authority within the family, and inclusion within or exclusion from the web of sacrifice was a crucial element of social existence. Thus some kin could be left unnamed on a stelae, or denied a stelae altogether, especially in the case of children. As identity, remembrance, and the soul went hand in hand, children who had not yet developed a social identity left few memories and therefore were often excluded from the afterlife. However, in a couple of exceptional cases funerary inscriptions were devoted to children who were thus socially preserved in memory and cult.
The gradual disappearance of the soul enacted in the ancestral cult was, however, only one of the possible transformations in the Han process of dying. Another possibility was to become an immortal, a theme which was criticized as anti familial by many writers but which seems to have been incorporated into the Eastern Han ancestral cult, if we may judge from the evidence of tomb art. Yet another changed state was that of unhappy ghosts and aggrieved spirits, products of failures in the process of transformation of living beings into ancestors. Such dangerous spirits figure prominently in Eastern Han literature and divination materials, and they offer further insight into the problems and potential in controlling the "great change" of death.
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