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Interesting picture from the Qinghua Manuscripts

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hmesker

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This picture has been going around a while but I think it is important enough to have it filed in this forum.

104728oiinuumfrf3ynf41.jpg

http://www.yjcn.nl/images/shifa.jpg (warning: large image)

From the Qinghua bamboo manuscripts (http://now.dartmouth.edu/2013/05/tsinghua-bamboo-manuscripts-offer-clues-about-early-china/). It shows the trigrams connected to the human body, as known from the 說卦. The Qinghua documents have the same style of writing as the Shanghai manuscripts and the Guodian manuscripts and are probably from around the same date, 300 BC. It would be the oldest trigram circle found in Chinese history, and the oldest link of the trigrams connected to the body. It is published in 《清華大學藏戰國竹簡(肆)》.

The Shifa 筮法 manuscript also links the Houtian Bagua 後天八卦 with the shuzigua 數字卦, the numerical 'hexagrams' that Zhang Zhenglang wrote about (see here for more info). The Shifa manuscript marks a phase in the development of the Zhouyi from a numerical system to a more symbolic system in which numbers are less important. The commentary to the 'hexagrams' in the Shifa manuscript show how they are interpreted. I expect more publications about the Shifa manuscript this year.
 

hilary

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It's beautiful. The mouth is actually drawn as dui, isn't it?
 

Zimbali

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This is really great. I'm studying Cultural China with Edx Tsinghua.

I have a friend in the history department, I will see if I can get more information. If I do, I'll post it here.
 

daveprej

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Interesting Picture from the Qunghua Manuscripts - Prof. Edward L Shaughnessy

Prof. Edward Shaughnessy of the University of Chicago is doing work on this manuscript, and gave a presentation on it at Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania last October 2015. There was a fair amount of discussion of the picture and its relation to the text, and the elements of divination during the session and the discussion afterward. Ideas were exchanged suggesting it was a picture of a person (female?), a monkey, other animal. I do not know if he has published anything yet but he might have a recent publication on the text and the picture.
 

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