Yuan Heng Li Zhen

[hmesker]

Hi Lindsay,

I was not aware that I gave a derivation of 亨, I only suggested that the phrase 元亨 might be related to 元示 which we find on oracle bones, because the meanings of 亨 and 示 are more or less similar. Anyway, it is as you say: it is all very speculative, and even the specialized jiaguwen and jinwen dictionaries cannot entirely be trusted. But I do not quite understand what you mean with

Chinese studies has a long way to go before it catches up methodologically with the standards of modern historical analysis in other areas.

and

Time for Chinese studies to grow up, I think.

I believe Chinese (language) studies are quite mature, but the material we can work with is quite scarce. Should we find a Rosetta's Stone with oracle bone inscriptions on it, then the study of archaic Chinese would surely be boosted, just as happened with hieroglyphs in the late 19th century. Without something like that we can only guess at the original meaning of many characters. From most of the glyphs that are given in the 甲骨文字典 we do not know their modern equivalent or their meaning, and if we do not find a key to their meaning it will all stay highly speculative. I don't think this has anything to do with Chinese studies not being 'grown up', it is just the lack of material which could help us out.

Harmen.

[lindsay]

Hi Harmen -

First of all, I do not wish to attribute anything to you that you do not in fact hold to be true. So I am sorry if I misinterpreted your ideas. I have been following you on the web for several years, and I have a lot of respect for your scholarship, judgment, and honesty.

I cannot retract my statement that Chinese studies, especially ancient Chinese studies, are still in their infancy - and show a certain childishness of approach. No use saying Chinese scholars don't have much to work with. What about Classics - Greek and Roman history and literature? Has a major discovery of new material been made since the 16th century? And yet today's Classicist is enormously more sophisticated in using the paltry amount of evidence available than your Chinese specialist. My belief is that most Chinese specialists don't know how to use what they have.

Kwang-chih Chang, the great archeologist of the Shang, once said every archeologist should be thoroughly familiar with at least two unrelated areas of investigation. He insisted that his students not only master Chinese archeology but also the archeology of another area in the world like Europe or the Americas or the Near East. He believed one always benefits from having an outside frame of reference, a serious effort to address different problems, different issues, different cultures.

In my opinion, this is what a lot of Chinese specialists have lacked - familiarity with relevant advances made in other areas of similar inquiry. The mainland Chinese are often the worst offenders in this regard, but the spirit of parochialism is alive and well in the West as well. As though China were somehow sui generis. There have been some notable exceptions. Most recently, for example, the school of Boston Confucians have tried hard to revive Confucianism for a Western audience, and apply its principles to modern life. To do this, they have used all the tools of modern philosophy and historical analysis to bring past ideas into the present. Whether they have been successful is another question.

There are more sources for the Yijing than most people suppose. Some of them have not been closely studied in the West for many years. It is astonishing and embarrassing that we still rely (in English) on translations made over 100 years ago by James Legge. On the matter of sources, there is one book that towers above the rest, a book every serious student of ancient China should own and study: Endymion Wilkinson's "Chinese History: A Manual", first published in 1998 by the Harvard-Yenching Institute at Harvard University, and already available in a second edition.

In this book, for example, we learn in the chapter on Oracle-Bone Inscriptions that of the approximately 155,000 known inscriptions, 97.7% of them came from the late Shang palace complex at Xiaotun village. Now, an alert investigator might wonder how representative a phenonomenon so tightly bracketed in time and location might be for ancient China in general - but that is an issue rarely discussed by modern Chinese specialists. Similarly, if you exclude alternative forms of the same characters, about 3,500 characters have been recorded on the oracle bones, but only 1,200 to 1,500 have been deciphered clearly enough to win general acceptance among "jiaguwen" scholars (jiaguwen is short for guijia shougu wenzi, "turtle shell and animal bone script"). And how many scholars might there be who can read the oracle bones with any authority? Wilkinson says there are currently about 100 jiaguwen scholars in China, 50 in Japan, 20 in Korea, and in the rest of the world "no more than a handful." Moreover, their numbers are dwindling. Wilkinson suggests that new claims by non-specialists about re-interpreting the oracle bones should be "treated with the utmost skepticism."

Now, folks, these are the oracle bones so often referred to in order to support various theories about the origins of the Yi. But here I am, rambling on about dead history. I don't honestly think any of this matters, and I'll tell you why sometime if I feel like it.

Lindsay

[hmesker]

Hi Lindsay,

Thanks for clarifying your point of view. A view remarks:

Kwang-chih Chang, the great archeologist of the Shang, once said every archeologist should be thoroughly familiar with at least two unrelated areas of investigation. He insisted that his students not only master Chinese archeology but also the archeology of another area in the world like Europe or the Americas or the Near East. He believed one always benefits from having an outside frame of reference, a serious effort to address different problems, different issues, different cultures.

That's a good point of him. I am not very fond of Chang's books, a lot of material in it is highly speculative, but he did make proper use of techniques he learned in the West.

In my opinion, this is what a lot of Chinese specialists have lacked - familiarity with relevant advances made in other areas of similar inquiry.

But isn't language also a barrier in this? How many Chinese can read English, for instance? And how much of Western research is translated into Chinese? In other words, isn't it harder for Chinese to get access to Western research?

There are more sources for the Yijing than most people suppose. Some of them have not been closely studied in the West for many years. It is astonishing and embarrassing that we still rely (in English) on translations made over 100 years ago by James Legge.

I don't agree with you that we still rely on these old translations, I mean, look at the work of Shaugnessy and Rutt, to name but two. Their research, whether you agree with them or not, gives a totally different view and interpretation of the Yi. You don't have to use Legge, Wilhelm etc. if you don't want to, there are alternatives.

On the matter of sources, there is one book that towers above the rest, a book every serious student of ancient China should own and study: Endymion Wilkinson's "Chinese History: A Manual", first published in 1998 by the Harvard-Yenching Institute at Harvard University, and already available in a second edition.

I could not agree more! It is a wonderful guide in almost all (but not all) aspects of Chinese culture, it points you to the major resources for every area, it is an indispensable work for every researcher. However, the problem with such a work is that it becomes quickly outdated. Nevtertheless the second edition is a must-have.

Wilkinson suggests that new claims by non-specialists about re-interpreting the oracle bones should be "treated with the utmost skepticism."

I think that in this area even claims by true specialist should be treated skeptical at first. Never rely on one source ('one source is no source', is one of my favourite sayings), try to find backup from other sources or specialists as well.

Now, folks, these are the oracle bones so often referred to in order to support various theories about the origins of the Yi.

Ah, but whether there is agreement on the meaning of oracle bone glyphs or not, there are nonetheless striking similarities between oracle bone inscriptions and the text of the Zhouyi. Characters like 'yuan', 'heng', 'li' and 'zhen' figure prominently in OBI and the Yi, as do 'ji' 吉 and 'xiong' 凶. That is remarkable, and I can understand why certain people insist that the Yi's origin comes from the OBI. I think there is more than that, though. As I see it there is too much concentration on OBI, and less use is being made of jinwen 金文, bronze inscriptions. That is odd, because bronze inscriptions are closer to the language of the Yi.

But here I am, rambling on about dead history. I don't honestly think any of this matters, and I'll tell you why sometime if I feel like it.

Please do. I always appreciate a critical point of view.

Best,

Harmen.

[lindsay]

Hi Harmen -

Back to the bones for a minute. I think it would be amazing if two divination sources, the OBI and the Yijing, composed at roughly the same time (remember most of the bones are late Shang) in the same rough linguistic and cultural area did not share some, even many, similarities. How varied is the technical language of divination, wherever you are? Nevertheless, what strikes me, given their proximity in time and place, is how very different they are. You don't need to be a jiaguwen scholar to see the differences. Translated collections of sample OBI's are readily available. When I read them, I can't help noticing they are nothing like the the Yi. They do not even involve the same kind of questions or answers. The overt religious component of gods and spirits is missing from the Yi. Cracking bones is not same thing as casting yarrow. Over and over in the literary sources, the point is made that bone-cracking and the yarrow oracle are two entirely different disciplines of divination. Usually bone-cracking is thought to have more power and prestige (not easy to find suitable turtle shells, and expensive to slaughter oxen for their scapula), but in the ancient mind the two are separate and different.

The same is true of Shang v. Zhou. Too much cultural baggage from Shang has been laid at the feet of the Zhou. I think we may be talking about quite distinct micro-cultures. The problem between them was not so much political as the fact they had different world-views. This sounds pretty speculative, but there are times when I see a good case can be made from the sources for scraping most of the current assumptions about the Shang-Zhou relationship, and the origins of the Yi.

As for sources, I agree with you about the bronzes (Shaughnessy was done much with them), but I also feel the literary sources are not exhausted. In English, if you want to read the entire Zuozhuan, you must go to Legge. If you want a reliable but dated translation of the Shi or the Shu, it's Legge or Waley again. There are very few critical editions of any of these works available in Western languages. As far as the Yi is concerned, Rutt is a pretty good book about the Yi, but where would you find a reliable, annotated edition of the Yi text? Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? Well, you know it is not to be found. The Harvard-Yenching text is full of problems and very old. How can you discuss a work that doesn't even have a documented text?

Is language the problem? Well, how many people know ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, or koine Greek? Yet the Bible is the most studied book in the West. Biblical scholars (unlike Chinese scholars) have made reliable materials available to everyone to become expert without knowing the languages. This kind of textual and editorial work is tedious, precise, unrewarding, difficult - but reliable texts are the cornerstone of any scholarship that uses them. Or, to put it another way, garbage in, garbage out. My belief is that most Western scholars of China are too lazy or ignorant to undertake this kind of serious work. How easy it is just to write another cookie-cutter paper on women in China or semiotics.

Finally - since I feel our readership has dwindled to zero - I would like to know of any scholar who has seriously tackled the whole question of the practice and function of divination in ancient China. I am not talking about description, I am talking about analysis. A lot could be said about the inner world of divination, but few have chosen to go there. The best book I know on the subject is really about Greek divination: Michael Wood's "The Road to Delphi: The Life and Afterlife of Oracles", a very difficult book to read but full of insight. So rare when learning looks for wisdom.

Lindsay

[bradford]

"Overblowing" the meaning of Yuan Heng Li Zhen is an approach I've long taken exception to. Most of the attempts to find huge metaphysical significance in these terms, and primarily because they lead off the text of the Zhouyi, are comically anachronistic, based on philosophies that weren't to be invented for five centuries. Yes, the Si Shi anf Si Fang (4 seasons and 4 directions) were already around by the early Zhou, but like Harmen said, the four are often broken up in ways that pulls the "scale of four" significance out of the picture.
Neither have I ever been happy with the superstitious and ritualistic readings where they're interpreted only in terms of sacrifice. (Xiang was already there for heng when only sacrifice was meant).
To take the terms as simply important words for important human things was the approach I kept returning to. Not That simple: Heng and Zhen did some interesting tricks with multiple meanings taken simultaneously, as I discuss in my intro.
So to me the first line of the Zhouyi, used in this form elsewhere too, was just a simple statement, though one we ought to slow down for and ponder, about wishing vs wanting, about fate vs higher purpose, getting your fortune told or working with Heaven to make it come true:
The ultimate fulfillment is the reward of persistence.
(What we get out of life is proportional to what we give to it)

[lindsay]

As much as I deplore the current state of academic studies on ancient China - and I cry myself to sleep almost every night thinking about it - I have no intention, indeed, no interest in remedying the situation. Why? Well, deep down, I believe Bradford is right.

I think it is more important to learn how to use the Yi than to study it as an historical artifact. Let me ask you two sets of questions:

(1) From the point of view of divination, do you think it is important for us to know what the Yi meant to Bronze Age diviners and how they used it? Do you believe there is something pure and valuable in the original Zhouyi that was lost as the work developed over time? Was ancient knowledge more profound than what we know about life today? Did Zhou diviners understand things - things having to do with human nature and the world - about which we are ignorant? Is it possible to recover this knowledge?

(2) Let us suppose we discover, tomorrow, a cache of ancient documents explaining everything the framers of the Yi thought about divination. With this material, we also find a complete dictionary explaining the derivation and meaning of every character in the Yi. Will any of this make you a better diviner when you seek to clarify the problems in your life or the concerns of others? Is there any historical knowledge that will help you understand why your lover seems distracted, how to get the job you want, whether to move to another location, why someone important is ignoring you, whether you will realize your dreams this year?

If you answer any of these questions "Yes!" - and personally I would answer them all "No!" - I would guess you are looking for myth rather than history. History is the rational study of the past, the search for truth through the analysis of evidence. History is, or would like to be, science. Myth, on the other hand, cannot be proven or demonstrated. Sometimes it speaks of the past, but it is always concerned with illuminating the present, with life as it is being lived.

The myth of the Yi and the myth of the Zhou, which even Confucius found enthralling, is always worth exploring and recreating. But this is not the same thing as "The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Vol. I." One is charged with profound personal meaning and demands active participation, the other is the result of great intellectual engagement and extensive rational analysis.

I am trying to say something very simple. Divination does not operate in the realm of logos, but of mythos. No amount of reading or thinking is going to make you a good diviner. The whole activity takes place on another plane. The same plane as art, music, poetry, religion, play. The plane of make-believe, of serious play, imagination.

And that is why I believe all the scholarship in the world will not contribute one iota toward reviving and resuscitating the Yi. It is a doomed enterprise from the start. Good diviners will invent history to suit themselves. That is why Karcher is so powerful in his inventiveness, and that is why Bradford is right when he strives to make the Yi make sense in useful ways.

Lindsay

[bradford]

Hi Lindsay
I'm afraid what I'm saying is even more controversial and unpopular than that.
My thesis is that the model of the authors world of thought, built up over the last 75 years of academic scholarship, is astonishingly incorrect, and based on a fundamental ignorance of what it is or was like to be a diviner or shaman. Nothing can be seen through the preconceptions and assumptions about superstition and ritual. I think that it was the authors themselves who wrote the more human document, using metaphors of situations and archetypal events that typically occurred in ordinary life, which had little to do with twitching captives and dancing elephants. I think the academics are only seeing what they expect to see - an exquisite new set of clothes, that is only invisible "to fools or those unfit for their posts".
Part of my approach is based on friendships with real shamans and familiarity with their ways of thinking. Some of these are from cultures as or more primitive than that of the Early Zhou. Their mental world is a lot more similar to our own than most scholars would expect, except that they have a prodigious amount of insight and a better sense of humor than most of us. Ever see "Going Tribal" on the BBC? We can communicate quite well with the cannibals. I think what I'm trying to do is Not ignore what the diviners were actually writing back in the Early Zhou, for the sake of the common human ground or modern relevance, but suggesting that the things they were really writing about, and intending to mean, were things which are still important to human beings now.

[lindsay]

Hi Brad -

I still think we are more or less on the same page.

Some differences exist. I value academics more than you do. I don't like using the word "superstition" because it only seems to mean "other people's beliefs I don't agree with". I think all historical investigation is by nature anachronistic.

I don't know any shamans, and I never will. So what?

I also think when the coins hit the table, none of this stuff matters. When I read the Yi, can I make sense of it? That's what I care about. People like Hilary think that is the most natural thing in the world. Of course it makes sense! But people like me - well, we have to work at it, it isn't easy.

Now, why is that? This is a question I've asked myself many times.

Mostly - I believe - it is because I am always trying to use the wrong tools. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But everything is not a nail.

The beginning is to position yourself in the right frame of mind. In my opinion, you will never understand the Yi if you look at it as an intellectual problem. It is, first and foremost, a feeling, a sense of immediate apprehension, a blink.

What I like about you, Brad, is your conviction that it belongs in the realm of practical, sensible experience. It needs to make sense. If it sounds like nonsense, you say, then it probably is nonsense. In some circles, that's pretty radical. No sacred cows.

This is not to say I buy your theories any more than Harmen's - I don't. Just words. And I'm not a big fan of your sententious commentaries, either. But your ideas about translation and functionality, usefulness if you will, those I buy completely. I've spent a lot of time at your website over the years, and I thank you for it.

Lindsay