Early Chou Bronzes and Divinatory Inscriptions

[charly]

... Both these ideas would tend to say that the 'Eastern Neighbor' of 63:5 who sacrificed the ox in an elaborate sacrifice, done only by the Zhou, it being their central ritual for communion with heaven, is indeed the Shang speaking of the Zhou.

Mary:

I'm some confused, why Zhou censorship didn't apply to this Shang intromision in the text? The ox sacrifice allusion is very visible.

May be both, Shang an Zhou have had allies from the west (barbarians, Yi people?) or warriors recruited in the west?

Could Zhou perspective be to conceal great importance to the allied apport in the battle, presenting modestly his ow ox-sacrifice (1) in face of the more primitive sacrifices (2) of his less cultured allies?. Shangs erased from rituals menu.

I have no idea!

Yours,

Charly
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(1) bull sacrifice, isn't it?
(2) more naive, more sincere? lesser quality? cereals? boars?

 

[midaughter]

Perhaps the Zhou deserve a little credit. The simple sacrifice apparently electrified all that had fought against the Huns and note they allow it to be said as the Eastern Neighbor, they (the Zhou) are not named. At the time time of this war's end they are allies and the Zhou admired the Shang greatly in this time period, c. 1235 BC. The simple sacrifice logo is everywhere in the area, on pots and axes, I think on rocks. it appears to me that all know the story. Why not a bit of humility and good feelings(not to mention they continue to need each other in pacification of the northern and western territories? There may have been a measure of political expediency here. BTW The Zhou will not come to power for another 300 years or so. I cannot emphasize enough the centrality of the Ox Sacrifice in Zhou culture-their highest and most significant ritual.

This is conjecture, could I prove it I would start the website www.IChingSmokingGun.com
Attach: the Simple Sacrifice. We know that the human figure is a woman because the arms are crossed. The animal, in my view is a pig, above that, a pig's jaws.

 

[lienshan]

I think the Duke of Zhou must have taken some writings with him from the Shang court.

The Shang kings of Anyang produced more than 160.000 tortoise divinations that was stored in a "library". They must by logic have used a logistic system. Each plastron had five T-cracks in pairs marked I, II, III, IIII, I><I and the logistic system may have been based on these five pairs. A possibility could be, according to the distribution of numbers mentioned in the article of Shang Sheng-lang: If both T-cracks of a pair were auspicious, the pair was named t (7). If both T-cracks were inauspicious, the pair was named I><I (5). If the T-cracks were a both auspicious and inauspiciuos pair, those with the auspicious T-crack to the left were named /\ (6) and those with the auspicious T-crack to the right )( (8). They could not name the pairs I, II, III, IIII, because it would look confusing in a stack of numbers.

A tortoise divination is this way changed into a stack of five numbers. The sixth number is the "changing line". A binary mathematically tool to change a stack of five odd-or-even numbers into one number from 2 to 65. The "changing line" is either odd (3 Heaven) or even (2 Earth). The five "tortoise lines" have value 0, if equal to the "changing line", or value 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, if different to the changing line. It's pure logostic theory (fantasy) but I think that there might be a connection between the tortoise divination method and divination manuals, when reading this story from the BOOK VI. THE METAL-BOUND COFFER:

"The duke then divined with the three tortoise-shells, and all were favourable. He opened with a key the place where the (oracular) responses were kept, and looked at them, and they also were favourable."

The situation took place when king Wu Wang got sick, and the (oracular) responses must have been Zhou responses written on bamboo and kept in the western Zhou capitol. Stalks are not mentioned. Maybe the (oracular) responses were previous Zhou court tortoise divinations recorded on bamboo like a kind of divination manual numbered with stacks of six numbers each representing a specific tortoise divination?

 

[lienshan]

Oracle Bones of Shang Dynasty was in 2003 unearthed at Daxinzhuang in Jinan city, Shandong. Eight pieces carrying Chinese characters have been sorted out, four of them could be pieced together into a whole tortoise plastron, including 25 characters.

These 25 characters are telling of three different methods to offer sacrifice to gods or ancestors. Exactly like the The Fufeng scapula with the three health questions and three hexagram answers, that belong to the divination I method.

Maybe this tell something about the common way of practizing divination OUTSIDE the Shang court?

That the "original" way to divine back in good old days was to ask not one but three questions?

 

[midaughter]

..Charly asked why did not the Zhou censor the line statement of 63:5. My answer is that they did.

Both these ideas would tend to say that the 'Eastern Neighbor' of 63:5 who sacrificed the ox in an elaborate sacrifice, done only by the Zhou, it being their central ritual for communion with heaven, is indeed the Shang speaking of the Zhou but the Zhou watered down the wording quite substantially.

wording of WB (which is a Sung-Shang earlier name dominated text I am saying the Shang and the Sung are essentially the same people) the wording of 63:5 is much stronger and vibrant than the same passage in the Legge, Zhouyi which actually became the official text for many centuries for this hexagram. Only WB and Lao Nauxian came through with the Shang wording published in this century.

Wang Bi for example only says the sacrifice of the Shang was timed better and there was greater happiness. Legge says much of the same. The Shang version speaks of sincerity of the simplest pig sacrifice and that god looks into the heart not at outward displays of the elaborate ox ritual. And that they were giving thanks for a war won at 'bitter cost' This is the hidden history of this line 63:5.

Summary, sort of:
Background of 63:5

Hexagram 63, which refers directly to Wu Ting in line 3, says in line 5 that the sacrifice was a pig. The pig was a sincere offering even though small when compared to the "neighbor's offering of an ox performed by an "eastern neighbor." In the times of Wu Ting customs of graveside ritual offerings of liquids from the pig's body, pig skulls, and pig jaws were still observed. The custom it is said, began in Neolithic times. This was a sacrifice for a war won over the demons of the north, always called 'the Huns."

Earlier versions of the official text:

Hexagram 63:5 Zhouyi Wang Bi
"The neighbor in the east who slaughters an ox
Is not as much in harmony with the time
as the western neighbor.
The latter attains true happiness: Good
fortune comes in great measure."


James Legge's Zhouyi translationThe fifth NINE, undivided, shows its subject (as) the neighbour in the east who slaughters an ox (for his sacrifice); but this is not equal to the (small) spring sacrifice of the neighbour in the west, whose sincerity receives the blessing.


Wilhelm Baynes
The neighbor in the west who slaughters an ox
Does not attain as much real happiness
As the neighbor in the west
With his small offering of the pig
Good fortune in great measure.

BUT ADDITIONALLY; IT SAYS
The a simple sacrifice made for the victory over the demon-lands is appropriate because the offering comes from the heart and "god looks into the heart. Wilhelm Baynes

I conclude that there was censorship of the line statement and its essential meaning.

 

[midaughter]

hese 25 characters are telling of three different methods to offer sacrifice to gods or ancestors. Exactly like the The Fufeng scapula with the three health questions and three hexagram answers, that belong to the divination I method.

Maybe this tell something about the common way of practizing divination OUTSIDE the Shang court?

That the "original" way to divine back in good old days was to ask not one but three questions?


You are asking quesytions that are covered in Keightley's 'The Oracle Inscriptions of Bronze Age China" I note you have note dated these bones. How would it be possible for the Shang to keep doing exactly the same type of divination for 800 or so years. The red picture above is taken from Tomb 5 at Yinxu and dated to around 2385 BC. As to the rest of the Yinxu oracle bones: a bit of information:
Ancient site at Anyang was never properly excavated. During WWII
the site was bulldozed into rail cars and taken to Taiwan. The twain
would never speak to one another until this effort.
National Museum of History: HENANSHENG YUN TAI GUWU TULU. (An
Illustrated Catalogue of Artefacts from Henan Province Taken to
Taiwan). Taibei, 1999. 160 pp. Colour plates. 30x22 cm. Paper.
GBP 45.00
Available
A collaborative work between the Henan Museum and the National Museum
of History in Taibei detailing and depicting the 38 crates of
artefacts from Henan province that were taken to Taiwan in 1949 by the
Nationalists. The artefacts included Xinzheng bronzes, jades, Tang
sancai tomb statuary, objects from the Yinxu excavations, textiles
etc. The work is most interesting in apparently being a first effort
to collate these artefacts. Lists of the artefacts are given and a
good number of major pieces illustrated in colour. In Chinese.

http://www.hanshan.com/txtlists/list119.txt
Reply With Quote

 

[midaughter]

that should be 1285BC

Yinxu and dated to around 2385 BC

that should be 1285BC

attached: Song scholars collating ancient texts

 

[midaughter]

For Charly: In reading this thread I see your suggestions that I edit a bit better (we all get so excited!) Good idea and you have helped me clarify and distill my thinking. I am not afraid of characters, I leave it to the experts while I study mostly academic journals, books, etc. By training, at least as an undergraduate my major was history. I tend to stay pretty current in military history, esp WWII and the Civil War of the US, and British history, all periods and of course, China.

 

[charly]

For Charly: In reading this thread I see your suggestions that I edit a bit better (we all get so excited!) Good idea and you have helped me clarify and distill my thinking. I am not afraid of characters, I leave it to the experts while I study mostly academic journals, books, etc. By training, at least as an undergraduate my major was history. I tend to stay pretty current in military history, esp WWII and the Civil War of the US, and British history, all periods and of course, China.

Mary:
For being better undestood you can use the QUOTE tool, looks like a comics balloon, you can click on the balloon and write in the middle of the tags or you can select a text and click the baloon, the text will be marked and framed as quote.

Characters are not only for experts but for amateurs too. You can give a point of view that some experts cann't.

Given your interest in military affairs I can imagine why is yours the H.30, The Fire Girl. I go to post some stuff relative to 30.6, surely you have yet an opinion but I'm thinking that the advice is «beware of kings» an not «cut off your worse tendencies».

I have seen in your page that you quote I Ching as by Nauxian/Wilhelm/Baynes, I wonder who was Lao Nauxian. I know he revised Wilhelm rendering to german but I don't know nothing more. Maybe you have something about his life and work.

Yours,

Charly

 

[midaughter]

LaoNaiHsuan.pdf
a biography of Lao Nai-Hsuan

 

[midaughter]

30:6 I think would mean not to push the business of war too far. However, I don't emphasize the use of historical line statements. In analyzing the energy pattern of the hexagram, the light is at its height. One could analyze the line as the net of Li illuminating the heavens of the Invisible World and clinging to and revealing the future
Yes, you are right about the Middle Daughter, she is war, (strategy too) and weapons. see the trigram of Li in the Hexagram of Tui in Book III, the Commentaries. WB

 

[charly]

LaoNaiHsuan.pdf
a biography of Lao Nai-Hsuan

Mary:

Thankyou, but the link fails.

Charly

 

[Sparhawk]

Some info on Lao Nai-Hsuan here:

http://www.ichingwisdom.com/IChingWisdom/marcopolo.html

I also have a doctoral dissertation with a biography of Lao. Very complete...

See here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Midaughter/message/7793

Saluditos,