By chance of history : the apocrypha under the Han - Ruhr

416 Pages·2012·2.71 MB·English

by  Di Giacinto, Licia

RUHR-UNIVERSITÄT BOCHUM
Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften

By Chance of History:
The Apocrypha under the Han

Dissertation

zur Erlangung des
akademischen Grades
eines Dr. phil.

vorgelegt von

Licia Di Giacinto, M.A.

aus
Mannheim

Referent/in: Prof. Dr. Heiner Roetz
Korreferent/in: Prof. Dr. Hans van Ess

Bochum 2007
AKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people have contributed to this work in one way or another. My special thanks go
to my “Doktorvater” Professor Heiner Roetz for his unlimited patience and support and
for his insightful amendments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Professor
Hans van Ess for his willingness to act as supervisor, Professor Raoul Findeisen for his
encouragements, and Mrs Karen Finney for her accurate correction of parts of the
English manuscript. I must also recall here the paradisiacal quietness at the department
of Chinese History and Philosophy, where I have found the support of Dr. Wolfgang
Behr and the helpfulness of Mrs Ilse Dilger.
I have no idea what I would have done without friends like Andrea, Tania, and Zeljka,
who have patiently endured my moods as well as my daily and nightly monologues
about the Han apocrypha. My final thanks go to my father: it is probably because of him
that this work has finally reached an end.
CONTENTS

APPROACHING THE APOCRYPHA

CHAPTER ONE.
A REVIEW OF THE APOCRYPHAL PHENOMENON THROUGH HISTORY 1
1. The apocryphal phenomenon under the han 1
1.1 Terminology and the Early Han history of the chenwei 3
1.2 Later Han scholarship and the apocrypha: influence and opposition 10
2. Burning the texts and rescuing the fragments:
the late history of the apocryphal phenomenon 16
2.1 The rulers and the apocrypha after the Han: proscriptions 17
2.2 The intellectuals and the rejection of the apocrypha 23
2.3 The scholarly world: quoting the chenwei 26
3. Investigating the apocrypha: the medieval era
and the uncertainties of Tang scholarship 30
3.1 The medieval age and the classification of the apocrypha as
technical books 30
3.2 The uncertainties and anachronisms of Tang scholarship 32
3.3 The uncertainties of Tang scholarship and the classification of
the apocrypha as exegetical studies 36
4. Investigating the apocrypha in Late Imperial China 37
4.1 Late Imperial scholarship and the chen/wei controversy 37
4.2 Late Imperial scholarship and the problem of the origins 40
5. Collecting the apocrypha in Late Imperial China 43
5.1 The path towards the first collections of apocryphal fragments 43
5.2 Collecting apocryphal fragments under the Qing 47

CHAPTER TWO.
TOWARD THE CONTENTS OF THE APOCRYPHA 52
1. Working on the apocrypha 52
1.1 Modernizing the research on the apocrypha in China 52
1.2 Contemporary scholarship 55
2. Achievements and shortcomings of chenwei scholarship 60
2.1 On chen and wei 60
2.2 On the anthologies: philological shortcomings and
interpretative weaknesses 62
2.3 On the textual approach 66
2.4 On the thematic analysis 76
2.5 How to approach the apocryphal contents: the discourses of
the chenwei 78
I
3. Towards the contents of the apocrypha 81
3.1 Toward Han interdisciplinarity 81
3.2 Correlative strategies and their interdisciplinary success 83
3.3 Introducing Han cultural world: the ru between Heaven and man 89
3.4 Theory and praxis: The ganying theory and the zaiyi framework 92

DISCUSSING THE CONTENTS OF THE APOCRYPHA

CHAPTER THREE.
THE DISCOURSE ON THE SHENGREN: BETWEEN MYTH AND PHILOSOPHY96
1. The ren as mirror of tian 95
1.1 Defining the human being 95
1.2 Analysing the human body 97
1.3 Analysing the moral potential of the human being 109
2. From ren to shengren 116
2.1 The development of the theory “ethical predestination” 116
2.2 The discussion on ethics as facet of the human being 120
3. Towards the shengren of the apocrypha 125
3.1 Introducing the shengren of the Han 125
3.2 Knowing Heaven: the ethical and political approach 127
3.3 Knowing Heaven: the technical approach 130
4. The shengren of the apocrypha between myth and philosophy 134
5. The shengren and heaven: the birth of the sage 138
5.1 The birth of the shengren: evolving myths 138
5.2 Updating myths under the Han 140
5.3 Understanding myths under the Han 142
5.4 Introducing the miraculous births of the apocrypha 144
5.5 Applying the theme “miraculous birth” 146
5.6 The philosophical dimension of the apocryphal tales 148
5.7 Old myths in the apocrypha 149

6. The look of the shengren 151
6.1 On physiognomy 151
6.2 The interpretation of stories on the physical appearance of the shengren 153
6.3 Introducing the apocryphal stories on the physical appearance of
the shengren 156
6.4 The exegetical dimension of the apocryphal stories 158
6.5 The apocryphal stories and unofficial material 158
6.6 The mythic dimension of the apocryphal stories 160
7. The shengren and Heaven: the tokens of the sage 161
II
7.1 Heavenly tokens and politics in Early Han China 162
7.2 Han ru-ism and Heavenly tokens 163
7.3 Heavenly fu in the apocrypha: the tokens 166
7.4 Heavenly fu in the apocrypha: the political messages 167
7.5 Heavenly fu in the apocrypha: the self-presentation of the chenwei 168

CHAPTER FOUR.
THE DISCOURSE ON TIAN: TECHNIQUES AND BEYOND 170

1. Observing and portraying the heavens 170
1.1 Observing the starry sky 170
1.2 Measuring the shadows 176
1.3 The armillary sphere 179
1.4 Portraying the cosmos: germs of cosmography under the Han 181
1.5 Traces of cosmography in the apocrypha 183
2. Describing and interpreting the heavens:
tianwen themes in the apocrypha 190
2.1 Presenting the Han art of tianwen 190
2.2 Rudiments of tianwen tradition under the Han 191
2.3 Rudiments of apocryphal astrography 194
2.4 From astrography to astrology: on the double-fold function of
the simulacra 202
2.5 Tianwen themes in the apocrypha: the fenye 206
2.6 Tianwen themes in the apocrypha: looking at the starry sky 212
2.7 Featuring the tianwen layer of the apocrypha:
handbook astrology and the issue “periodic phenomena” 219
3. Beyond Tianwen 226
3.1 Going beyond tianwen: from tianwen prognoses to tianwen strategies 226
3.2 Beyond tianwen: astrology and cosmology 231
3.3 Beyond tianwen: astrology and exegesis 236
3.4 Beyond tianwen: astrology and rituality 242
4. Tracking the heavens: lipu themes in the apocrypha 250
4.1 Introducing the Han art of lipu 252
4.2 Early Han calendars: the Superior Origin 257
4.3 Towards the apocryphal art of lipu: the Santong li and its issues 258
4.4 The art of Lipu in the apocrypha: the issue of the Superior Origin 266
4.5 Manipulating calendars: the Yin li of the apocrypha 272
4.6 Evaluating the lipu layer of the apocrypha 277
5. Beyond lipu 279
5.1 Going beyond the Han art of lipu 279
5.2 Time-scheduling strategies in the exegetical fields 285
5.3 The tianming cycles:
the application of time-scheduling strategies to past and present 288

III
6. Beyond Han techniques: the wu de framework 294
6.1 Presenting the discussion on the wu de framework 294
6.2 The calendrical scenery behind the wu de framework 296
6.3 The wu de as time scheduling strategies: Zou Yan 303
6.4 The fading of the potencies 306
6.5 The ru and the potencies 311
6.6 The first century BC and the wu de as time-scheduling strategies 316
6.7 The extinction of the wu de model:
astro-mythological variations on the theme 318

DEFINING THE APOCRYPHA

CHAPTER FIVE
FROM THEMES TO BOOKS: DEFINING THE TEXTS 321
1. Towards the definition of the texts: inner bond and outer boundary 321
1.1 How to define the apocryphal texts: the traditional approach 322
1.2 Contemporary scholarship between tradition, thematic description,
and history 325
2. A multileveled definition of the texts 327
2.1 The classificatory level: the apocrypha as hybrid texts 327
2.2 The theoretical level: the bond between Heaven and shengren 329
2.3 The thematic level: the apocrypha as applicative texts 329
2.4 The evaluative level: the judgeable level of competency 331
2.5 The formal level: the apocrypha as anonymous books 332

CHAPTER SIX
DEFINING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
EARLY HAN MILLENNIALISM 333
1. On the sources of the history of the apocrypha 333
1.1 Why there is no history without contents 333
1.2 Why there is no history without historical sources 335
2. Framing the scene of the key-time: millennialism at the end of the early Han 336
2.1 Millennialism at the end of the Early Han: time-scheduling strategies 337
2.2 Millennialism at the end of the Early Han:
waiting for the emperor of Earth 341
3. Early Han Millennialism at the court of emperor Zhao 343
3.1 In search of an upper limit 343
3.2 On time-scheduling strategies: Zhang Shouwang 344
3.3 Political millennialism: waiting for the emperor of Earth
at the court of emperor Zhao 346
IV
4. The cultural actors of Early Han millennialism:
the ru of the elite, time scheduling strategies, and politics 348
4.1 The Ru and the themes of Early Han millennialism 348
4.2 The ru: time scheduling strategies as instrument. 349
4.3 Early Han millennialism: the shadow of wu xing mantic practices 350
4.4 Wu xing mantic practices or wu xing mantic practitioners? 354

CHAPTER SEVEN.
DEFINING THE CULTURAL CONTEXT:AUTHORS 356
1. From the scene to the actors 356
1.1 On the cultural history of the chenwei 356
1.2 The issue of authorship: on the ru and the apocrypha 356
1.3 On the role of the fangshi in the history of the apocrypha 357
2. The early chen 360
2.1 The texts 361
2.2 The cultural communities: the ru as petty official 363
3. The dynamicity of the apocryphal phenomenon: Texts and communities 365
3.1 Towards the tushu: the astrologers 366
3.2 Towards the tushu: the ru 368
3.3 The tushu in the capital 369
3.4 After the tushu: the growth of the chen corpus 372
3.5 The mediocre ru and the growth of the chen corpus 373
3.6 The authorship of the apocrypha: the issue of marginality 375

By chance of history: on the apocrypha, the turning points of their history,
and their place in sinology. 377

Bibliography 384
V
Approaching the apocrypha
CHAPTER ONE
A REVIEW OF THE APOCRYPHAL PHENOMENON THROUGH HISTORY

1. THE APOCRYPHAL PHENOMENON UNDER THE HAN
The term “apocrypha” as key word for rendering the technical Chinese chenwei 讖緯
into English was born in Western sinology during the 1950’s, when Tjan Tjoe Som
translated the fragmentary proceedings of the congress held in AD 79 at the White Tiger
Hall (Baihuguan 白虎觀).1 The rendition “prognostication books” was later adopted in
the most famous study on the chenwei in English, namely the doctoral thesis of Jack
Dull (1966). More recently, Lü Zongli has defined chenwei as “prophetic-apocryphal
texts”,2 adhering to literary renderings such as “prophetic books” and “wefts”, the first
being a translation of the term chenshu 讖書 and the second of weishu 緯書.3
Mostly for reasons of clarity, the present study shall consistently use “apocrypha” and,
at a lesser extent, “prognostication books” to refer to the whole Han corpus. Even
though “apocrypha”, a well-known key-word in biblical studies, has been questioned by
Robert P. Kramers,4 this term still is one the best available options to frame the Han
chen phenomenon, especially thanks to its contradictory nuances. It is certain, in fact,
that the chen texts came to be presented as Confucius’s secret classics (Kongqiu mijing
孔丘祕經) as early as the first decades AD, regardless of the discomfort of those critics
who deemed them to be prognostication books.5 Over the following decades and
centuries, the cryptic Han chen scripts gradually turned into parallel classics, although
not always formally endorsed. Thus, while it is not safe to assume that all the chen were
written with the intent to comment on the canon, the Chinese apocrypha, because of
their link to the classics, became object of heated debates, reminding one of the history
of their western counterparts.6

1 See Tjan Tjoe Som (1949), 100.
2 Lü Zongli (2003), 28.
3 Lü Zongli (2003), 28.
4 Kramers argues “the wei are usually referred to as apocryphal books, although the analogy is
somewhat remote”. See Kramers (1986), 759.
5 See Hou Hanshu 30A:1043.
6 For a review of the controversial relationship between apocryphal writings and the bibles of the
European churches, see Goodspeed (1939), 1-12. Both van Ess and Lü Zongli consider the term

1
Chapter One. A review of the apocryphal phenomenon through history
The different way of importing a Chinese term into our cultural world could obviously
be labelled a problem of conventions. Yet, it may well work as litmus revealing the
complex terminological issues hidden behind the binomial chenwei. In the 1940s, Chen
Pan 陳槃, undoubtedly one of the most prolific scholars dealing with the topic,
published a well-known article with a precise examination of all the phrases used in the
sources of classical China to refer to this cultural phenomenon. Beside chen and wei,
words relating to the idea of talisman or auspicious omen — “token” (fu 符), “record”
(lu 錄), “forewarning” (hou 候) —7 and the familiar binomials “Diagram of the Yellow
River” (Hetu 河圖) and “Script of the Luo River” (Luoshu 洛書) also play an important
role.
The best way to see how these different elements are combined into the modern corpus
is to briefly examine the Choshu Isho Shusei 重修緯書集成 [Revised Collection of
Apocryphal Texts], the Japanese collection of 178 fragmentary chenwei texts and the
primary source for modern research on the apocrypha. It is possible to dissect this large
anthology into four main parts. The first two parts encompass all texts whose titles
include the expressions Hetu or Luoshu. Consequently, the fragments of lost books such
as the Hetu-Huichangfu 河圖會昌符 [The Diagram of the Yellow River. The Token:
Meeting the Glory] or the Luoshu-Zhenyaodu 洛書甄曜度 [The Script of the Luo River.
The Measure: Observing the Luminaries] belong to these two groups. The third section
assembles all the wefts: the Yiwei 易緯 [Wefts of the Changes], the Shuwei 書緯 [Wefts
of the Documents], the Shiwei 詩緯 [Wefts of the Odes], the Liwei 禮緯 [Weft of the
Rites], the Chunqiuwei 春秋緯 [Wefts of the Annals], the Yuewei 樂緯 [Wefts of the
Music], and the Xiaojingwei 孝經緯 [Wefts of the Classic of Filial Piety]. Examples of
apocryphal titles in this group are the Xiaojing-Yuanshenqi 孝經援神契 [(Weft of) the
Classic of Filial Piety. The Talisman: Quoting the Spirits], and the Shangshu-
Kaolingyao 商書考靈曜 [(Weft of) the Documents. Examining the Luminaries]. The
Shuwei-group contains a subsection called Zhonghou 中候 [The Forewarning of the
Middle (Rising)]. Texts such as the Shangshu Zhonghou-Woheji 商書中候握河紀
[(Weft of) the Documents - The Forewarning of the Middle (Rising). Holding the Mark
of the River] belong to this group. This indicates that the whole Han canonical corpus
and basic works such as the Xiaojing were supposed to be provided with wefts. The
great exception, and with it the last category, is represented by the Lunyu 論語

apocrypha to be a valid rendition of chenwei. Hans van Ess, for example, writes: “And yet, all
qualification notwithstanding, the similarities that do remain between them [i.e. European and
Chinese apocrypha] are striking.” Van Ess (1999), 34. Finally, Lü Zongli maintains that, given the
role of classics and the functions of the wei within the Han intellectual community, “apocrypha” is
actually a good rendering of the term wei: hence his translation “prophetic-apocryphal texts” for the
binomial chenwei. See Lü Zongli (2003), 28.
7 In this regard, see Chen Pan (1944a), 297-308; Seidel (1983), 308-313.

2
Approaching the apocrypha
[Analects], which did not have wefts but rather prophetical interpretations (Lunyu chen
論語讖), as for instance the Lunyu-Zhaishuaisheng 論語摘衰聖 [(Weft of) the Analects.
The Sage: Specifying the (Reasons for the) Decline]. Thus, the key-word chenwei
should be considered a sort of collective noun used to refer to the structural complexity
of the apocrypha. In the next section, we shall trace the development of the most
important terms and briefly review the landmarks of the history of the chenwei under
the Han.
1.1 Terminology and the Early Han history of the chenwei
1.1.1 The chen scripts
All the historical evidence tends to confirm that chen was the most important term
associated with the apocrypha under the Han. The first explanation of the meaning of
chen dates back to the beginning of the second century AD, when Xu Shen許慎 (AD
30-124) completed his well-known Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 [Explanation of Simple
Characters and Analysis of Compounds] and explained the character by connecting it to
the idea of prophecies which had come true (yan 驗).8 Moreover, according to the
famous Later Han astronomer Zhang Heng 張衡 (AD 78-139), the chen books
essentially were texts embodying prognostications:
立言於前，有徵於後，故智者貴焉，謂之讖書。
They put words first and the verification arrives thereafter. Therefore, educated people
have attached some value to them and called them prophetical scripts.9
The first text which has been unambiguously labelled chen in the available sources is a
book in 12 juan 卷 called Tianguanli baoyuan taipingjing 天官曆包元太平經 [Classic
of the Great Peace: the Calendar of the Heavenly Officials encompasses the Origin]
presented to the throne by Gan Zhongke 甘忠可 in the last decades of the first century
BC.10 According to the dynastic histories, Gan Zhongke came from the region of Qi 齊,
the traditional homeland of those magicians and occultists (shenxian 神仙) who,
together with specialists in technical disciplines such as calendar, astrology, or medicine,
are usually referred to as fangshi 方士.11 The objective of the Tianguanli was to
announce the message of the Master of the Red Essence (Chijingzi 赤精子), namely the

8 Shuowen jiezi 90B.
9 Hou Hanshu 59:1912. For an overview of the use of chen in the still extant sources, see Dong Ping
(1993). The Chinese scholar analyses and discusses, in particular, the occurrence of chen in Shiji
43:1787; Hanshu 48:2226; Huainanzi 16:531. For further analyses of this topic, see also Zhong
Zhaopeng (1992), 2; Lippiello (2001), 56.
10 Lü Zongli (2003), 15. Hanshu 11:340; 99A:4094.
11 Harper (1998), 51-52.

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