Some fecundity symbols in ancient China

39 Pages·1931·15.014 MB·English

by  Bernhard Kahlgren

SOME :FECUNDITY SYMBOLS IN ANCIENT CHINA
BY
BERjVH,1RD 1CIRLGREN.
This paper has a limited scope. The beliefs and cult elements in ancient China
connected with fecundity ---- and fertility, vvhich is always closely allied with
fecundity --- are m1merous and often curious and difficult of interpretation. Fur
the time being l limit rny investigations mainly to two symbols of fecundity,
which I have special reasons for taking up at present in this periodical: in its
first volume considerable space was devoted to the psychological basis and
primitive meaning of certain decorative 1notives. On the one hand Dr. Hanna
Hydh treated the t r i an g u la r and p o in t e d (toothed) "death-pa Hern" on
the prehistoric Chinese grave urns and its highly interesting affinities all over the
old worlcl; she suggested as an interpretation that it was a fecundity-vitality-
resurrection symbol, and she read the t r i an g I e as a symbol of fecundity in
vvon1.en. In this paper I will try to show that pointed or even triangular symlmls in
ancient China sometimes served the opposite purpose, having indeed a p h a 1 Uc
meaning. On the other hand, Professor J. G. Andersson emphasized !he fact
that the cow r y s h e I I, which through its similarity with the woman's vulva
has enjoyed a world-wide appreciation as possessing magic power and has then•
fore been considered a precious thiIJg, occurs also in the stone age graves of China,
and reoccurs as painted onmment on certain prehistoric grave urns. I will foilow
up this interesting track and see if in lhe oldest hi s to r i c a I China there are
to he found any ideas about she l l s as fem i n in e symlJOls and magic
producers of fecundity.
I.
It is not my intention here to enter into any comparative study of phaUicism.
There is already an extensive literature on the subject* and I will not waste any
space on a recapitulation of the niain facts but consider them as already known
to the reader. There is, however, one feature on which I want to lay strong
stress: the connection to he observed almost everywhere wlwre pha!Licism exists,
between f e c n n di t y and fer t i I if y rites, tl1e phallus cult serving to seeure
good crops. This is characteristic of the ancient Priapos cult in the classical
world, and also to a C<'rtain extent of the Dionysos cult: M~:irtin P. Nilsson, Griechi
sche Peste, p. 2G1, says: "Als Gott der Fruchtharkeit und der Vegetation ist
Dionysos der Gott des Phallus·'. 'Wilke** speaks of Indian, Egyptian, Thracian
* A fairly comprehensive bibliography is to he found inter alia in A. Moll, Ilandbuch der
Se:walwissensclwften Hll 2; S loll, Das Geschlechtslel>en in dcr V Vlkerpsyclwlogie, lH08; Martin
P. Nilsson, Primitive Religion, Tiibingen (1911).
** Die Religion der lndo-Gemwnm in arclufoloyisclier Beleuchtuny, p. 11.
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BULJ,ETIV OF THE MUSEUM OF FAR EJSTERS I1STIQUITJES EARLGREN; SOME FECUNDITY SY:1!DOLS IN ANCIENT ClJISA
and Greek phallus processions intended to give strength to the crops. Krauss*
I have believed so for a long time; hut an isolated interpretation like that is
gives a photograph of a big phallic pole in the middle of a growing field in
almost void of real value. If this interpretation of the charac!Pr is to he con
India. O. Almgren, in his spcndid work on the prehistoric Swedish rock
vincing, it mnst have, first additional palaeognqihic proof. and sec o n d I y,
c:irvings'";', gives good reasons for believing that the numerous phallic scenes there
some support of a more concretf' kind, s11ggestions of a i1hallic cult in other
depicted \Vere intended to give fertility just as well as fecundity. sources.
In an old agrarian country like China, where moreover the fecundity of the
The character tsu is nplained by Hii Shen in his Simo men kie tsl 1100
family has always been counted the greatest felicity, one would a pri01·i expect
A. D.l, and liy his followers down to our time, as consisting of the "radical" 1 rn
to find a weH developed phallicism. But no serious attempts have yet been made,
shz [4] and tsii [5_1 as phonetic. This tsii llii Shen defines thns: "a stand (tsien
so far as .I am aware. to prove the existence of phallicism in ancient China. [f>J, a support for sacrificfril gifts), frorn ld [7], small table, the feet having two
Occasional hints in this direction have been made, it is true: c. g., H. A. Giles, in
strekhers, the horizontal stroke fa::ing the c:arth''. Arnl he adds that there was
his Chinese-Enulish dictionary, under the word [ 1]. H speaks of "the oblong box un old varhrnt [8] IVithout tlie stretclH"rs. Then he giv·es another word t.m [9]
shaped ormnnent seen half way up a Chinese flag-staff, supposed to he a relic of
'sacrificial ta1Jlc :for meat', of which he says: "tsn is !he rilua1 t.m. The diaracter
phallic worship". And T. MacClatchie has triedt to interpret the symhols Iden
is formed from half [the character jon, 'meat' (or: the rneat: of 11alf a victim)
and k'un of 1he I king as corresponding lo the lingam and yoni of Tndian cn1t, J. ,.
on the top of a tsii [5 Tbc later commentators lm ve sonwtirnes thought that.
hut his 1~ntirely unprovcd fancies have been severely hut justly condemned Iiy i.<:ii 5/ is only the ardiaic form for this same tsu [9] 'sacrificial table', so e. g.
Legge, Forke and others. Forkett sums up: ''Die Chinesen selbst haben von einem
Wang Yiin in 11is \veil-known Slwo wen Ide tsl kii tu. T_here is sorne difficulty
Phalluskult nicht die geringste Vorste11ung".
in this: tradition has it that the modcn1 tsii was tm ancient ls.iwo in the even
The difficulties of tracing and proving possible phallic phenomena are indeed
tone (p'ing sl1enfr), hut modern tsn [BI 'sacrificial table' an ancient l~,iwo in the
considerahle. Archaeological excavations from the most ancient times have so
rising tone (slwnuslwng). If this is right, they maybe cognate words but not
far been very rare, and \Ve kno-vv very little of what the Chinese soil hides. i d en t i c a 1. However, S Imo wen's t sii [ fi] in the se1'lse of 'stand' does not
Ancient customs have been largely described in the oldest literature, hut seldom
Gccur, as far as I know, iu H single ancicn l lex t. l am afraid the word has never
their origin and purport. Cult performances of a phallic origin may be described
existed, but is a free cons !ruction of Hii ·~, under !he illflnence of the word tsjmo
without our suspecting the phallicism behind them. It is first in Chou time Urnt
[~J] 'sacrificial tahle', very common in the classics, in which th(~ right half olwious]y
we obtain a rich documentation of various cult elements and of the ritual system
gives a picture of some kind of lal:Jle or stand. Be this as it Jnay, it is out of the
as a whole. But many rites were then already a thousand years old or more,
question to admit, ·with Hii and :his followers, that this tsii (anc. tsjwo) or
:md their original hearing had very likely been more than once already obscured to
possibly tsu (anc. f.<j(wo,) is simply a phonetic in im (anc. tsuo) 10] 'ancestor'.
the performers themselves. It is therefore due to a lucky chance, if we now and
(The "radical" being a later addition, tsi_wo or t~iwo \\'Oul<l then have liecn used
then get light thrown on the real and original significance of a Chinese rite.
alone and as a -whole as kia tsie [111, phonetic loan, for 'ancestor'.) In tlie first
I will describe here certain phenomena in which I propose l.o see suggPst.ions
place, a table or a stand must be essentially f la t at the top, whereas tsn
of an ancient Chinese phallicism.
'ancestor' is \vritten with a more 01· less pointed, often Yery sharp top, iu the
majority of the aucient bronze inscriptions. Seeondly and above all, the whole
*
idea of this }Jhonet.ic loan is absurd: the word tsu 'ane('Sfor' ·written vdth this syin
Pal a en graph y is often of great ethnographic value, and particularly hol occurs in thousands of inscriptions ever since Yin time (oracle bones and hrouze
so the remarkable Chinese script. \Ve find :in Chinese a character [2], earlier jnscriptions). It is inconceivable that the Chinese horn this early date should
written as a simple dnnving [:~;, which means 'anceslor', the procrea tor of the haw' \Vritten tha !. important word 'ancesto1" with a di<rrnder which properly meant
race. and here there is a priori a great probability that \Ve have a phallic picture. 'a stand', because of a certain phonetic similarity. T. Tak a ta, in his Kn dwu
p'ien, has rightly seen this and cleaTly distinguished hetneen !he drawing tszz [12]
* lndischer und Scrbischer Feldfn1clztbnrkeitw11ber, Antlzropophyteia vol. VJ.
'ancestor' (anciently pro:no1mced ts1w) and tsii (anc. tshvo) (or tsu, ane. f.~iwo")
Hiil/ristninyar och J;u/ibrnk (Gravmcs sur rochel's et rites magiq11es) in Kungl. Vitterl;cts
Ilisiurie och iln!ikuilets Alwdemiens Hmullingar, 85, (Stockholm) 1926/27. 'a sacrificial sland'. vvrilten more flat r1 3 i' This ]utter' consequently' Wt', call
*'''* All Chinese charnelers nre brought together in a fool-nolc. on the righl-ha11d page. now leave out of the discussion entirely.
i" China Review l p. l &2 ff. and IV p. 2&7 ff.
'i'-f Gesrhichtc der a/ten Chinesischen Philosophic 1927 p. 12.
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BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUNJ OF F11R EASTER.N ANTIQUITIES
·-------~--~ .. ·-·--·---------·~---------·---··----·~-··-----------··--------------·---------·--~----~ FL4RLGRBN; SOME FECUNDITY SYMBOLS JN ,1NCIENT CHINA
ln Pl. I below I give a selection of variants of the character tsu 'ancestor' from
ancient sources; a and b, 1---G are taken fron1 the oracle bones of Honan, h 6, 7, There is, however, one fact of grf'at importa11ce which has to he pointed out.
c, d and e 1---4 are from bronzes of the Yin and Chou dynasties. ft is bv no 1neans always t lie or i gin a 1 s en s e which in later times has
It is easily seen that some of the .most ancient forms arc clear phallic dnnvings, been allmH~d to rnonopo.Uze the or i g i n a 1 (simple) cbaradcr: loi [:rn] origin
Yd1ich is very natural and reasonable as a designation for 'ancestor', the pro ally meant 'wlwat, barley' (so used in Shl king, Chou s uny) but has lwen applied
ereator of the chm. as a kia tsie for the homophonous verb lai 'to come'. The original word still
\Ye have to observe, however, the interesting fact that of the Yin time exists, hut it is t hi s orig in a 1 w or d its e 1f. 11 o t t h c i 11 ! r u rl c r,
forms as well as of those from the Chou period, some are more elaborate and that has had to take on a specifying radical: [::ll] 'wheat, barley'. The reason
complete, whereas others are reduced to t r i au g I e s. Through a comparison for this is obvious; fai 'to come' is a much rnore common word -than l.ui 'wheat',
with the completer forms of the character. the triangle can he determined to be and tlwrefore it bas monopolized the original, simpler form. From this example
but a simplification of the more elaborate dnnving, which has u triangular we can deduce the fo]Jo-wing principle of analysis. In examining a character
and a rectangular lower part: by making the vd1ole pictogram triangular, the side like [;{()] we must say, ·without rnry prejudice on the strength of the writing usage
strokes are more easily drawn. And the triangular variant gives us a possibility of modern time~: the drawing [BH] must have depicted either 'to come' or 'wheat'.
of obtaining a valuable palaeographic parallel, which gives important support and the choice hel'\veen t11em cannot in any vrn:y llc influenced }Jy tlie faet that
lo the theory. in later times it is lui 'to come' and uol lai 'wheat' which is written [36!.
These considerations bear str<mgly on the case 'We now are going to examine.
I have to insert here a remark in parenthesis. In our current Chinese writing, There are three cluuaders i:i8] po (ancient b'uk) 'white', [3~l] po (m1c. pnk) 'eldPsl
\Vhich goes hack, in principle, directly to Ts'in and Han 1imes, the phonetic
brother' (secondarily 'senior, Jll'ince' etc.), and [40] p'o (anc. ) 'soul', which
compounds (hie slzeng), characters consisting of one signific ("radical") and one
are intimatel:y co1mected, lrnvin;g lwen written, originally, with tbe same symbol
"phonetic", form the great majority; so called kiu tsie [11] phonetic loans, where
[41] all three of tllem -- the radicals [42] 'man' and [:18J 'spirit' being later
a character, without the addition of any signific, stands for another word because specifying additions. Hen 1ve must apply the principle jnst deduced, and stat<.>:
of sound similarity, e. g. 1_14] wan 'scorpion' used for wan 'ten thousand', are com the symbol I , i. e. in inodern execution [:-381, must have had for its object,
paratively Yery rare. In Chou time, on the contrary, the Ida tsie were extremely
originally, c it h c r b'nk 'white' or rmk 'eldest lirother' or p'nl> 'soul'. The
common, and the phonetic compounds much rarer than in later times.* In fact, fact that in later limes it ls l>'vk 'white' ·whidi has monopolized the original
the majority of the latter seem to have heen created out of kia tsie characters by character, and that pnk 'eld<~st brother' has had io be specified by the signific
a later (late Chem, Ts'in, Han) addition of elucidating, specifying signifies ("radi ·
'man' and p'nk 'soul' by the signific 'spirit' by no 1neans proves that it was just
cals"). vVhat is now the "phonetic half" of the character, was in middle Chou 'vvl1ite' and not 'eldest brother' or 'soul' \Yhich [41], i. c. [38] syrnholized from
time the entire character, used as a kia tsie, phonetic loan. Vv e can verify this the beginning. It may have meant 'white', aI1d then '<'ldest brother' and 'soul'
assertion by opening any of the numerous repertories of bronze inscriptions. Take, arc secondary usrs of the cliaract<:•r; it may equally -well ha\'(' rneant 'eldest
e. g. the Kiin ku lu kin wen of vVu Shi-fen, and open, at random, kiian 3 c: brother' --- 'white' and 'soul' being secondarr applications; and it may have meant
in a fow pages you meet cases like [16] for [17], [18] for [19], [20] for [21],
'snnl' ··-- 'white' and 'eldest hrolher' being secondary uses of the symbol.
[22] for [23], [2,1-] for [2f>], [26J for [27], f28] for [29], [30] for [31], [32] for [3:~], In the choice lwtween the three, the Shun wen kie t1;! has adopted 'whitP' as
[:'14] for [i1;"iJ etc. This is a fact well-known to aU students of Chinese palaeo
the origi11al sense and offers ns a brilliant spPc::ulation: "It is the colour of the
graphy.
'Western Quarter. At all ritual performances of the uin (dark, female) kind, the
* \V. Soolhill, J. R. 1l. S. 1925, p. 122 says: "The oldest. Chinese books we possess, notably the colour of the ohjects is white. [The character is formed I from [ 44] .irz 'to enter'
Odes, clearly prove the age-long existimce of "phonclirs" as part of Hw written system". This and [45] er 'two' cornhincd: 'two' is a yin nmnher''. And the fan1ous expuunder
is of course a vPry foolish remark. When e. g ..i n the Siao ya, ode Ch'u fs'i, the word J.:o 'to
of the Shuo \Ven, Tuan Yii-ls'ai, quite sPriously adds that whereas clr'u 'to go
come' is wrltlen [15J with the "radical" 'Lree' and ko 'each' as "phonetic", \his does not mean
out, outside' is gong (bright, male 144] ju 'to enter, interior' i~ !Jin.
that the word was so written in Chon time. \Ve have ample proofs in the bronze inscriptions
!hat the word was written wilhoul: :ciny 'trpe' radical, and J.:o 'each' was uoi a phonetic in our i
sense of the term, lm! a J.:ia tsie. Soothill seems not lo suspect the well-known !'rte! that the 14 15~ 16 {t
atnh<e' iesntut dteyx tosf wtphree wtrraintisncgr iboefd tbhey tChhee mH adny ndaysntays, tyth secr;l,ifoolraer,s itnhteo ltihteer asrcyr iptte xotfs tahreei r soewldno mti moef. Fanoyr n 11f 1s ~ 1~_.:k} 20 f 21 of- 22 f 2s fQ. &_ 2s ~ff<. 2B j;if 27 ~ 2s,flf 29 fog BD P~ 31 !.R s2 {] 33 ~
use: we have lo go lo the contemporury inscriptions.
~~M~E*~~-6-~m~~~o~illLw~a~
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KARWRf:N; SOME FEClWDlTY SL1fBOLS JN ASCIENT CHINA
JIULLBTIN OF THE ,1!/USEUM OF FAR E!L'iTERX ANTiQU!TlES
very aptly expressed this in the following vva:y*: "L'hornme a deux. :''unes, un
L. \Viegcr''' foUo~vs another interpreter: "it is a picture: before yet the sun has
.donbleprincipedevie. D'abord p'o [52],Ulrnc[43] issue du po [51i sperme
come up, there is first produced a small ray of light" (the point at the top of a
pat c r n e 1 .... Apres la naissance, l'ahsorplion et Ja condensation de I'air [56]
'sun' indicating this first ray) -- llws the day becoming 'bright, white'. This
on gun [57] produisent la secornle illne, [·i:)j Tame aerienne". He lherefore
would certainly lie a much belier solution, were it not for the fact that in none
translates onr p' o (anc. p'ok) [ 52] "L.'ame sperrnatiqtte", the sperma soul If all
of the ancient Chou inscriptions is there any round sun disc, as in the character
this is correct. -which I tbink is indubitable, then po 'eldest brother' and p'o
.f1, 'sun', with a dot at the top. The character is indeed quite different. PL I,
e G----7, f 1---k) shows a few nuiants from Yin and Chou time**. The char 'spermatic soul' 1nust be cognate words, <H rather two variations of the same
stem. Po 'eldest brother' has then the prirnary sense of "progenitor' ("the dan
acter is pointed and oft(•n quite t r i a 11 g u 1 a r. And this gives us the key to its
man") --- for the difference in initial con_mnant d. p. 28 below. It both po
sense. The similarily 'With the tsu 'ancestor' pictogram is striking ---- it is inerely
'eldest brother' (progenitor) and p' o 'spermatic wul' ·were felt to lie trne and the
a simpler form of the sami.'. drawing! And this fact becomes definite as soon as we
:,a.me word stem and hence originally designed h:y the same pictogram l_58i -- ·
think of the parallelism in sense: the symbol 46], which occurs in hundreds
H1is !alter must necessarily be a phallic design. The sense 'white' of the charaeter
of inscriptions from Yin and Chou times in the sense of fc17] ('eldest brother' and
'prince') means origin a I I y pok 'eldest brother' and all which that entails. [Hi. 51'. is consequently a secondary aPJilication. Now, jf this picture is a phallic
design, this goes strongly lo prove the correctness of Hie parallel case: that tm
\Vhat the tsu 'ancestor' is to the clan as a whole, the fundamental point, the po
'ancestor' lG 2] means 'the phallus man', th.e progenitor, It is the sarne graphic
(anc. pvk) 'eldest brother' is to the living generations of the clan: he is the
idea a11plied in slightly ntried form to two words: ·ancestor' and 'eldest brother'.
c I an, he carries it and represents it, he brings the sacrifices t.o the ancestors,
he is sometimes called straight out ts11ng [,18] 'the clan man' (I li, Couvreur p.
So far we han:~ dealt with palaeogra phk questions exclusively, and shovvn
:397 ). He is the present progenitor of the family. Hence also the sense of po
that t.m [59] aml po [ 58] are pballic script elements. The queslion is nmv
'chief', which became a nobility title (a feudal prince of a certain category).
whether Hie phallus idea is limited to the s c rip t, or plmllus elernenls were
That indeed the 'eldest hrotlwr', through this character, is indicated as the
to be found in real life, in the customs and m1lts, As departed ancestors han•
"progenitor" and tlial the character has a phallic purport, is confirmed by several
11een worslii]Jped since frnw inunemorfal by sacrifices to the ancestral tablets, and
facts.
as these tablets, even in their inodern forrns [60], lwm a considerable resemhlance
Suggestive, though of course not conclusive, are the titles of the five categories
to some t)f the most ancient variants of the character tsn 'ancestor', the phallic
of feudal princes: kung, lwu, po, isl, nan, Out of these five, the first kung [ 49]
pictogram, it seems very 11atural to suspect that the ancestral tablets originally
in modern Chinese n1eans 'male', and was used in the sense of 'father' even
were phalli, representing tl1e procreafore fol'ce of the family.
in Chou time (Lie-tsl) and Han time (Kia I). The fast one mm r5o] has meant
Several objections might be made against this idea. If we snppose that the
'male' all through the history of the Chinese language. This may he an indicium
picture tsu [59] is not only a scri1>t syn1bol for the notion 'ancestor' but a drawing
that the application of the third one, po ( pvk) 'eldest brother' for 'prince', is due
·of a concrete phallic ancestral tablet, it may seem strange that: the technical term
to an analogous mental procedure.
for 'ancestral tablet' vYas as a rule elm [fH] 'master' and not tsu [59]. Yet it
Much more important is the fact that our symbol [ 46j i. e. [fi 1 occurs also in
J must be co11ceded that it was practical to have two distinct denominations for
the charnefrr [!' o p'nk) 'soul', with 'spirit' as an elucidating, additional 'ancestor' and 'ancestral tuh]Pl', and, besides, there are eases where tsu is really
signific [52]. The soul ideas in ancient China have been much studied, and it
used in tlie concrete sense of 'ancestral tablet'. In a conmientary to Chou li.
is a well-known fact that the p' o was the animal soul, the vitality soul, hound to Siao tszmg po, the scholar CJ1eng IWan (2 d c. A. D.) sta !es that the portable
the body and its life functions, and that it 'vas created at the moment of co 11, ancestral tnbfots carried on vrnr exrH:ditions \vere called trn [62], \Vhich
c e p Ii on (Maspero, Lu Chine untiquc p. 17(i: ''Le p'o venail le premier au
explains the sentence of the Shu king (Legge p. lfi5 ): "if you act according to my
moment de la conception"), whereas the ]um 153] is of a morP spiritual kind, orders, I will reward you hf~fon; tlw tsu [ 62] mH·estral tablets". Still more
Indeed, the Tso chuan, Chao kung 7th year, expressly says that the p' o comes at convincingly does this appea1· in the Shi: ki of S1-ma Ts'ien, 1-Va ti pen ki, where Hw
the conception ("the first transformation, reaction" ), hut the Jum only after
word is cmnhined with ni [fl3] 'fa!her's tnhlel': kuci ko yii ni t.m [Ml "when he
the hirth . And Li ki \Couvreur I, 61:5) says fhat the !um and the "breath'' at
n, p. 2ri.
death go to HeaH·n, bul the body and the p'o go lo the Earth. L. \\Tieger has .1.
M~n~~~-~~~m~m~m~MA ~{; {l'.'., 55 t;{
'' Rudiments 12, Carac/11res, HJ():), p. 2f>9. ~&ITTOOOu£Mm••H~ ~ t ~ tH
Cf. T. Tnkala, Ku c/1011 J!'ien, k. :m, p. 7.
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BULLETIN OF TllB MTJSEU:lf OF FAR EASTERN ANTIQUITIES KARLGRRV; SOAIE FECUNDITY SYMBOLS IN AVCTEVT CHLV11
returned he made a visit to the tablets of his father and ancestor". This indeed brought the corpse (of \Ven wang) on a car with l1im into the battle, whereas
is a quotation from the Sim king, Shun ticn !Legge p. 37 ), where it is written Si-ma Ts'ien (Shi ki, Chou Jlf'll id) says that he brought the mu elm 'wooden
i tsu [( )[)'] ; hut as the Shany slw ta clwan (former Han dynasty time) ap. Ts'i chi tablet' of vVen wang l67_1. "Possibly", say'> Erkes, ''the two different records
t'zmy kien, ts'ien pirn, quoh:s ni ts11 [G:JJ, just as Si-ma Ts'ien does, this is certainly preserve the traditions of two different customs, the fatter of which must then,
the reliahle kin-wen version, and the expression does not mean 'the cultivated in all probability, have developed froui the former''. He srems lo think that !lit~
ancestor' (Leggej but 'the tablets of father and ancestor' (cf. Yii Yiic, Huang subs titulion of the lllll elm 'wooden ta}) let' for the corpse (if really a corpse is
Ts'ing king kie sii pien, k. 1364, p. 6). intended; the \Vord shi is arnbignous) proves the nw eh 11 to have been an i m a g e
Another objection might he that there arc some possibilities lha t the tablet of the r or p s e. and 1herefore he transfa tes mu clw hy 'wooden statue'.
\Vas originally a human figure. Chavannes* says about the elm 'ancestral Nothing can he more arbitrary. The mu elm, wooden ancestral tablet, was tlw
tablet': "Ce lerme est gt5neralement traduit par le mol 'tahlcllc'; de nos jours, resti11g place of the ancestor's sririt, once his liody -v·rns dead and decomposed.
en effet, le tclwu est, dans la plupart des cultes Chinois, une tahleUe en hois sur In this sense ii was a snbslilutc for llis body, his sviritnal foTee had en!en~d it.
laquclle on inscrit le norn du dieu. Cette lahlf'lte passc adue1JPment pour etre and lherefon it vvas earriecl into battle. bringing this mental force of his inl<">
le f>icge materiel 011 vient se poser Ia diviniU~; cepc11dant, certains rites qui se sont }Jlay on the side of the descendant. Ilut this, of cmuse, proves nothing at all about
conserves jusqu':\ maintenant nous revelent que la tahletle et.ait primitivcment t h c s ha p e of the mu drn, nr any similarity on its part to the "corpse''. Erkes'
autre chose que le sirge du dieu: elie en etait la vivante image; dans le culte des argument fa11s to tlH' gTound. herm1se the essential link in the chain is missing.
ancetres, une des ceremonies essentieUes consisie h ponctuer la tahlettP. tien Much better reasons can be addue('d, I think, for 1ny phallic theory.
a
tclwu, c'esl-a-d. marquer avec des points de sang les endroits de cettc tahlelte In Uie first place it must l:w renH'mbered that thn ancestral cult did nol serve
011 sont censcs se trouver les yenx et les oreilles du defunt; le sang les anime et the sole puqiose of helping and app<'asing the sµirils. On tlw contrary it was
fait entendre et voir l'ame logee dans la tahlette; ce rite est d'une significatior1 rather egoistic: something w~ts w a n t e d from the spirits. This something was
identique il cPlui par lequel on ouvre ll's yenK des statues houddhiques, et iJ prouve certainly good luck generally, their advice ltlirm1gh the oracle) and so on, but
a mon sens, l'idenlite fonciere de la tableHe et Ja statLie". above aH it was the i r h e l p f o r the rn a in t a in in g and p r op a g a
This is certainly an interesting suggestion, hut the conclusion is much too risky. t i o 11 o f t Ii e fa Ill i l y. The ancestral cult \Va_s ~1hovc all a fr· c u n di t y cult.
On the one hand, nothing can be concluded from entirely modern custom~, l''or this we have vcrba form(l/ia in the fJI'ecious Tso chwrn, Yin kung, 8th year.
possibly influenced by foreign (bud<lhislic) ich•as, customs ·which in a popular and 1)rince Hu of Cheng goes to Ch'en to meet liis hride. On tlwir return they first han'
naive fashion put ideas into rites two or three tlmusand years old which 'vere their nuptials, and only afterwards a1m01rnce the match in the ancestral templr.
never llwre originally. The tif'n elm means in most parts of China simply the The officeT K'ien says: "They are nol real husband and wife, t h e y c h 1.• at
addition, by some authoritative person, of the last dot in the cl1aracter elm 011 the thPir ancestors. It is against the rites. How (·.an tht·v hrePd?".
ancestral tablet**, and the ''eyes and ears" version is surely but a popular corrup The chealPd ancestor witl1holds from them what he otherwise confrrs: the breed
tion and naive amelioration of this custom. If we reason like Chavannes, we ing foTCe, the f e c u n <lit y. Alr(:ady this fecundity purport of the ancestral
might just as well conclude, from the modern custom of painting eyes at the cult makes the phallir theory plausible.
stem of a boat, that in ancic•nt times the 1~ oat was primarily the image of a J3ut we can get rnore bindi11g proofs Plsewhere. As a point of departure I take
living animal! Tlw phenomenon is much morP simple from the point of view of the well-known ft1ct, already en1phmize<l on. p. 1 ~J]HW<\ that f l' c u 11 di t y and
popular rationalism: orw must have eyes and ears in order to see aud hear; the fertility are intinrntdy conneeled in the mentality of ancient ywoples, and
spirit takes its place in the tablet, one must furnish him with the means of that pballicism has regularly had to do with the crops of tfa soil. It is therefore
05
observing the homage pnid to him l This is rwrfeetly parallel with the boat case: but natural that the anc(:stral mlt (fecundity cult) and the cull of the soil (fertility
"supposee no have eyes. how can look-see?", any sampan man of Shanghai 'vill cult) sliould go l1and in hand. That tllis has lwen the ease in China, thal the
tell you. Nothing ean be safely concluded from such premise'>. tsu rnioo or tsung 111iao 'ancestral temple' 011 the left (east) side of the king's or
E. Erkes*** tries to furnish m1dent text proofs that the ancestral tablet was an the feudal prince\ palace, and 1he altars of the Sbe-Tsi 'god:,, of tht> Soil and tlw
image. He quotes the T'ien wen of K'ii Yi.ian, stating that vVu wang isai shi [66] Grain', to the right (west) of it, were indissolubly eonrn~eted, has bec:'ll fully pr<wed
* Le T'ai clwn, essai de monograpliie d'zrn culte Clzinois, 1910, p. 476. by Chavanne~, who writes as follrnvs (Le T' ai chem, p. 511 ):
** See \V. Grube, Reliyion und Kultus der Clzinesen l!HO, p. l\l3.
*** Artibus Asiae nr. 1, 1928.
8
9
BULLETJ.N OF Tf!E MUSEUM OF FAR KiSTERN ANTIQUITIES f{ARLGREN/ 50,VB FECUNDITY SY11fBOLS JN Ai\'CJENT CIIINA
"La vie nationale est dorninee dans tous scs actes par le dieu du sol et par le to Chavannes' belief made of stone though the proofs on this point seem
·r
te1nple ancestral. La prf>sence de ces. deux puissances tutflaires du royaume est, meagre (there are no points of appni older tha:n Cheng Hiian, 200 A. D.). The
b. proprement parler, ce qui consfrlue le veritable siege du gouvernement; la capi god She was anciently identified \Yilh Hou-t'u 70], wl1ich Chavannes translates
tale est fondee sur l'autel et sur le temple. Quaml un souverain cree ou choisit ''prince Tcne" (just as he translates Hou Tsi "p1·ince :\Iil!et" and Hon-fu JS
une ville pour y fixer sa residence, son prPmier soin est d'etablir l'autel du dieu described as a deified hero, Kou-lung !711, the son of l{ung-kung !72].
du sol et le temple ancestral ... Ip. 5 Hi:) L'union des dieux du sol et des moissons The fundamental passages in lhh case arc four:
avec le temple anceslra1 est si intime qu'elle se manifeste a nous lhms une mul Li ki, Tsi fa (Couvreur II, p. 269): "Kung-kung ·was hegcmon over the nine
titude de fails. Sur le point de parlir pour une expedition mililaire, celui qui etait provinces. His son was called Hou-t'n I 70 J. He could put in order [ 73] the nine
:! la tele des troupes se rendait dans le temple ancestral pour y recevoir l'ordre provinces, hence~ they sacrificed to him as She [08], god of the Soil".
cl'enlrer en campagne, et auprt'~s du dieu du sol pour y recevoir une portion de Ia Tso clrnan, Cimo kung, 29th year, (Couvrcur p. ±55:1: "J\ung-kung had a son
viande crue offerte en sacrifice. -~ Toutes Ies fois qu'il y avail une grande called Kou-lung. He 'was Hnu-t'u. 'these shared in two of the sauificcs. Hou-t'u
calamite dans le ciel on sur la terre, on faisait les sacrifiees prescrits par Jes rites was Sh(•, the god of the Soil [7·1]".*
a ux dieus du sol et des moissons et au temple ancestral, et c'est Ie siao tsong po Tso chzwn, Chao kung, 29th y<~tu, (Couueur p. 4[>3): "The ruler (governor.
qui y presidait. En 54B av ..1 . C. un prince, dont la capitale vient d'etre prise, adrnir1istral<H:, official) of the earth (soil) vvas called IIon-fu f76] ".
attend ses vainqueurs en habit de deuiL tenant dans ses hras son dieu du sol et Kuo yii (Lu yii A): "His (Kung-kung's) son 1nts called Hou-t'u. He could put
faisant pr{~senter par le chef de ses armees les ustensiles sacres du temple in order UH' 11ine f 11 earths (regions!. Hence th('y sacrificed to hirn as She, the
ancestral: il offre ainsi son pays !out enlier au triomphateur e1memi. ·--·· En fdi1 god of the Soil".
av . .J. C. un grand incendic :1 Song est annonc{~ d'avance par une voix prophetique Of interest are, further, the following statenH::~IJi:s of h1ter commentators. Cheng
dans le temple ancestral et par un oiseau qui crie sur l'autel du dieu du sol de Hiian comm. to Li Id .. T'an k1mg (Couvreur I, p. 187 ): "Hou-fu is She [77]". Cheng
Po, le dieu de la dynastie Yin, dont eh1ien1 issus les princes de Song. Dans le Hiian comm. to Clion li. Ta t.mng po \last clauses!: "llon-fu is the god (the spirit)
temple ancestral du Fils du Ciel eomme sur son autel du dieu du sol, un des rites {)f the t'11 earth (soil)" [78]. And the same conunenlator (passim) says: She is
a
essentiels du sacrifice consistait it prendre de la viande des vidimes et en donner the master (ruler, lord) of the earth [79]''. Hiao king ·wei !80j (Han time):
:l eertaines personnes afin de renforcer par l'abstmption d'une meme nourriture "She is the general god f81! or the ii kinds of earth".
sacree les liens <Jui les unissaient au souverain ..." Clrnvannes remarks that the Sbe cult cannot frorn the hegin11ing have been
a
M. Granet* gives further proofs: "Aprt':s les grandes batl:ues destinees fournir a worship of the I1ero Kou-lung, for it is opposed to the fact that '>Yhen a dynasty
les Ancetres de gibier, celui-ci est presentc au Dien du Sol. Aprcs une guerre collapses, its She is walled in and replaced liy a llC\V She. He therefore accepts
victorieuse, les trophees sont donnes soit aux Ancetres, soit au Dien du Sol, car ce the con:paratively recent theory, that Kou-lung ·wa~ nwrely p'ei L82j an "associate"
sont 1:1 des divinites parentes". And Granet suggests even (ibid. p. 126) that the at the sacrifices c>f the god She. This is of course pure scholastics in the typical
two (mlts are really the result of a division and specialization of one primary cult. old Chinese style. She, an agricultural god, was in Chou time provided with a
This connection between the fecundity cult and the fertility cult gives me occa "pedigree", an heroic cnigin, as a Hsult of the fllhemeristie propensities of the
sion for examining the latter, in quest of proofs for my phallic theory. Chon tirne schola.rs. That this was so is shown by the fact that the Kon-hmg
origin is not the only myth cuuent about the heroic. origin of the She. On the
The worship of some deity or deities of the Earth is among the oldest rites \vhich
Chavarmes, Le T'ar: clwn p. 505 lranslatcs: "H eou-t'ou est devenn le di<'ll du sol", and after
we have evidence of in China, and this cult has been much studied by Vv'estern
him B. Schindler, Asia I'vlafor, lntrod. volume p. :irn: "Hou-l'u became St1e"'; hut this is lo
sinologues. The first great monograph on this subject was produced by Chavannes
1·iolnte !lie lexL IN ei UH':rns simply 'to lJe' and is co1mln. a.~ regularly in Hie Tso clrn,1n.
in the •work quoted above. He there discusses thoroughly the god or gods which Legge takes the im:<mePivable frredorn of translating: "Hrm-t'n was sacrificed lo at thP nltar
from remote ant.iquity down to modern times· have been worshipped under the of l he larnl",
name of She [ G8], god of the Soil. He describes how She gods existed for the tt .i. la
G8 69 1{)
vd10Ic kingdom, for the feudal slates, for the districts and for the villages. A She
slmuld have an altar in the open, a sacred tree, and a po l e, for \Vhich the tech 72# _-,r_ 73 t '14 Jt:, :.t. ~ ~.± ?{; }?,g 76 .± .iL 8 la ±.. 6 :i
'
1+ e
nical lcrm was elm !"69] 'master' (same term as for 'ancestral tablet'!), according 78 fa J:. J:. ~ 79 ,f-J:_ ±. .H'.: .{ 1. 8(, ~ ~f
* Danses et teuendes de la Chine ancienne p. 129. 82~
10 11
BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUivl OF FAR EASTERN ANTIQUITIES KARLGREN; SOME FECUXD!TY SYMBOLS IN ANCIENT ClllNA
-----------~---~~--------··-----~----------"~-.. ---------------·-----·--------------------·- ----------~---~--~--~---~~--~------------ ---~---~-~----- ---------- -~ --------~
Li ki passage (Yiic ling, Couvreur I, p. 371): "[!as! month of tlw summer] its of later times; but there is no douht that the combination yin yany signified the
ruler is Huang ti, its god is Hou-t'u" Cheng Hiian remarks: "Hou-fu is also the combined action of Heaven and Earth in the production and transformation of
son of Chuan-hii, named Li [8:3j or [84] who [85] combined the position of beings, or the creative poYvers of these two g·reat forces. In the sacrifices to the
Hou-fu I with another office!". Again, Tso clman, Wen kung, 18th year, (Couvreur deity Earth, all paraphernalia arc: derived frmn the sphere gin. . . It has been
p. 553) also connects the Horu-t\1 with the emperor Chuan-hii, hut with ::mother emphasized that only under the llan dynasty the word ho11 adopted the meaning
variation of the myth: "Kao-yang Chmm-hiil had 8 talented sons, Ts'ang shu, of "princess, <'mpress", and that first in a hymn of that period the deity Eartl
1
T'uei \vei, T'ao yin, Ta lin, Mang hiang, T'ing kiPn, Chung jung, Shu ta .... The is conceived as female and is designated as "the fertile mother" ... But ti1is does
whole world called them pu k'ui 'the eight eminent ones'. \Vhen Shun served not prove that the deity has been co11sidcred a male previously ... An important
as Yaos minister, he promoted the eight eminent ones and let them preside over deity, occupying to a large extent the minds of the people, docs not change in a
[lhe office of) Hou-t'u [8 6! ". Here there is no mention of Li. So the theme only day from a male into a female ... A sharp distinction must he made, at thP outset.
is the same h1 these versions: some old hero or heroes, who lwcame minister or l1ctween i!: lie deity of Earth (t"u) and the spirit of the Soil (She) ... The spirit of
ministers of agriculture aud god or gods of !he Soil. the snil a d~cid)ly male go<i of partially a1ilhroponiorphic concept; but it is a
However, as hon I8 7] in later times always means "queen" and not "king", god restricted m pov1er as to space and time, it is a god of territorial groups, of
already long before Chavannes it had l.wen proposed to see in Hou-t'u a fem a l e sncial conmi.Lrnities occupying a more or less limited area of soil. There is a
deity, "the Queen Earth", as a counterpart to the masculine Huang T'ien "August complex system of an official hierarchy of a plurality of gods of the soil graduated
i;
Heaven'', and such a deity really existed in Han time. As this tallies hadly with according to rank and power ... The deity of Earth, howcn;r, is finite in
1
the obviously male deity She, anciently identified with Hou-t'u, Chavmmes in space and ti1ne ... It is an almighty, grei1t. abstract deity like Heaven ... The
nstigates the history of the female Hou-t'u cult, and comes to the result, that dual concept of Heaven and Earth as the deified omnip~f('nt powers of nature
no such cult can he proved to have existed in Chou time, and he thinks it is a seems to me to lune forrned an essential cons titueut of the most ancient religious
Han innovation. He concludes (p. 524): "II ne semble pas quc le sacrifice [l la notions of the Cl1i11ese." c.
terre remonte ~! une haute antiquitt>. Ce n'est guere qu':l I'epoque des Han que The Chavannes-Grube tlwory was further atb1cked by A. Conrady*. It was
nous voyons se former netlement la conception de la Terre 1rn~re par opposition easy for him to show that the W(lrd lwu occurs very .frequently i;1 the Chou
au Cicl pere; c'est sous l'cmpereur \Vou (140-;87 av ..T . C.) qne se constitue le literature in the sense of 'queen, priacess': 1mssim iI1 Chon li, U Jd, I Cllou slw,
cnlte de la Souveraine Terre il. Fen yin, Oll la terre ctait adorec sous Ja forme Tso cfown, even in the Clr'nn ts'iu (as early as the year 715 H.C.). And when Cha
d'une femme". Thus, according to Chavannes, the ancient Hou-fu "minister of vannes says that iu Chou time the expression llou-t'n as a counter1rnrt to Huano
b
the earth" has nothing to do with the later Hou-t'u "La Souveraine Terre". T'ien ''august Heaven" occurs only in oue authentic passage (Tso ehuan, Hi kung,
W. Grube iu his Religion zmd K11lt11s der Chinesen, p. 34, endorses Chavaunes' 15th year, Cou.vreur p. 300: "Huang T'i<~n arnl Hoi.1-fa certainly hear your words.
views and adds, that Jwzz [871 "nach dem iiltesten Sprachhrauch" always and my prince", a case which Chavannes adruits is "embarrassanl~'), Coi;radv point~
Yii (
exclusively meant a masculine person. Hou-t'u must therefore mean either Prince out (ibid.) that t11e same antithesis occurs also in the Rin pit::n hy Sung Clz'u
Earth or (with lwu as an adjective) "The sovereign Earth". It is only in Han ts''i k. 8 i. \Ve can add one more exampk: Kuo uii (Cheng y.ii, k. 10, p. 7 a)
lime that 11011 took the feminine sense of 'queen, princess, empress'. . wl1e1·e it is said "~fay Huang T'ien ancl Ffou-t'u and the earth spirits of the four
To these views B. Lanfor (.Jade 1912, p. 144 ff.) raised serious objections: Tegions punish him". On tlie other hnnd, wllf•n B. Schindler** tries to show, that
"The deity of Earth occupies a prominent place in the religion of tlw ancient Hou-t'u ('njoyed a s1wcial cult, different from that of She. bis reasons are too
Chinese and yields in importance only to Shang ti "the Emperor above", the ruler insignificant to carry conviction. ,
of Heaven. It is simply called f'u [88] and somelimes ti [89] "Earth" and fre Between these opposf'd posi lions as to the ''deity J~a rth", Gran et*** tries to find a
quently characterized hy the attribute h<m, meaning a sovereign. The sex is not conciliatory middle course: "Les dieus agraires des \·illes nobles sont des ehefs
expressed by this word ... Primarily, Earth was neither a distinctly female nor
* Die Chine.,,ischeI1 llandschrifte und somtige }(/ein/urnlc Suen Fledins in Lo11-hm 1\120,
a distinctly male deity, but rather Sl·xlcss; nevertheless it falls under the category
p. 187.
yin, the negative, dark, female principle, as already indicated in the Book of ** Asia 2\!lajor, Introd. vol. p. B14.
mutations (Yi king), where the notion of gin is defined as the action of Earth *** Danses et Ugendes de la Chine crncierrne, p. 17.
(yin ti taoj. It is certainly doubtful whether the word yin conveyed in the be
ginning a clear sex notion, which may he regarded as a philosophical abstraction .:t.. 8?/(:; 88 J:. 8!l ~
12
13
BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF F'All EASTERS ,L'VTIQUJTJ.t;S l{ARL(;REN: SOME FECVNDJTY SL1!1JOLS UV AVCIENT CllLVA
hcroises, cepenclant que subsi~;te une Vcrtu spccifiquement feminine dans la tern~ is simply called l'a and sometimes ti Earth"'. .All the examples adduced by Laufer
domestique. Entre les idees du Lieu Saint et de Terre mt,re, especes de divinitcs in order to shosY ".Ea.rib" as a fem ale power, the crnmlerpart of the male
globules d'aspects neul.res ou ferninins, et la conception des dit'UX males du sot 'Tfoaven", have the word ii, not t'n. It is indubitable true that in the ancient i
I
hicrarchie f{:odafo de Hcros, le passage p:;t apparent: H laissc voir que la tenure Chinese eosnwlogy ti was realiy such a :female nature power, which together with
masculine est le resultat d'un progres gern'raL rnais acqnis de fa<;on plus netk (icn, when viewed as a nature power, Jorn1s the two sides of the Tao, the great
clans le droit public, ou, pour parh:r plus predsement, clans tout ce qui touche creative cycle*. But the word t'u. does nen:~r occur alone, as a designation for a
d'un peu prt~.s a l'authorile publique". spiritual power, lmt always in the combination Ilou-t'u, and !he problem to solve
And finally ll. Maspero returns brusquely to Chavannes' opinion*: "En tete de is precisely this: is Hou-t'u ~0= Ti [no], the female nature power, or is it= She. the
ce pantheon se dressait ks trois grands objets du culte officiel, le Seigneur admittedly male god of !he soil'?
d'En-haut. Chang·ti, dieu du ciel, le Souverain Terre, Heou-l'ou, dieu du sol de ]f we examine the ancient cases wbere Hou-t'u is mentioned, we curiously
rcrnpire, et les Ancelres royanx. Les deux premiers ne formaient pas un couple: cnougb have to rnhnit that there is no "either-or" hut a "hoth-and" in this case.
l'idee des couples divins est completemcnt t'tnmgerc ~1 la mythologie e hi noise On the one hand then' HJ'(' the three undeniahle cases already adducPd, where
ancienne; c'etaient l'un et I'autre des divinitt's masculins ... Toutes Jes fois qne Hou-t'u decidedly is err.ual to Ti, the "Earth". The complete Tso ch11m1 passage
les textes anciens parlent de Heou-fou, i1 s'agit du Dieu du sol impfaial, l{eon (Hi kung, 1f>th yeaL Couvreur p. :JOO) runs as follows: "You tread on the Hou-t'u,
long. L'idee de faire de la terre une deesse est en Chine une idee n~centc qui ne my })rince, and foue over you:r .head the Hunng T'ien August Heaven. Huang
remonte qu'i\ l'epoque des Han ... ll est si difficile de chasser des esprits enrop{;ens T'ien and Hou-1 'u certainly hear your wor·cls". llere 'We have vcr/Jo jormalia
la hantise de la Terre-Mere du monde cfassique, qu'on a essaye a plusieurs reprises that the Earth which \ve tread on is meant, and yet it is a power who hears the
(Laufer, Schindler) de demontrer que dans l'antiquite chinoise aussi, Heou-t'ou lnunan Yvonls. a pmver suitable as •vitness to a solemn oath* . In the pa~sage in
elait une deesse, malgre l'impossibilite d'adapter les texles anciens a cette theorie, Ch'u ts'i quoted Conrady, it is saicl. that Huang T'ien seuds down such fearful
ou tout au moins de reintroduire cette idee par un biais plus ingenieux que con rain, that it is doulitful when Hou·t'u will be dry. In thes<c cases Hon-t'u, being
vainquant (Granet)". equal to the female power Ti, must reasonahly rnean "the sorereign Earth" (ho11
I have passed in review all these extremely divergent views of various sinologucs, being l1e1·e au acljecti ve ).
because !hey concern one of the fundamental problems of the ancient Chinese On tlH~ other hand there are vmious passages wl1ere Hou-fu is really (as
religion, and because the question is of great importance for my inquiry 'in the Maspero 01iiues) !hat whieh all the :Jncient sources quoted p. 11 ah(we dearly
present paper. It is easily seen that Maspero simply shuts his eyes to the facb slate: anotl1eT uanw for lhr~ She, the god of tlw soil. Chon li., Ta trnng po (Biot
which do not suit his theorv. His statements do not hold good. The ancient I, p. 439) has: "\Yhcn the king will make a greltt investiture, he first Jrno llon-(u
texts ahQnt Hou-l'n do not .invariably speak of Kou-lung hut of various other announces it to the Hou-fn" ----- here it must lH~ a question of the She, from the
gentlemen (seep. 12 above). Divine couples do exist, and just this fatal Huang altar of ·which he takes !he clod of eartl1, which is given to the new feudatory to
T'ien: Hou-t.'u (seep. 13 above). And the female nature of the earth is, as proved
* Laufer has pointed out that. already in the I .king, yin is said to be the fiction of the Ii
by Laufer, undeniable.
(later acwunts abound in statements ihat ti has the !Jin nature, see e. g. Cliou-li 13iot 1, pp. ·121,
Granet's conciliatory theory falls lo the ground because, as we shall see (p. 20
422, 4Al). It mrrv be lhat the fundarnenta1 idea of vin is not 'l'emak,' but 'dark' (as opposed lo
below) the She can he proved already to have existed as a male deity in Yin time. yan!J 'bright') --- flrn .sou! of man hm holh yrrnu and !Jin eJements ··- hut ev(•n at au early tirrn• nil
But also the rcasonings of Laufer have a weak point. In the \Veslern languages categories were assork'd .lwtwcPn fhese two, nnd m a I fell under gang, f ,, rn ale under uin.
there is one and the same word for Earth and earth (Terra: terra), if l may be This is so iu Chou ! ime. see Chern Ii. :V ei t.mi: "h (' teaches the imnate1 of the six palaces yin ii
the 11in (c-=. female) rites". :\ml in the Ili ls'i to the l king ii is expressly stater\ that
ullowed to express ii so. Bn! in China it is not so. There are lwo notions with
Earth is female: "the lH'avPnly forcc: ereates the rn ale, the earlhly force creates tbc fem a I('
distinct \VOrds. Ti [~lO] is Earth as oppns<~d to T'ien, Heaven. the ti which forms
In rrny case it wonlcl be very hold tu suppose that Earth was 17iH aud yet mafo.
the "floor" of the space of which heaven is the vault, the ti on which mankind ** It is remnrkahle that the Iiaturnlislic eoncept does not prevent the ancient Chinese from
livPs; and there is t'n [91] earth: tbe soil, the materia (loess, 111ould, clay, sand having at the same time a strongly anthropomorphic conception of these powers. That T'ien,
etc.). The Chinese constantly speak of t'ien-ti "heaven and earth" but never of HPaven, was anlhropornorphic, has been dearly slHiw1Y hy B. Schindl('r !Op. cil. p. :rno ff :
even in Han lime \he Ch'un ts'iu ja11 ln speaks of a princess I Tending in T'ien tsi the foot.
ficn-t'zz. It is therefore not correct when Laufer says: "the deity of Earth ... it
p r in ls of T'if>n and becoming pregnant.
La Chine Antiq11e, p. H\1.
15
14
BULLETJ;V OF THE MUSEUM OF FAB PASTERN ANTIQUITIES !C4RLGREN; SOME FBC:UIV DITY SYMFWLS JN MiCIENT CHJNJ
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build the She of his fief. Again, in Li ki, T'an kzmg (Couvreur I, p. 187) we find: dominated hy a rn ale deity She, the god of the soil, by speculative heads applied
"\Vhen the state loses a big district or city ... the prince laments and announces ·with a fine mythical origin (the hero Kou-lung, or soine other hero).
it to Ifou-i'u" -- Cheng Hiian is obviously right when remarking that Hou-t'u is A fiual proof of this interpretation we have, I think, in the follovl'ing passage
here equal to She. in the Li ki_, Kicw le .~herzg (Couvreur J, p. 580): "She is [when you] sacrifice to
If Hou-t'u in these cases is clearly:=== She (a male deity), it cannot possihlv rn.ean the earth (soil, fu, matcria), and he [the god She] dominates (presides ovt0r) the
not
here, as above, "the sovereign Earth" (the female Ti). But this does mean yin emanations (force~,)'' [93]. Chavannes (Le T'ai chem p. 47~)) gives the
that Chavannes is righl in translating it "prince Terre". This would imply that free translation: "Sur l'autel du sol on sacrifie aux (diverses sortes de) sols; re
a
t'u soil and She were essentially the same, that She was a personification of t'u, dieu est celui qui preside l'influenee dn principe yin".* Here we get it quite
and, therefore, that f11 soil is rn a I e, \vhereas Ti, Earih, as we have seen, is clearly: the She, a.drnittedly a ma l e ( gany) dei!y, r u 1 e s o v er and d o
f e in al e. That is clearly impossible. ~forcover, grammatically the interpreta· rn in a. t e s the t'll soiL \Vhicb is full of yin force, lwing a part of the Ii, !he Earth
tion "prince Terre", though constantly repeated by numerous writers, is very (as opposed to Heaven),
weak. A title in Chinese fa pnt a f t e r, not b e f o re its principal word. One
says Hiwn kung, prince Hnan, not kuny Jfoan. The best translation in these .It is seen that a very close comiedion exists betweo1 t'u, the soil, and She, the
cases, ·where Hou-l'n is equal to She, seems to me to he one proposed already hy god wl10 ruled it, and it is <ml:y reasonable lhat in the .script the two words are
0. Franke*: "der den Erdhoden heherrschf', he who dominates, governs the soil. inti1nalely allied. She js \Vritten [94] with the "radical" [ 97], occurring in many
Hou is then a verb 'lo rule over'. The same would be applicable to the title of the _religious characters, and [95 t'cz, the soil. Shew wen Ide tsi mentions an old
wise K'i: IIou-lsi 'he who governs the millet'. This is in .perfect harmony with vaxiant [96) ju \Yhich a_ tree is added, alluding to the sacred tree always belonging
+
other ancient titles, which consist of a verb a direct object, c. g. sl-t'u 'lie who to the .She altar !seep. 10 a hove)'''*. :Rut th(' oldest character was simpler; indeed
governs the multitudes'. This interpretation would suit the ancient traditions it was id<;ntical wifh the symhol for t'11 soil, without any [97) $hi at the side. Such
very well, that She got the appellation Bou-fu 'he who dominates the soil' from it occurs in J_,iu T'ie-yiin's T'ie-yiin ts'nng lmei P- 2 lo, in Lo Chen-yii's Yin k'ii slm
*''',
the high office he occupied. J/i ts'ien pie11* k. l, p. '..!4 and passim, and obviously also in vVa ng K uo-wei' s
We have now arrived at the conclusion that the term Hou-t'u has two entirely T.i;iezi slum t'any so ts'rmo Yin k'ii wen ts'i p. l,i-
different senses: a. the sovereign Earth (equal to Ti); h. the ruler of the soil The fact that one and the sanw symbol servPs fol both SJ1e and t'11 is nothing
(equal to She). That these two Hou-t'u notions should have developed indepen" veTy astonishing, for in archaic: Chirn~se they were phc>nelically more similar than
dently. is, however, obviously unlikely. One of them must he secondary, crea'.. ed 11qw, and, J belieYe, even cognate words, two variations of the sa'lne stem, which is
nuder the influence of the other. Either 'the ruler of the soil' (minister of agri hut Teasonable in view of the sense: She god of the soil: t'u soil. The t'n was an
culture) was the older meaning, and then it is a word play by some authors to ancient (6th c. A. D.) t'uo, She was an ancient iio (loaned into ancient ,Japanese as
use this same term as a poetical counterpart to Huang T'ien, giving it an entirely .zio, into ancient Corean as sio). But I have provedtt that i- was developed from
new sense (the sovereign Earth). Or else -- and this seems to me to be more
* Couvrear lias R dreadful misl.ranslatiou: "Sur Jes autels de fa Terre on sacrifiait aux genies
likely -- Hou-t'u was an old poetical synonym for Ti, Earth, and then \Ve have
tutclarircs clu tcrritoire; on y pla~ait la tablette du prineipe yin''.
to conclude, that. the Chou ti1ne scholars, who wanted to systematize various Schindler, Op" c ii. p. 3 rn, gives a series o [ "ancient" nuiunl s of the charaeler, hul his
religious notions about earth and soil into a whole, created a kind of equilibrium sourl'.e is the Liu shir Cung, a late work hill oJ aporryp-ha1 forms on which nothing can lw
.built.
and connection between Ti and She by a shnple trick: Ti was If ou-t'zz (the
.*** \Vestern schol:irs regularly transcribe Yin hii slm Id etc.; but hiJ hem stands for
sovereign Earth) ergo She ·was also a Hou.-t'11, but in another fashion: t h c
"'which conee\ly is Had k'ii (Kuang-y-iir1 [9\l] t:iiP).
r u l c r of the soi 1: the mythical hero Kou-lung (or somebody else j, ·:-In spite of \Vang Kuo.,wci, wlw in. all these ('rn'es reads t'u and considers !he word lo be
worshipped as She, having been a minister of agriculture! A pia f raus very -HB abbreviation for Siang·t'u, the name mentioned by Sl-ma Ts'ien (Chanumcs I, p. 175) for 1he
natural to the scholastic mind of the ancient literati. gnrncLmn of Sie. lh first :tn(·estor· of the ShRng-Y:in line. This theory is loo far-fetched lo Jw
These lwo discordant uses of the term Hou-t'u having been explained, there are seriousl;y considered. Moreover, that it is Slze and not t'11 results from the fact that the• same
sentence (Tsien slwu l'w1r1 . p. l! coulains the d1t!l'ac!er i [100], the special sacrifice lo the
left the following main facts: Ti is a female nature power. Tn is simply the
Size (erroneously r_ead tsu [101] by ·wang Kuo-wei, in the; wake of Lo Clwn-yii cf. p. 19 below).
soi I (full, of course, of gin force, as it is a part of Ti). This t'11 is governed and tt Anrzl17tic diclionmu of Chinese, HWJ, ]J. 23.
* Ken(/ Tsclii t'11, Ackerlwu und Seideyewirmzrn(J in China, 1913, p. 7.
16 17
BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FAR EASTERN A'l\'TJQUITIES KARLGIIEN; SOME FECUNDITY SYMBOLS IN A.NCIEST CHINA
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an archaie d' (palatal cl), ancF that -a in this word came from an archaic -d (open She was the i [111] sacrifice. The cluuacter for i is given in the SJmo wen kie
o), confirmed. besides, by a rime in the Tso chuan [102]. The earlier history of tsi as [112], lmt I-Iii Shen adds an ancient form [1 rnJ. This form we find again
the medial i we know nothing ahont. Thus one symbol served for both d'(i)a 'god in the Chou inscriptions and even in the Yin oracle bones, hut much more
of lhe soil' and t'zw 'soil' (for the variation in the initial cf. p. 28 bclo\v ), and the elaborate and suggestive. Pl.1, h 1---7, i 1--fi gives a few examples taken from
case is quite parallel to lhat of b'vk: pvk. Ji'Dk treated on p. 6 above. \Ve have to both bones ancl lll'onzPs. Stnrngely ernmgh, Lo Chcn-yii tries to maintain
apply the same law, laid down on that page, and state: we cannot know a priori that this archaic ehararter is not i but [ 1141 tsu, sacrifieial table. Quite apart
which is the primary sense of the symbol ·-- the character may have meant first from the fact that we have the evolution line of the charac.ter clear from the
She d1(d), and then t'u ( t'zw) is a secondary application. or it may have oldest times over the Shao wen Ide ts! into our modern i [111], Lo's interpretation
meant t'll, and then She is a secondary application. i~ impossible because it goes against the se1lS(' of the inscriptions containing the
Hii Shen in his Simo wen Ide tsl takes the latter way, and explains [103] as two dwracter. That this is so, and that the contexts demand i and do not allow tsu,
layers of soil through which a plant hursts forth. But this is untenable. For in l1as lieen clemly proved liy T. Takata. (Ku clwu p'ien. k. 72, p 4, 5), and 1 need
the Chou time inscriptions the character is seldom \vritten with a horizontal 11ot repeat his arguments here; they are conclusive.
upper stroke, but mostly like a pc g or po l c, rising from the lower surface, If we <:onsider the archaic pictogram of I, the sarrifice lo She, we recognize on
often with a S\velling in the middle, and the same picture occurs already in the the one J1arn1 the traditional J>icture of two slices of meat (raw meat was offered
oracle hones. Some variants from oracle hones and Chou bronzes are given in up at the i sacrifice; was it hung on the pole, as the pictogran:1 sPems to suggest?),
Pl. I, f 7 and g l--7. Sometimes the picture is reduced lo a simple vertical stroke on tlle other hand cxactls -the sarne symbol 115] which \Ve have eulicr encoun·
on top of a horizontal**. That it is here really the character in question, is certain: tcred as a pictogram for tsu 'ancestor'. As this tsn drawing now reoccurs in
we have it in the well-known and unmistakable compound [101] eh' en 'dust' in the character i, principnl sacrifice to the She, obviously illustrating the She 11olt•,
Lo's Yin k'ii slrn k'i is'icn picn k. 7, p. 17. Now, when from Chavannes' researclws -this goes to prove that the forms [l Hl] are really only tliret~ variants of one and
we know that the She altar, besides a sacred tree, had a po I e (presumably made the same pictq,grnphic idea, and v·Ye obtain a striking confiTmation of the intimate
of stone) which represented or indeed was the god She himself, and we clearly connection between tlie ancestral temple and the She altar. the identity of mea11ing
can recognize the drawing as representing a pole, \Ye must necessarily identify the between ls ll 'ancestral tablet' and She pole (for both of which the ritual term was
drawing with the sacred She pole, and the ku wen form of Slwo wen Ide ts'i [105] drn [117]).
for She therefore gives us, besides the signifie slzz, a pictur<" of the two sacred Another testimpny to the fact, perhaps c-ven more striking. we find in
objects of the She, altar: the tree and the pole. \\!hen furthermore L there is M o-tsz (5th c. B.C. ! chapter :n (Min9 k11 ci, hia). There it is stated: "That [the
an intimate connection between ancestral cult and earth cult; 2. the t e c h n i c a 1 state] Yen has tlie t.su [118] is just the same as that Ts'i lms the Shc-Tsi, that
t e r m both for the a n c e s t r a l t a b l e t and for the p o l e o f t h e S h e wa:,; Sung lias the Sanglin and that Ch'u has the Yiin-rneng". She-Tsi are the well
chu [106] (see Chavannes' work quoted above); then we are authorized to conclude known 'altars to the She, god of the soi1, and Tsi, god of the grain'. Sang-lin
that the symbols r1 01 J and I ms] are essentially the same, a pole forming a 'The nmlberry forest' \Vas vrecisely an altar to She, god of the soil, as proved hy
focundity~fertility symbol: in the first case it is the ancestral tablet tsll, in the Cha-vannes (op. cit. p. 47 5). Now, in Yen, the corresponding place, i c. the altar
second the soil god She, in both cases a strikingly phallic syn1boL lo the She was called Tm [118], the very word and the very character which
Fortunately this can be supported by corroborative evidence. There arc two means 'ancestor' and which is origimtlly the pictogram [l 10] fully discussed
essential points for which we can give further proofs: first that 10\l] tsu and above! Here, fimtlly, the connection between {-$u 'ancestor' anci She 'gocl of the
[110] She depict essentially the same object, and that consequenHy, just as !he She soil', and the identity of the tsn 'ancestral tablet' symhol [l rn] and the She pole
pole was a concrete reality, so also [107 J tsu was, not only a palaeographic [ 1201 are provecl beyond the possihili ty of doubt.
element, hut a real object of the same purport as the She pole; secondly, Much has already been said above which makes the phallic nature of this pole
that those poles (She pole and tsu ancestral tablet) had the sense of male s y m· symbol probable or nearly cerlaiu. But \Ve shall now add the final proof of this.
b o I s, were really phalli. It is furnished l>y the character mu [121] 'male', used as opposed to 'female':
Of the first point we bave several interesting proofs. The principal rite lo the ma niu 'a male ox' co-=: a bull, nm gang '1nale sheep' a ram etc. Shvo wcn ldc
* JJL1.S, 1928, p. 780 fL ,o, r/li 1 i*J · :f..:t. ~ a~ t fitt ;01 ± 10•!1. '105 Ri!
See T, Takata, Ku clw11 p'ien k. 10, p. I. 106 .t 107 .@_ 108 D. 10911 110 ± 111 112 d'.I 111 ~l 114 ~@ l "11 llG A A LL 11; .11 rn;ffl 119 ii 120 il 1?1 '1i.