Stalk Divination. A newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching PDF
Preview Stalk Divination. A newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching
iii STALK DIVINATION A Newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching Edited and Translated by Constance A. Cook AND Zhao Lu 趙璐 1 iv 1 Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2017 CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978– 0– 19– 064845– 9 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America v CONTENTS Preface ix List of Charts and Illustrations xiii Introduction 1 The Cultural Milieu of Fourth- Century bce China 2 The Shifa Text 5 Contextualizing the Shifa and Its Use 13 Stalk Divination 18 Features of the Manuscript 26 1. General Principles of Shifa Interpretation 29 Relative Positioning 35 Fixed Positioning 38 The Use and Nature of Extraordinary Numbers 40 The Application of the Extraordinary Numbers in the Reading 42 The Rules: Applications and Implications 44 vi Contents 2. Traces of Shifa- Style Divination 47 3. Transcription and Translation 53 Section 1. “Life and Death” 死生 71 Section 2. “Obtaining” 得 77 Section 3. “Presenting Offerings” 享 86 Section 4. “Change” 變 90 Section 5. “Arrival” 至 92 Section 6. “Marrying a Wife” 娶妻 94 Section 7. “Negotiation” 讎 96 Section 8. “Meeting” 見 98 Section 9. “Spiritual Blame” 咎 100 Section 10. “Healing” 瘳 102 Section 11. “Rainy and Clear Weather” 雨旱 103 Section 12. “Male or Female” 男女 105 Section 13. “Travel” 行 106 Section 14. “Prognosticating on Husbands and Women” 貞丈夫女子 107 Section 15. “Minor Attainments” 小得 109 Section 16. “War” 戰 112 Section 17. “Completing” 成 114 Section 18. “Intended Service” 志事 116 Section 19. “Intended Service, Military Troops” 志事 、軍旅 117 Section 20. “The Four Position Chart” 四位表 119 Section 21. “Auspiciousness and Inauspiciousness According to the Four Seasons” 四季吉凶 122 Section 22. “The Cycle of Qian and Kun” 乾坤運轉 126 vi vii Contents Section 23. “Results” 果 128 Section 24. “Pictures of the Trigram Array and Human Body” 卦位圖、人身圖 131 Section 25. “Heavenly Stems and Trigrams” 天干與卦 134 Section 26. “Curses” 祟 136 Section 27. “Earthly Stems and Trigrams” 地支與卦 140 Section 28. “Earthly Stems and Line Numbers” 地支與爻 142 Section 29. “Line Number Images” 爻象 143 Section 30. “The Seventeen Commands” 十七命 145 Glossary 147 Chart of All Shifa and Some Shuogua Correlations 155 Table of Hexagram Correlations in the Zhouyi and Guicang 159 Summary Content of Zhouyi and Wangjiatai (Guicang) Hexagram Texts 163 Notes 171 Bibliography 181 Index 191 vii ix PREFACE This book presents for the first time a full translation and analy- sis of a newly discovered bamboo divination text from preimperial China, called the Shifa 筮法. The manual presents a completely new way of reading the results of stalk divination, which traditionally is done in terms of hexagrams according to a tradition and text popu- larly known as the I Ching (otherwise known as the Book of Changes, Yijing, or Zhouyi). The Shifa divination method is focused on the eight trigrams, which make up the fundamental building blocks of the 64 hexagrams, as seen in the Zhouyi, but the method of their interpre- tation in the Shifa is unlike anything in the Changes tradition. The authors of this book have translated this new text and “cracked the code” of its methodology. This new divination methodology will gen- erate a reevaluation of all pre-Q in divinatory results and bring new light to Zhouyi studies. The original text is short (only 63 bamboo strips which roll out sort of like a placemat), but it is complete, including 18 sections of sample trigram pattern readings and 21 tables or diagrams of factors (parts of the body, seasons, calendar signs, lists of mantic numbers, curses, etc.) that had to be considered by the diviner when interpret- ing the trigram patterns (hexagrams are never mentioned). This book ix x PrefaCe explores the logic behind each rather cryptic translated case and pres- ents it to readers as a functional manual, not simply as a translation exercise. Some of the information buried in the text is also transcribed graphically into useful reference charts. Illustrations of the different sections of the original text are included for the use of scholars and students but also to give all readers a tangible sense of the original. Besides charts to clarify the logic of the ancient divination method, a number of reference tables are appended for readers, who may wish to think through each case themselves and perhaps compare it with other published divination manuals, such as the Zhouyi. Even though the Shifa trigrams are presented as number series in the original (a concept we analyze), the more modern trigram signs (of broken and unbroken lines) are also supplied. For simplicity, we have included no archaic characters except a few as illustrations in the Introduction. Readers must understand that the contrast with the modern Chinese language and worldview is dramatic. The fourth- century bce world, of which this manual gives us a glimpse, is long gone. Anyone who studies this book, particularly those interested in the Zhouyi, will soon realize that the Shifa is in many ways a “coun- terclassic.” It was not written by an acolyte of King Wen, Zhou Gong, or even Confucius in the northern Zhou tradition. The Shifa bears distinct identifiers that mark it as southern and most likely produced in the southern state of Chu. It is a pragmatic text without a shred of mystical philosophy. The original author(s) must have been aware of the Zhouyi— after all, trigrams were the original building blocks of the hexagrams, but the Shifa methodology employed a completely different method of reading the stalk-d ivination results. With this new interpretative method in hand, the authors suggest that some variations in later commentaries of the Zhouyi tradition may have been the result of influence from this countertradition. The authors come to the project as specialists of two different eras of Chinese religion and thought. Cook is an expert on excavated texts from the preimperial era, and Zhao is a scholar of intellec- tual history of the imperial era. Both acknowledge the inspiration as well as the intellectual and financial support of the International x xi PrefaCe Consortium for Research in the Humanities, “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication: Strategies for Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe” of Friedrich- Alexander-U niversität Erlangen-N ürnberg, Germany. We thank Lala Zuo for help with the illustrations, Chen Wei and Li Rui for bibliographic suggestions, and the anonymous reviewers of our manuscript for their many helpful suggestions. xi xiii LIST OF CHARTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Chart 1.1: Trigrams and the Four Directions 30 Chart 1.2: Seasons and Trigram Auspiciousness 31 Chart 1.3: Gender and Trigrams 32 Chart 1.4: Earthly Branches and Trigrams 33 Chart 1.5: Heavenly Stems and Trigrams 33 Chart 1.6: “Wife- and- Husband” Positions 35 Chart 1.7: “Vacancy” Examples 37 Chart 1.8: Line Reconfiguration Examples 38 Chart 1.9: “Accomplishment” Example 43 Chart 3.1: “Left and Right” Trigrams 78 Chart 3.2: Spatial Trigram Array 88 Chart 3.3: Trigrams and Normative Moon Positions 88 Chart 3.4: The Four Positions 120 Chart 3.5: Seasons and Trigrams 125 Illustration 3.1: Section 24 55 Illustration 3.2: Sections 1 and 2 56 xiii xvi List of Charts and iLLustrations Illustration 3.3: Sections 3– 13 58 Illustration 3.4: Sections 14 and 15 59 Illustration 3.5: Sections 16– 18 60 Illustration 3.6: Section 19 62 Illustration 3.7: Section 20 64 Illustration 3.8: Sections 21– 23 66 Illustration 3.9: Sections 25– 29 68 Illustration 3.10: Section 30 70 xiv
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