University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

The nine songs: a reexamination of shamanism in ancient China

(USC Thesis Other)

The nine songs: a reexamination of shamanism in ancient China

PDF

Download

Open document

Flip pages

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content THE NINE SONGS: A REEXAMINATION OF
SHAMANISM IN ANCIENT CHINA
by
David Tze-yun Chen
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Comparative Literature)
December 1986
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CAUFORNIA 90089
This dissertation, written by
David Tze-yun Chen
under the direction of h.��........ Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
/}
�
;p�£LBu
.............. !�:
.
.
.
. . . . . .. .. / .. :-:::�. �:.��; �· �i·c·;;d��;; ·st�·d;;�
}')../ � / gc.
Date ..........................................
.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
. \ ' . t'; ------------- ............. l:t:�:�.�.�.: .. �.�:.� ..... . � ... (.�.� .. �.� .. : .. S::.:. ................ .
�
L_
l
Chairperson
·················································· � ·································
........... � .... . � ... �� .............. .
TABLE OF CON TENTS
LIST OF FIGURES iii
PREFACE iv
Ch apter
I: A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CH 'U 1
II : SHAMANISM IN ANCIENT CH INA 18
III : THE FUNCT IONARIES OF SHAMANISM •
4
5
IV : THE ARCHAIC TECHNIQUES OF ECSTASY 61
V: THE CHARIOT AS A RITUAL VESSEL . 87
VI : AUTHORSHIP AND DATING 10 1
VII : TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY 12 1
FIGURES 16 6
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 16 8
GLOSSARY 176
ii
LIST OF FIGURES
1 Reco nstruction of a Shang hor se chariot 16 6
2 Recons truction of a hor se weari ng a frontlet 16 6
3 Bro nze fitti ng used to deco rate the chariot shaft 16 7
4 Bronze hor se frontlet 16 7
iii
PREFACE
Thi s di ssertation , as the title clearly in dica tes , is
a fol low-up to Arthur Waley's The Ni ne Son gs : A Study of
Shamani sm in Ancie nt Chi na. Hi s study of the Nine Songs in
the co ntext of shamanism was an inve stig ation in the rig ht
dire ctio n , for the Ni ne So ngs had been mi sunderstood in the
past two tho usand years bec ause the Co nfucia n co mmentator s
had impo sed an allegorica l inte rpretatio n on them . But as
a pio neer in th is fiel d , Waley was ofte n hampered by the
lack of evide nce to su pport his theor y . It is strange to
obser ve that he co mplains that "for even the most meagre
description of a shamani stic seance we have to wait ti ll
the fo urth century A.D. ," while what he is trans lating , the
Nine So ngs , is a shamani stic seance on a gra nd scale.
There are at least fi ve reaso ns for my reexamin atio n
of shama nism in ancie nt Chi na and tra nslating the Nine
So ngs anew. Fir st , a great amou nt of material on shama nism
in ancie nt Chi na is available in hist orical reco rds and
other texts . But onl y a small portion of it has been
tapp ed by Waley. My famil iarit y with the classic al Chi nese
texts , the bro nze and the oracle inscriptions enables me to
make a fuller use of it .
iv
Seco nd , a new wealth of information on the Ch'u culture
has been unearthed by archaeologi sts in the past thirt y
years . With this new in for mation we shall be able to re
write the cultural hist ory of Ch'u more accurately .
Third , in his introd uctio n to the Nine So ngs , Waley
delibera tely avoi ded voi cing his opinion on the aut hor ship
of the Son gs , for one of his students , David Haw kes, was
writi ng his Ph . D. thesis , "The Problem of Date and Aut hor
ship of Ch1u Tz'u, " at that ti me . Hawkes' disc ussion on
this prob lem, unfortun atel y , turns out to be qui te careless
and illogi cal. He asserts , for example, that the author of
the Ni ne So ngs was a Ch1u poet writi ng not lo ng after Ch'fi
Yfian and familia r wit h his wor k . My research shows that
these poems were pro bably written before the si xth century
B. C. , at least two hundred year s before Ch'fi Yfian 's ti me .
Fo urth, not unlike the author ize d version of The So ng
of So ngs , the Nine So ngs are so metime s diffi cult to under
stand be cause the spea kers are not identified in the origi
nal text . David Haw kes co nfesses that "most of the diffi
culties of translation ari se from the fact that at any gi ven
po int in a poem we do not know for sure who was si nging and
what he was doi ng while he sang. " The diffi culties are
partly caused by the con fusio n of the sex of the gods . Bot h
Waley and Hawkes, for example, fol low the traditio nal co m
mentaries and make Hsiang Chfin female . But I believe Hsia ng
v
Chftn is male and Hsiang Fu-j en his divi ne consort . These
two so ngs, Hsia ng Chftn and Hsia ng Fu-j en , are a celebratio n
of their divi ne unio n . Anot her reaso n for the dif fic ulti es
lie s in the incom plete knowl edge of how and by whom is the
ri tual performed on the part of so me Ch'u Tz'u schola rs .
Mo st of the so ngs have two spea kers, and occ asio nally ,
a third voice , the chor us . One of the speakers is an im
personator . He is there to be po ssessed by the god ; and
when the god does descend to take po ssessi on of him , he and
the god are one . The ot her spea ker is a female invoker , who
exercises all her charms to wi n the favor of the god .
The in voker functions as a sort of master of ceremon y .
She is often the princ ipal speaker of the so ng. When the
god doe s co me do wn and spea ks thro ugh hi s mouth piece of the
imp ersonat or , the invoker will invar ia bly im plore him to
sta y . Unfor tuna tely the god is so busy that he can stay
for onl y so short of a ti me that Waley describes thi s
ephemeral love relatio nship between the god and the invok er
as a "manitc honey-moon ."
Fift h , the mo st impor tant co ntrib utio n I will make to
the study of Ch'u Tz'u is pro bably my di sco very of the grand
chariot which is used in all gra nd- scale shamanic seances .
In the words of Kwang-chih Chang, an ou tsta nding Chi nese
archaeolo gist , "bot h chariot and ho rses were ri chly deco
rated with bro nze and turq uo ise or naments, and the chariot
vi
body was perhaps painted with animal designs ." As the
or naments are usuall y in the shape of horned dragons or
horn less on es , a chariot in Ch 1u Tz'u is often fig urativel y
referred to as a dragon or dragons . This is the use of
synecdoche , a fig ure of speech co mmo nly emplo yed in classi -
cal Chi nese poet ry. Unfor tunately thi s parti cular fig ura-
tive use of dragon has go ne unno tice d and has been taken
si mply on its face value in the past two thousa nd years .
Mir cea Elia de points out that it is prob able that "the
pre-ecst atic eu phoria constit uted one of the unive rsa l
so urces of lyric poet ry. " Thi s is especiall y true in the
case of the Nine Son gs . The pattern of a Song style li ne ,
11 tum tum tum hsi tum tum," is di vided by the carrier so und
hsi , which Waley suggests 11 may represent the pant ing of a
shaman in trance.1 1 All the poems in the ant holog y , with the
exception of T'ien Wen , have a meaning less carrier so und
ei ther in the middle of the li ne or at the end of the li ne .
In mo st cases the carrier sou nd is a hsi ; while in the
Summons of the Soul it is a so and in the Great Summons a
chih . But they all amount to the same thi ng, the panting of
a shaman in trance . The ant holog y , therefore , is a collec-
tion of shaman so ngs and poems writte n in imitation of the
shaman so ngs.
Ch'u Tz'u has a far-reaching infl uence on Chine se lyric
poe try . While the So ng style poem is unmista kably the
vii
ancestor of the regular penta sylla bic poem , a favor ite me
di um used by Chi nese poets throu ghout the ages , the Sao
style was first developed into the rhymed pro se , fu, of the
Han dynasty, and lat er the heptas ylla bic poem of the T1a ng.
Dr . Hu Shih was a major advo cate of the vernacular lit erary
move ment in moder n China . But when he tra nslated Byron 's
"The Isles of Greece" into Chine se , he used the Sao style
line as his medi um . Thi s is certai nly a testi monial to the
power of the Ch'u shaman so ng.
viii
CHAPTER I
A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CH'U
The traditi onal assumptio n that the Ch 'u culture cam e
to a sudden flo wering in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. and
that the Ch'u peo ple were barbarians or semi- barbarians is
1
far from bei ng true . With the recent di scove ries of ar-
ch aeologi sts and hi sto ri ans of anci ent China , we ara now in
a pos itio n to revi se thi s errone ous traditio nal assumptio n .
As far as recorded hi sto ry , or to be more exact , re-
corded legend , go es , the Ch'u people were an anci ent clan
who coexi sted with the Hsia and the Shang people . Because
it was an an cient clan, its descendants were numerous .
They were cons tantly atta ck ed by their stro ng neig hbors ,
first the Hsia , then the Shang, and fi nall y the Chou peo-
ple. Fu Ssu- nien poi nts out that among the ancestors of
Ch'u there was one by the name of Li . When the Li clan was
conqu ered , its people be came subj ect s or servant s of the
con queror . The fact that during the Warring States Period
(453- 221 B. C. ) the common people or subj ect s were ofte n
referred to as li -min ( � � ) is an indic ation of the
2
numerou sness of the Li people .
Two pi ece s of the or acle records indic ate that the
Ch 'u people were qui te active during the Shang dynasty .
1
One of them reads : "On the day of Wu-h sft divi nation [by the
Kin g] . Questio n : Will our atta ck ing Mi be sanctio ned (n o .
3
35 8)?" About this ins c ription Tung Tso- pi ng has the fo l-
lo wing comment s:
Mi ( -;{. ) writ ten as f in the or acle in
scription , is the name of a state in Shang tim es .
"The Royal Ho use of Ch'u, " the Histo ri cal Recor ds
(S hih ch i) states: "Lu-t sung begot si x so ns . The
first was called Kuen-wu , the second , Tsan-hu ,
the third , P'eng-t su , the fo urth , Hui -j en , the
fi fth , Tsao- hsing , the si xth , Chi-lien . Chi
lie n's surname was Mi . The Ch'u people were his
de scendants." And cont inue s: "T he clan of Kuen
wu was a baron in the Hsia dynasty ••• The clan of
P' eng-t su was a baron in the Shang dynasty •••
Chi-lien begot Fu-chft , Fu-chft begot Hsfteh- hsiun g .
The desc endants of Hsft eh-hs iung be gan to decline .
Some of them stayed in China proper , the ot hers
becam e front ier barbaria ns . It is im po ssi ble to
record their generations ." Sin ce the descendants
of Kuen-wu and P'eng-tsu were barons in the Hsia
and Shang dynasti es , Mi must have come into exi s
tence before the Hsia dynasty , and it was not
surpris ing to fi nd the state of Mi in the Shang
dynast y . But si nce it was not recorded by the
histor ies , we cannot verif y it .4
The con clusio n that Tung Tso- ping draws from thi s ora-
cle insc ription and the Shih ch i is a far-reach ing one . Fu
Ssu- nien was inspired by Tung and did a very thor ough re-
search on the ancesto rs of the Ch'u people . He was able to
establis h that Ch'u was an ancient and po pulous people .
They occup ied many places in the Yellow ri ver and Huai
river basins . All Three Dynasti es , Hsi a , Shang, and Chou ,
2
had attacked them and they became ei ther small satel lite
5
states in China proper or front ier barbarian trib es . But
the relatio nship between Shang and Ch1u was not al ways
ho stile . Among the ora cle insc riptio ns , we fi nd the record
of a la dy by the name of Lady Ch 'u (M enzes, 236 4 and Yi ,
308 6) . Lady Ch'u, acco rding to Wang Yft- tse , was one of the
co nsorts of the Shang king Wu Ti ng (r eig ned c. 1339-1 281
6
B.C. ). From this we learn that Shang and Ch1u so meti mes
made war, and so metime s made pea ce throug h marriage .
But by the ti me of the Chou dynasty, the Ch1u people
were pushed to the so uth. One of its branches, called
Ching- ch 'u, which oc cupie d the Yangtze and the Han river
basins , becam e qui te stro ng in the Western Chou , and several
expeditio ns were sent against them by the Chou kin gs . This
fact indic ates that the ro yal hous e of Chou had never had a
fi rm cont rol over the Ch 'u people .
Two early Chou bro nze insc ri ptions indic ate that the
subj ugatio n of the Ch'u people too k years . The ins criptio n
on Ch'i n Tuei reads : "The King pla nned to attack the Baron
of Ch'u. Duke Chou cou nseled Invoker Ch'i n. Ch1in presi ded
over a gra nd cer emon y . The King rewarded him with one
hundred uni ts of bronz e. Ch'i n used them to make thi s
7
preci ous vessel."
The King was King Wu (r eigned 111 1-110 5 B.C. ). Ch'i n
was the eldest so n of Duke Chou , so he was also called Po
3
Ch'i n, or Ch'i n, the first born . His fo rmal name was Ming .
Hi s offi cial tit le was Grand Invok er , one of the si x mo st
impor tant po sts in the Shang gover ment system. He was later
enfeoffed as the Duke of Lu. It was customar y to hold a
�.".:�.:::::.;::::o,_---::;:;:,---
grand sacr ifi ce to Heaven or the God of Soil before a mili-
tar y expeditio n . The event descri bed in this bronze in-
scri ption too k place shortl y after the co nquest of Shang and
before the ascen si on of King Ch ' eng (r eig ned 11 04-1 068 B. C.)
to his throne , for the subj ugation of Ch'u was no t comp leted
until King Ch 1eng1s reig n .
The next insc ri ption is that of Ming- kung Tuei. This
bronz e vessel was also made by Ch1in. It reads : "T he King
ordered the Duke of Ming to lea d three clans in a campaign
against the eastern count ri es . At the city of Mi ( �) the
Baron of Lu won great merit and therefore made thi s vessel
8
to make sacr ifi ce to Heaven." The insc riptio n indi cates
that the campaig n was succe ssfull y con cluded . But now in
thi s very short space Ch'i n was addressed once as the Duke
of Ming , and another ti me as the Baron of Lu . This Jame sia n
style seems to be the forer unner of the narra tive style of
the Tso Co mmentar y.
During the reign of King Chao (r eigned 1041-1 024 B.C. )
of Chou the King himself led two expeditions against Ch'u.
The first expeditio n was com pleted in 1027 B.C. So far we
have fou nd three bronz es cas t to com memora te thi s vict or y .
4
They are Ting Tuei , I- p'i en Tuei , and Kuo- po Tuei . All the
insc riptions on them are very brief . They are as fol lo ws .
(1) Ting Tuei : "Ting follo wed the King to atta ck Ching , got
boot y to make this sacr ifi cial vessel." (2) I- p' ien Tuei :
"I-p 'i en follo wed the King in the So uthern Expedition to
atta ck Ch 'u-c hing , had gained boot y to make thi s vessel in
honor of his father Wu. Sig ned Jl. . ( 3) Kuo- po Tuei : "Kuo
po fol lowed the King to atta ck the rebellio us Ching , got
9
bro nze to make thi s vessel for use in the temple." These
insc riptions be tra y the real moti ve of the Chou peop le ,
whic h is to acquire the precious metal,- the bro nze of the
so uth (� ching ) from Ch1u.
King Chao 's victory was sweet but short . Three year s
later , in 1024 B.C. , when he was on his sec ond expedition
against Ch'u, he was dro wned in the Han River . The Bamboo
Annals write s, "In the nine teenth year of his reig n , heaven
was in great com motio n , pheasa nts and hares were frightened ,
10
the King lost his si x ho sts by the Han River ." Ano ther
traditio n says that when the King reach ed the Han Riv er , the
boat people dis liked him and gave him a glued boat . When
the boat got to the mids trea m , the glue was dis sol ved and
11
the boat fell apar t and the King was drow ned . Did the
Ch1u people defeat the great army of the Son of Heaven and
kill him? We do no t know . But if they did , it would be
quite embarrassi ng fo r the gra nd scr ibe to put do wn the
5
truth. The pra ct ice of co ver- up (w ei � ), or to keep the
skeleto n in the closet , did not begi n with the Annals of
Spring and Autumn of Con fuci us . Thi s might be one of the
precedents that Con fucius fo llow ed .
King Chao 's untimel y death in his second expedition
against Ch'u is conf irmed by two very reli able so urces. One
of them is the follo wing two li nes in Tien wen: "King Chao
was fond of tra velling ; where did he reach in the so uthern
land? /What did it pro fit him to have met the white phea-
12
sant? " David Ha wkes corr ectly obs erves that the Ch1u poet
13
asks these questio ns in an ironi cal tone . The ot her
so urce is the Tso Co mmentar y. In the fo urth year of Duke
Hsi (656 B.C. ) Duke Huan (r eig ned 685-643 B. C. ) of Ch1i led
the jo int fo rces of several states to invade Ch'u. One of
the excuses for his inva si on was to demand an explan ation
for why King Chao did not return from the so uthern expedi-
tio n . The messenger of Ch'u replied , "For the no n-r eturning
of King Chao , you go and inq uire by the water margin ."
After King Chao , King Mu (r eigned 1023- 983 B.C. ) also
engaged in atta ck ing Ch 'u. King Mu is the hero of the first
Chi nese his tori cal ro mance , Mu t1ie n-tzu chuan ( ��
).
The accou nts of his expeditio n are at great varia nce and
supernatural in natu re . Here are three examples : (1) King
Mu of Chou in the thirt y- seventh year of his reig n atta ck ed
Ch'u. He sent nine ho sts to Chiu- ch iang and built a bridge
6
with turtles; (2) In the seventeenth year of King Mu the
great ho st reach ed Chiu -c hiang with turtles as a bridge ; and
(3 ) [The King ] atta cked Ch'u in the forty-s eventh year. He
sent nine ho sts east to Chiu- ch iang and bui lt a bridge with
14
turtles. As these are not reliable his tori cal so urces,
we will pass them over without further comment s.
Hi stor ians of the We stern Chou generally agree that
the dynasty began its de cl ine wit h King Chao , and that among
the last Western Chou kings , King Hsffan (reig ned 827- 781
B.C. ) was an exceptio n . He was the only king who was able
to wage man y campaigns against the barbarian tribe s with
varying succe ss . One of hi s succe ssful campaigns was com-
memorated by poe m 178 , "Ts 'ai ch 'i," of the Boo k of Son gs :
Lo , we were plu ck ing the white millet
In that new fiel d ,
In this fresh-cl eared acre ,
When Fang-sh u arrived
With three thou sand ch ariots
And a host of gua rds well-trai ned .
Ye s , Fang- shu came
Driving his fo ur dappled greys,
Tho se dappled greys so obedie nt,
In his big chariot painted red ,
With his awning of la cquered bamboo and his
fi sh-ski n quiv er ,
His breast- buffers and metal-headed rei ns .
Lo , we were pl ucking the white mil let
In that new fiel d ,
In thi s middle patch ,
When Fang-sh u arrived
With three thousa nd ch ariots ,
Wi th banners shi ning brig ht .
7
Yes , Fang-sh u came
Wit h leather- bou nd nave and metal-studded yoke ,
His ei ght bells ji ngling ,
Wearing his insig nia--
The red greaves so splendid
The ti nkling onio n-st one s at his belt.
Swoop flew the hawk
Strai ght up into the sky ,
Yet it came here to roost .
Fang -s hu has co me
Wit h three thousa nd chariots
And a host of guards well-trained .
Yes , Fang-sh u has co me
Wit h his bandsmen beating the drums ,
Marshall ing his armies , haranguing hi s ho sts .
Illustrio us truly is Fang-sh u ,
Deep in the roll of the drums ,
Shaking the ho sts wit h its din .
Foolis h were you , tri bes of Chi ng,
Who made a great nation into yo ur foe .
Fang-sh u is old in years ,
But in strategy he is at his prime .
Fang-sh u has co me ,
He has bou nd culprits , captured chieftai ns .
His war-char iots rumble ,
They rumble and crash
Like the clap of thunder , li ke the roll of
thunder.
Illustrious truly is Fang-shu ,
It was he who smote the Hsi en-yfin ,
Who made the tri bes of Ching afraid .15
For a better understanding of the above poem , it should be
po int ed out that the chariot (W it h leather-bou nd nave and
metal-s tudded yoke , /His eig ht bells ji ngli ng) Fang- shu
ri de s is not a war chari ot. It is the jade chariot that the
Chou people used for sacrifice as we shall see in the fi fth
chapter ,"The Chariot as a Ri tual Vessel." The orna ments,
the ins ig nia , the red greaves, and the onion -s tone s that
8
Fang-s hu wears are also for the ceremon y , not for the war.
It was customar y to make a sacrifi ce before the hosts
marched out on the expeditio n . Co mmentator s all ag ree that
the theme of thi s poem is King Hsllan 's so uthern expedition
against Ch'u, whic h is derogatori ly referred to as the
tri bes of Ching . But a careful study of this poem makes me
feel that it was written before the campaign to boo st up the
morale of the ho sts rather than after it to celebrate their
triu mphant return. It is obvious that Fang-sh u cannot co n-
duct two campaigns at the same ti me , the Hsi en- yftn being to
the north -we st of the ro yal dom ain of Chou while the tri be s
of Ching to her so uth-east . The last two li nes of the poem
seem to mean that it was Fang-s hu who smote the the Hsie n-
yftn and hop efully wit h the momen tum of that victor y he
would make the tri bes of Ching afraid .
But the tribes of Ching were foolis h inde ed ! They made
a great nation into their foe but they went scot -f ree . From
anot her so urce we learn that King Hsll an lost his hosts in
the so uthern land and he had to make a census at T1 ai -yftan
despite the remons trance of his mini ster Chung- shan Fu, for
he was badl y in need of more so ldiers to make up for the
16
los s. In ot her wor ds , King Hsll an fared just a little
better than King Chao , for he did manage to return from the
so uthern expeditio n against Ch1u.
I have presented hitherto a few pi eces of evidenc e to
9
show that the Ch 'u people were , from a mili tary standpo int ,
a po werful state throughout the whole We stern Chou period ,
ot herwi se there would be no need for the various Chou king s
to send expeditio ns against them . I shall next endeavor to
show that the Ch 'u peo ple, at least their ruling class , once
li ved in the Yello w River basi n and were in every aspect
Chin ese , not barbarians .
Accordi ng to the Tso Comment ary, in 660 B.C . , the
people of Wei were almo st co mpletel y wiped out by the Ti
tri bes. The remnants, seven hundred and thirt y persons in
all, were fo rced to abandon their capi tal, Chao- ko ( Chi
Hsie n , Honan ) , north of the Yello w Rive r and mana ged to
cross the Yello w River under the co ver of the nig ht and
17
encamped at Tsao . Two years later, Duke Wen (reigned 659-
35 B.C. ) of Wei, helped by hi s maternal uncle , Duke Huan
(reig ned 685- 43 B.C . ) of Ch 'i, began to build a cit y at
Ch 'u-chiu ( � li) or the Mound of Ch'u. The building of
thi s cit y was co mmemorate d by poem 50 , "Ting chi fang chung"
(When the Ting star is at the zenit h ) of the Book of Songs
as foll ows :
When the Ti ng star is at the zenit h ,
We begin to build the temple at Ch 'u.
Measuri ng it by the shadows under the sun ,
We begin to build the chambers at Ch 'u.
We pla nt hazels and chestnut-tre ss ;
And catalp as, po wlawn i as, and lacquer trees
That we may make zit hers and lutes .
10
We climb up the ancie nt ruins
To take a loo k at Ch 'u.
Lo oking at Ch 'u and the roo fed altar ,
We fi nd a tall hill and a fi ne mo und.
We descend to inspe ct the mulberry grove .
The oracle of the to rto is e- shell is auspi cio us .
Everything will turn out to be good .
The di vine rain has stopped .
We order our grooms to yoke ,
By starli ght, the ho rses to the chari ots ,
And drive to the mulberry fiel d .
Are they not men in deed?
Their hearts are staunch and true.
They have gi ven us three thousa nd mares.18
Ch 'u-chiu , accor ding to Ch 'U Wan-li , is at the present- day
Cheng- wu Hsien , Shangtung Provin ce , so uth of the Yellow
Riv er . In translating this poe m , Arth ur Waley co nfesses
that he doe s not full y understand two of the expressions .
One is t1a ng , which I translate as 'roofed alta r, ' and the
19
ot her is chin g shan , whic h I translate as 'tall hill .' I
beli eve the fol lo wing passage from Mo Tzu can be very il lu
mi nating to the understanding of thi s short poem :
In ancie nt tim es , on the day when the rulers of
YU , Hsi a , Shang, and Chou , the sage kings of the
Three Dynasti es , first establi shed their states
and set up their capitals , they al way s selected a
site for the main altar of the state, and co n
structed an ancestral temple there . They would
select a si te where the trees were parti cularl y
fi ne and luxuria nt, and there in the grove set up
the altar of the soi l.2 0
When we study the seco nd stanza of the poem carefull y ,
1 1
we notice that everything is almo st custom made for the Wei
people . There is a tall hill at Ch 'u on whic h to bui ld the
temple , with a mo und on which to build a roofed altar . And
belo w the ruins there is a mulberry grove , in whi ch the Wei
people co uld set up the altar of the soil . They used it
im mediatel y to make di vin ation on the tort oise shell. All
these in dic ate that Ch 'u-chiu was onc e the capital of the
Ch 'u people . Just li ke the Wei peo ple who aban doned Chao
ko , once in the remote past the Ch 1u people were forced to
aba ndon Ch 'u-chi u and mi grated to the so uth.
Sinc e the Ch 'u people had on ce li ved by the Yello w
River , it is on ly natural that they would wor ship the River
God by incl uding him in the Nine Son gs . We lea rn from
moder n hist ory that when people mig rate, they carry their
belief with them . This can explain why the wor ship of the
River God is not an im ported cult late in the Warring States
period , but a lo ng tradition maintained by the Ch 1u people .
In the Spring and Autumn period (722- 481 B.C. ) the Ch' u
peo ple be came more powerf ul and annexed many small states of
the Ch i clan ( the Chou people ) . In the war of expansion the
Ch 1u peo ple of ten came wit hin the do main of the Riv er God
and had dealing s wit h him . The Tso Commentary records three
such incident s.
Fir st , in 63 2 B.C . ( Duke Hsi , 28th year ) , on the eve of
the battle of Ch 1eng-p 1u between Chin and Ch 1u, Tzu- yU , the
12
Prime Mini ster of Ch'u, who had a very smart ri ding hood
made with stri ngs of threaded jade to be worn on the day of
the battle, dreamt that the River God came and said to him ,
"Give me this , and I will be stow on you the swamps of Meng
ch 'u, " meaning that he would aid him to co nquer that area in
Ho nan. But Tzu-yft ig nored the demand of the River God and
conseq uentl y the army of Ch'u suffered a great defeat.
The seco nd inc ident too k place in 597 B.C. (D uke Hsft an,
12 th year ) during the reig n of King Chuang (6 13-591 B. C. ) of
Ch'u. This was the battle of Chin and Ch'u at Pi (a battle
ground so uth of the Yellow River ). The table was turned and
man y Chin so ldi ers were slaught ered . P'a n Tang, a Ch'u
general, suggested to King Chuang to collect the cor pses of
the Chin so ldiers to make a war memori al to celebrate the
vict or y . King Ch uan g decli ned and gave him a very learned
lecture on the true meaning of mili tary virt ues . The king
made sacrifice to the River God , built a temple for his
ancestors to report his acco mpli shment and return ed .
Third , in the seventh month of the last year of his
reig n , King Chao (r eig ned 515- 489 B.C. ) of Ch'u went to save
Ch'en (a small state in Honan , west of Meng-ch 'u) , for Ch'en
was attacked by Wu. He statio ned his troops at Ch ' en-fu .
In the eleventh month King Chao be came sic k . In that year ,
there was a clo ud like a floc k of red birds whic h flew
around the sun for three days . The King di spatched a mes-
13
senger to co nsult with the Grand Scri be of Chou . The Grand
Scribe said , "The om en bode s ill for the king . If he makes
a propitiat io n , his sic kness may be transf ered to the prime
mini ster or the mini ster of war." The king said , "What goo d
will it do to me to transfer the si ckness from my heart to
my legs and arms (referri ng to his prime mini ster and the
mini ster of war)? I have not committed any serious crime ,
would Heaven send me an unnatural death? If I were gui lty
and must be puni shed , there is no need to transfer it ." And
he di d not make a propitiat io n . When he be came si ck , he
also made a divin atio n . The div in er said that the king was
po ssessed by the River God . The min ist ers urged the king to
incl ude the River God in his suburban sacrifice . The king
said , "Accor ding to the rite s of the Three Dynasti es , one
should not make sacrif ices beyond one 's ow n territ or y . The
Yangtze, the Han, the Chuei, and the Chang are the ri vers of
Ch'u. They alone can affect our fort unes. Even though I am
not virt uo us , I have never offe nded the River Go d." And he
did not make sacri fice to the River God . Co nfucius was at
Ch'en at that time . When he was informed of what King Chao
21
had done , he prai sed him for knowing the great tao .
In sho rt, the Ch'u people had a long his tor y . They
co exi sted wi th the Hsia , the Shang, and the Chou . Once they
occ upied man y places in the Yellow river and Huai ri ver
basi ns . At the rise of the Chou dynast y , they were pushed
14
to the so uth. One of its branches, Ching-Ch 'u, be came so
stro ng that it pose d as a thread to the ro yal ho use of the
Chou . Because the Ch'u had a disti nct culture different
from that of the Chou , so me scholars assume that they were
barbaria ns , meaning that they were non-C hine se . But this
difference is due to the differe nt heritages from the Shang.
The religio n of the Shang co nsis ted of ancestor wo rship and
the cult of nature gods . While the Chou inhe rited ancestor
wo rship from the Shang, the Ch1u in herited the cult of
natur e gods . Thi s will be the subj ect of our disc ussi on in
the next chapter , "Shama ni sm in Ancie nt China ."
15
NOTES
1 Henri Maspero , for example, holds that as a man of
Ch'u, Ch'ft Yftan was a barbarian . See his China in
Antiq uit y , trans., Frank A. Kierm an Jr., p. 3
6
7.
2 Fu SSu- nie n , "Hsi n huo p'u tz'u hsieh pen hou chi pa,"
Fu Ssu- nien ch 1ft an chi , vol . III , p. 265 .
3 Ibi d. , p. 224.
4 Ibid .
5 Ibi d. , p. 226 .
6 Wang Yft -t se , "Ch'u tsu ku ti chi chi chien i lu hsie n, "
Chung-k ou shang-ku shih lun-wen hsft an- chi , p. 626 .
7 Chao Ying- shan, Ku ching-t ung chi min g-wen yen-chiu (A
Study� Ancie nt Bro nze Inscri ptions
)
, pp. 25- 33 .
8 Ibi d. , pp. 71-78 .
9 Ibi d. , pp. 14 8-62 .
10 Hsu Cho- yun, Hsi Chou shih (A Hist or y of the Western
Cho u) , pp. 179-80 .
11 Lft Ssu-mi en , Hsien Ch1in shih (A His tor y of the Pre-
Ch1in Chin a) , p. 141.
---- - 12 The white pheasa nt is equiv alent to a pi nk elephant, a
rare creature cons idered a good omen . David Haw kes
fol lows Wen I-to and emends the word 'pheasa nt' to
'o x. ' See T'a i Ching -nung , Ch'u Tz'u t'ien � hsi n
chien , p. 94 and cf . David Hawk es, the So ngs of the
So uth,
PP
• 53 , 190.
13 Haw kes, p.53.
14 Wang Yft-t se , p. 632 .
15 Arth ur Waley, The Boo k of So ngs , pp. 12 8-29 .
16 Hsu Cho -yun , Hsi Chou shih , pp. 30 0-3 01.
17 Tso Chuan, Duke Min , 2nd year.
16
18 Thi s poem is my ow n translat ion . For the Chine se text ,
see Ch'fi Wan- li , Shih Ching chuan shi h , pp. 90 .
19 Arthur Waley, The Boo k of Son gs , pp. 281-82 .
20 Burto n Watso n , trans., The Basic Writ ings of Mo Tzu,
pp. 10 0-1 01.
21 Tso Chuan, Duke Ai , 6th year.
17
CHAPTER II
SHAMANISM IN ANCIENT CHINA
The origi nal territo ry of the Shang people , according
to Fu Ssu-n ien was in Manchuria and the ancie nt Yan Pro-
1
vince , the north- eastern par t of China . In a hymn to their
ancestors co mpo sed by the descendants of Shang, we fi nd the
fo llowing two lin es : "Hsia ng-t 'u was very glorio us ; /Beyond
2
the seas he ruled." Hsia ng-t 'u was the grands on of Hsieh
and one of the pre-dyn astic Shang kings . If he in deed ruled
beyon d the seas , the most li kely place would be Korea , for
it was the closest place to hi s ow n terri to ry. At the fall
of the Shang dynasty (1 750-1 112 B.C. ), Chi Tzu, uncle of
the last Shang ki ng Chou (r eigned 11 74- 1112 B.C. ), after
bei ng release d by King Wu (r eig ned 111 1-110 5 B.C. ) fro m
Chou 's pri so n , led the remnant s of the Shang peo ple to
Korea . Fu points out that what Chi Tzu did was not to
establis h a new col on y , but to re turn to the native place of
his fo rmer kin gs , just li ke at the fall of the YHan dynasty
(1 260-1 36 8 A.D. ) so me of the Mongolia ns returned from China
3
to Mo ngolia .
Fu also poi nts out that the ori gin myths of the Shang,
the Manchus , and the Koreans are si milar . The Shang were
descended fro m a la dy called Chien Ti, who swallowed an egg
18
dropped by a 'dark bir d ' (s wallo w) . In the origin myth of
the Manchus, it was a magpi e that dropped a red fruit . The
Kor eans have several versions of their ori gin stor y . But
they all have one thi ng in com mon : the legendary ki ng was
bor n out of a huge egg, which was exposed to many dangers
4
without receiv ing a si ngle inj ury.
In my research I have fo und two stri king si mila ritie s
between Korea n shama ni sm and Chine se shamani sm . Fir st , one
of the no n-da tabl e Shang kings was called Ta Wu (jCDG ),
which , according to Ch1e n Meng- chia , si mpl y means 'great
5
shaman 1 ( *& ) . In the "Mou ntain God" of the Nine Son gs we
noti ce that the shaman who pla ys the role of the impe rso na
tor is addressed as li ng-h si u (spirit- gua rdia n) and this
very fo rm of address is used by Ch'fi Yfian in his Li �t o
address hi s so vereig n , King Hua i (r eigned 32 8-299 B.C .) of
6
Ch'u. In the same way, Namhae , the second ruler of Silla
(o ne of the three anci ent Korea n kingdoms ) was called Cha-
cha-ung ( ��1.$ ) or Ja-c hung (�:16
7
), which is the Sil la
dialec t for 'shaman. ' These three cases show that in
anci ent China and Korea the king was so meti mes. th.�-��J:l.d
shaman.
Second , Lee Nung-hwa , a Korea n scho lar of ancie nt Ko-
rean shamanism , gives us a brief but vivid description of a
shamanic seance :
19
In a com mon hous ehold when sa crifi ce was made ,
althou gh there were many female shamans , it was
inva ria bly the male shaman who presi ded over the
ce remon y . The master of the sacri fice and all
parti cipa nts welcomed him with reverence . From
evening till dawn they sang and danced to ent�r
tain the gods . As men and women were mixed , they
exch anged sexy tal k and made lewd gest ures ; not h
ing was beyond them . They made the audi ence
happy by making them la ugh heartil y.8
Thi s Korea n seance , though crud e and vulgar, has a few
par allels wit h the seance de scr ibed by the Nine Son gs . To
begin wit h , in "the Lord of the East," we fi nd that there
are a number of female shamans who perform the dance , but
there is only one sh aman who im persona tes the sun god , the
Lord of the East . In the second place, the seance depicted
by "the Lord of the East" also lasts the whole nig ht , for
when the sun god is about to leave, the day has already
dawned . In the third pla ce , the male and female shaman s in
the Ni ne Son gs also si ng and dance to entertain the gods .
And fi nall y , in so ngs such as "the Lady of the Hsiang ," "the
Senior Lord of Liv es," and "the Mou ntain Go d, " sex between
the im persona tor ( the shaman) and the invoker ( the female
shaman) is im pli ed , whic h is actually not too far removed
from the sexy talk and lewd gestures of the Kor ean shaman s .
From the preceding parag raphs we may conclude that the
shamanisms of Ch 'u, of Korea , and of the Manchus are prob-
ably of the same origi n- -the shama ni sm of Shang.
20
The reli gion of Shang can be divided :i,.n�o tw() disti nct
parts . One of them was the cult of the natu re gods , and the
ot her was the worship of ancesto rs . The natur e gods can be
further di vided into two grou ps . One group were_t�e heaven
ly gods , whic h in cluded God on Hig h , the God of the Sun, the
Moth er of the East, the Mother of the West, the God of the
Clou d , the God of the Wind (o r the Phoeni x) , the God of
Rain , and the God of Snow . The ot her group were the terres-
trial gods , which incl uded the God of the Soil , the Gods of
the Fo ur Direc tions , the deifie d shama ns , the gods of the
9
mou ntains , and the gods of the ri vers . The natur e gods
fo rmed a heavenly cour t wit h God on Hig h as the absol ute
ruler just as the cour t establis hed by the Shang king and
his mini sters on the earth .
Side by si de with this cult of the nature gods went a
hi ghly organi zed and cyclical ri tual performed to the ro yal
ancesto rs , ancestresses , and fo rmer mini sters . The rit ual
was based on the celebratio n of fi ve sacr if ice s in turn:
�
(
·�
) , i (
� )
, chi (
�
) , tsa ( �), and hsieh ( :ft ) ;
the repetitio n of these made up a regular cyc le . A co mplete
10
cyc le was called one shi h (ffrB ), or a year .
Ancestor worshi p was central to the Shang religion �----- .
'
�- � .... ��_.- -� ·� .... .......,_ ... ,____
.
--
The reaso n for its im porta nce is very convin cingl y explained
by David N. Keig htley in the fo llo wing passage:
21
Shang religio n was inex tricably in volved in
the genesis and legi ti mation of the Shang state.
It was beli eved that Ti , the hig h god , con ferred
fruitful harvests and di vi ne assis tance in battle,
that the king 's ancestors were able to int ercede
with Ti , and that the ki ng could com muni cate wit h
hi s ancesto rs . Worship of the Shang ancestors ,
therefo re , provided powe rful psychologi cal and
ide ologi cal supp ort for the polit ica l do min ance of
the Shang ki ngs . The ki ng's abilit y to determine
through divi natio n , and inf luen ce through prayer
and sacr ifi ce , the will of the ancestral spirits
legiti mize d the con c entration of politi cal power
in his person. All power emanat ed fro m the theo
crat because he was the channel, "the one ma n, "
who could appeal for the ancestral bl essi ngs , or
dissi pat e the ancestral curses , which affect ed the
comm on alit y . It was the king who made fruitf ul
harvest and vi c tor ies po ssi ble by the sa crifi ces
he offe red , the ri tual s he performed , and the
divin ations he made . If , as seems li kely , the
divi natio ns involved so me degree of magi c maki ng,
of spell casting , the king 's abilit y to actually
cr eate a good harvest or a victor y by di vining
about it rendered him still more pote nt politi cal
ly.11
From the or acle records we learn that the Shang ki ng often
made di vinat ions , invoc atio ns , rain dance , and interpr eta-
12
tions of his own dreams in person . When divi nation was
perform ed , acco rding to the Li Chi (Boo k of Rite s ), "the
diviner fi xed the tortois e- shell to be used , the scribe ap-
plied the ink , and the king determined the crack s prod uced
13
by the fire ." The Shang king was do ubtless the head
shaman.
The ancient Chine se used the shoulde r blade s of cattle
and the carapa ce s of turtles for di vinati ons . But why did
they use them? A po ssi ble reaso n is that the shaman be
22
lie ved that these animals were his helpers . As to the
turtle , there seems to have been a belief that the turtle ,
especia lly the large ones , had the po wer of prophecy . Thi s
can be in ferred from a fable by Chuang Tzu:
Lord Yftan of Sung one nig ht dreamed he saw a
man wit h dis heveled hair who peered in at the si de
door of hi s ch amber and said , "I come from the
Tsai- lu Deeps . I was on my way as envo y from the
Clea r Yangtze to the cou rt of the Lord of the
Yello w River when a fis herman name Yft Chft caught
mel"
When Lord Yftan woke up, he ordered his men to
divi ne the meani ng, and they replie d , "This is a
sacred turtle." "Is there a fis herman named Yft
Chft? " he asked, and hi s attendants replied , "There
is ." "Order Yft Chft to come to cou rt!" he sai d .
The next day Yft Chft appeared at cour t and the
ruler said , "What ki nd of fish have you caught
recently? "
Yft Chft replie d , "I caught a white turtle in
my net . It's fi ve feet around ."
"Present you r turtle!" ordered the ruler .
When the turtle was brought , the ruler co uld not
decide whether to kill it or to let it live and,
bei ng in do ubt , he consulted his di vin ers , who
replied , "Kill the turtle and di vine with it- -it
will bring good luck. " Accord ingl y the turtle was
stri pped of its shell, and of seventy-two hole s
drilled in it fo r prog no sti catio n , not one failed
to yield a true answer.1 4
In another fable Chuang Tzu mentio ns that there is a sacred
torto ise in Ch'u that has been dead for three thous and
years . The ki ng keeps it under lo ck and key, and stores it
15
in the ancestral temple. Of co urse these are fables, but
nonth eless they do reflect that bot h Sung and Ch'u, who had
close relatio nship �ith Shang, kept the pract ice of di vi na-
23
tio n with the turtle shell very much alive at that ti me .
Generall y speaking the herit age of Shang to the Chou
people was ancestor wor shi p , while her heritage to the Ch'u
people was the cult of natu re gods .
Now let us turn to the shama nism of the ro yal ho use of
Chou . Much info rmatio n on this can be fo und in Part Three ,
"Ch'un kuan" (Offi cial s of Spring ) of the Chou Li (Rites of
Cho u) . Very differe nt from the si mple threefold division of
the Ch'u religio us system we shall see in the next chapter,
the Chou system was hi ghly departmenta lized . Under the
leadership of the Lor d of the Temple (t a tsung EQ), there
were si xty-nine of ficia ls . All of them in one way or
anot her had so mething to do wit h the rit es . Among these
si xty-nine offi cals were the Dire ctor of Shaman s (� �),
the Male Shaman (� wu) , and the Female Shaman (n ft wu) . As
the functio ns of these three offi cials can serve as a defi-
nition of the Chou shaman, I will translate their job des-
cr ip tio ns in their entiret y :
The Dire ctor of Shamans is to admini ster all
shamans . If a great drought occur s, he leads the
shamans to perfor m the rain dance . If a great
calamit y oc curs, he leads the shamans to co nsult
Shaman Huan (a dei fied shaman) . At sacri fices he
provide s the so ul-tablets for the alta r , the drug
gets for the roads , and the stra w mats for the
lod ges . At a sacr ifi ce he sees to it that all
offeri ngs are burie d . At. �-_fu neral he takes
charge of the- ri-t�.s to bring�£. i:,lfe
dead .
---- -�--------
24
The Male Shaman is to take charge of the
sacrifice to the Fo ur Direc tions , to watch the
atmo sphere for good or bad ome ns , to pass the
in vo cation to the invo ker , and to ward of f evil
spi rits by waving a rush wand. In wint er he
ej ects evil spirits fro m the hall by dancing the
wan dance and the jade dance. In spring he in
vite s felicit y to avert disea ses . When the king
pays a visit of co ndolence he and the in voke r walk
before him .
The Female Shaman is to perfor m exorcism at
fi xed ti mes annu all y , usi ng arom atic abluti ons .
In ti me s of dr ought she performs the rain dance .
When the king 's consort pay s a visi t of co ndo
lence , she and the female invoker walk before her .
When a great calamity of the state occ urs , she en
treats the spir its wit h chanting and wailing .16
While these jo b descriptions show that the functions of
the Chou shaman were practica lly the same as tho se of the
Ch'u shaman, the Chou shaman held very lo wly pos ition in the
co urt. We learn from the Rite s of Chou that the hig hest
ranking co urt offic ial was called ching (g� ) or cabi net
minist er . Next to chin g was tai -fu ( Jc� ) or min is ter ,
which was subdivided into three ranks , i.e. , shang tai- fu or
mini ster of the fir st rank , chung tai -fu or mini ster of the
seco nd rank, and hsia tai -fu or mini ster of the third rank.
Beneat h tai -fu was shih (:C) or schol ar, whic h was also
subdivided into three ranks . The head of the Officia ls of
Spring was called the Senior Lord of the Temple (t a tsung
EQ), and the pos itio n was filled by a cabi net min is ter .
Next to the Senior Lord of the Temple were two Junior Lords
of the Temple (hsi ao tsung EQ). These two pos itio ns were
25
filled by two mi nisters of the second rank. There were two
t1a i chu (g rand in voker s) . Their pos it ions were filled by
two min is ter of the third rank. Then we are to ld that there
were an in defi nite number of male shamans and female sha-
mans ; their masters were fo ur scholars of the sec ond rank,
wit h two storekeep ers , fo ur scri bes, fo ur assi stants , and
17
fort y appr entice s. With fo ur scholars of the second rank
as their masters , the shamans were obviousl y relegated to
the pos itio ns of petty offi cia ls . But we should take the
above info rmatio n with a grai n of sa lt, for we are told that
when the king pays a visi t of con dolen ce , the shaman and the
in voker walk before him . It would have been illogical for
so meo ne who could accomp any the ki ng to hold such a lo w
positio n.
The rites of Chou were said to be a cont in uation of
tho se of Shang with revisions . One of the most drastic
revis ions must have been the pro motio n of the temple of fi-
cial to the exalted pos ition of the Lord of the Temple and
the relegatio n of the shaman to the pos it ion of a petty
off icial . The main reaso n for thi s revisio n is that ances-
tor worship became more im porta nt tha n the worship of the
natur e gods to the Chou pe ople , for even in the worship of
Heaven, the Chou king usuall y called upon his ancestors as
in termidia ries to convey his request to Heaven . This prac-
ti ce can be amply do cum ented by the Shu Ching (Boo k of
26
Do cuments ) and the Shih Ching (Book of So ngs ) .
In the fo llo wing paragra phs I shall use carefull y
ch o sen examples to ill ustrate Chou shama nism at work .
Duke Chou , a man both of cou nsel and acti on , was the
fo urth of King Wen's ten so ns . He assisted King Wu (reig ned
1111 - 110 5 B.C. ) , one of his bro thers , in the con quest of
Shang. After King Wu's deat h , he acted as regent for seven
years for King Ch 1eng (reigned 11 04-1 068 B.C. ) , who , at the
time of ascens io n , was only thi rteen years ol d . He was
respons ible fo r the legisl atio n and cons oli datio n of the
Chou dynasty, and much admired by Co nfuci us . Many histo
rians co nsider him the greatest statesman of an cient China .
"The Bronze Casket" ( Chin t'eng ) is one of the mo st
interesti ng doc uments in the Book of Do cum ents. It cont ains
a vivid de scription of how Duke Chou perfor med a sacrif ice
to his ancestors- -T 'ai Wang, his great gra ndfather, Wang
Chi , his gra ndfather, and King Wen , his father--for the
dying king , his brother King Wu. In the invoc atio n , the
duke asks the three ancestors to take him as a scapegoat for
King Wu. This remi nds us of the pop ular legend of King
T'ang, the fo under of the Shang dynasty, who in the ti me of
a great drought was prepared to sacr if ice hi mself to Heaven
in order to obtai n rain for hi s peo ple. When King T1a ng was
about to set fi re to burn hims elf, he was saved at the ni ck
of ti me because Heaven was moved by his great virt ue and
27
co mpassio n and sent do wn a great shower .18 Duke Chou , in
additio n to poi ntin g out the reaso ns why it would be better
for him to die in the king 's stea d , uses the precio us jade
dis c and jade tablet as bargaining ch ips to coa x his ances-
tors to grant him his request . After the deli very of the
invoc atio n , he performs divi nation wit h three torto ise
shells and pro gno sti cates the crack s on them . Then he co n-
sults the book in the bronze casket, which must be a book of
divi natio n , to conf irm hi s prog no sti cation . All these show
that Duke Chou was doubt less a head shaman.
So far as I know , "Chin t'eng" has three English ver-
19
si ons . The reason for my hesit ating to use a readi ly
avai lable tra nslation and taking so me pains to do a new one
is that none of them can be used without cons ider able emen-
dation . Interested readers who make comp ariso n between my
versio n and the three ot hers will fi nd that my inter preta
tion of the key word ch iao (� ) at the end of the docum ent
is very differe nt from that of the ot hers . I beli eve that
Duke Chou had died before the mira cle , the flattened grain
be ing straightened up by a wi nd of the oppo site direct io n ,
too k place. I translate the sentence , "W ang chu chia o, " as
"T he king went out to pe rform the suburban sacrifi ce ," in
which the king will call upon (ni, or greet) the spirit of
Duke Chou in perso n . In do ing so, I return to a very old
in terpretatio n made by Ssu-ma Chien , who write s, "After the
28
death of Duke Chou , autu mn , before harvest , there was a
great thunder storm , all the grain was flattened , all large
20
trees were uprooted ." But the tra ditional interp retatio n
of the sentence is "The king went out to the suburb to meet
21
the duke," implying that the duke was still alive . Here
is a com plete translation of ''the Bronz e Casket : "
Two year s after the con quest of Shang, King
Wu became ill and would not recover . The two
ot her dukes said , "Let us make a reverent divina
tion for ou r king ." But Duke Chou said , "That
mig ht not be eno ugh to move our late kings ."
Therefore the duke took the burden upon hi mself .
He had three altars co nstructed on the same
cleared grou nd . Then he had another altar co n
structed to the so uth, facing nort h . Sta nding
there , having put do wn the jade dis c and holding a
jade tablet, he addressed his ancestors , T'a i
Wang, Wang Chi , and King Wen . The scri be reco rded
his invoc atio n , whic h read , "Your great descen
dant, whose name I dare not utter, has su ffered
from a severe and viole nt disea se . You three
kings in Heaven are reall y responsible fo r your
disti nguished so n. Tak e me as a substit ute for
his perso n. I am ki nd and obedi ent. I have many
talents and skil ls , and can serve the ghosts and
spiri ts . You r great descendant is not as talented
or skilled as I, nor can he serve the ghosts and
spiri ts . Furthermo re , he was gi ven a mandate by
God in his heavenly court to hold sway over the
fo ur quarters so that he mig ht fir mly establish
yo ur offspri ngs here on the earth belo w . There
are no peo ple from the fo ur quarters who do not
stand in awe of him . Oh ! do not let that precio us
mandate from Heaven fall. With him , our late
kings wil l always have a place to turn to . I
shall now consult the great tortoi se . If you
grant my request , I shall offer the jade di sc and
and the jade tablet to you . If you do not, I
shall put them awa y. "
He di vined with three torto ises , and they
were all auspicious. He then opened the lo ck and
consu lted the book , and it was ausp ici ous too .
29
The duke said , "T he crack s show that the king will
suffer no harm, and that I, the small chi ld, have
obtained a renewed manda te from the three kings to
prolo ng the life of our ki ng. So let us wait,
hoping that they will take pit y on me , the one
man. " The Duke returned and put the scribe 's
record in the bro nze casket. By the next day the
king recov ered .
After the death of King Wu, the duke's older
brother , Kuan Shu, along with his you nger broth
ers , sprea d rumors arou nd the cou ntry that the
duke would do harm to the yo ung King . Duke Chou
inf ormed the ot her two dukes, saying , "Had I not
taken the sacred cerem ony upon myself , I would no t
have bee n able to report to our late kin gs." The
duke then li ved in the east for two years and the
cr iminals were caught . Later he com posed a poem ,
"the Owl, '' and sent it to the king . The king did
not bl ame the duke at all.
In the autu mn when a plentif ul crop had ri p
ened but had not yet been harvested , Heaven sent
dow n a wi nd accomp anied by thunder and li ghtni ng.
The grain was com pletely flatt ened and even large
trees were upro ote d , and the people of the la nd
were in great fear . The king and the min ister s
all put on thei r cerem onial robe s and went to open
the bron ze casket for the boo k . Then they dis cov
ered the burden that Duke Chou had taken on hi m
self, how he had wished to substit ute hi mself for
King Wu. The two ot her dukes and the king then
asked the scr ibe and all the offi cials whether
thi s had in fact happen ed . They replie d , "Oh yes,
it is true . But the duke co mmanded us not to
mentio n it ."
The king held the book and cr ied , sayi ng, "We
do not need to make a reverent di vi nation now .
Formerl y the duke worked dilige ntly for the ro yal
famil y , but I was only a ch ild and did no t realize
it . Now Heaven has shown its aweso me power to
reveal the vi rtue of Duke Chou . I, the small
ch ild , must call upon him in perso n , in accor dance
wit h the ri tual of ou r ro yal hous e."
The king then went out to make the suburba n
sacr if ice , and Heaven sent do wn rain and a wind
from the oppo si te dire ction , so that all the grain
stood up straight agai n . The two ot her dukes
ordered the people of the la nd to raise up and
bank all flatte ned trees . Then the year turned
out to be plentif ul.2 2
30
My second example is poem 282, 11 Yung,1 1 of the Book of
Son gs . This poem will sho w that there are im perso nators of
the dead in the sacr if ice :
All have come in harmon y ,
And entered the temple reverentl y .
The impe rsonat or represents the deified ancestor .
The bearing of the Son of Heaven is statel y .
We offer a large male animal ;
We submit the whole carcass to the im person ator .
11 0h , descend , my augu st father ,
And bless me , yo ur pio us so n!
11 You were brill ia nt and wi se as a man,
And skilled in war and pea ce as a ki ng.
Throug h you our sacr ifi ce will rea ch Augu st
Heaven,
And thereby you make yo ur de sce ndant s prospero us .
Grant us long life ,
And enric h us wit h ample blessi ngs.1 1
Having waited upon my glor io us father ,
I also wait upon my model mot her.2 3
The Son of Heaven is King Wu. The deified ancestor is King
Wen . According to poe m 23 5, 11 Wen Wang,1 1 11 King Wen ascends
24
and descend s /On Go d's left hand, on His ri ght.1 1 King Wen
therefore is able to act as an inter media ry between the Son
of Heaven and Heaven . In ot her words , the Son of Heaven
cannot call upon God on Hi gh dir ectly for favor s. This idea
is borro wed from the Shang. Line s 7-1 4 are an in voca tion
delivered by King Wu to his father . There are at least two
im perso nators in th is sacri fi ce . One im perso nates King Wen
and the ot her T1a i Ssu, King Wu's mot her , for at the end of
31
the poem we fi nd them plied with foo d and drin k . Only one
imp ersonat or , how ever , is mentio ned in the begi nning of the
poe m , the model mother bei ng of less im por tance .
My third example is poe m 272 , "Wo tsia ng," of the Boo k
of So ngs . Thi s poem will il lustrate how a late king is made
a correlate of God on Hig h in the sacr if ice :
We present our offeri ngs ,
Our sheep and ou r bulls .
May Heaven come to enj oy them .
Our rit ual is patt erned on King Wen's rules .
Daily we bring pea ce to the fo ur quarters .
Great in deed is King Wen !
He has come to enj oy them .
Let us day and ni ght
Fear Heaven's wrath
And thus be prote ct ed.2 5
The sacrifi cer of this ode is prob ably King Wu. The sacri-
fi ce is made to Heaven and King Wen. Therefore there are
two im personat ors . One of them im perso nates Heaven, and the
other King Wen.
My next example is poe m 209 , "Ch'u ts'i," of the Boo k
of So ngs . Thi s poem is a detailed descriptio n of a sacri-
fi ce made to the ancestors of the Cho u peo ple , which inc lude
Hou Chi , King Wen , King Wu , and others . It is a very good
example of how the in voker and the im personat ors co operate
in such a sacrifi ce . The tone of the poem is dig nified .
The mo vement of the poem is slow and statel y , the result of
32
an effect ive use of para llelism . It cons ists of si x stanzas
with twelve li nes in each stanza, a com pa ratively lo ng poe m
of this type.
The impor tant message in the first stanza is that the
year is extraordi naril y good and that is why the people make
wine and fo od as a than ksgi ving to the ancesto rs . Line 9,
"I t'o i �, 11 liter all y means "to set so meo ne at ease and to
urge him to have food and dri nk. " The im personators are the
imp lied obj ect s of these two verbs , for at the begi nning of
a sacr if ice , it is the invoker 's respons ibil ity to make the
im personat ors feel at home and to assist them to take drink
and fo od .
In the second stanza, the vi cti ms , the bulls and sheep ,
are introdu ced . These are killed , cook ed , sprea d out on the
meat stands, and presented to the im personat ors to eat.
Meanw hile , the invoker seeks the spiri ts of the ancestors by
the temple gate , for they mi ght be away from the temple
between the sacrifi ce s. They are then escorted by the
in voker from the gate to the feast table . What we shou ld
know in or der to fully understand thi s stanza is that the
spirit -gu ardians are but another name for the im persona tors ,
and that the sacri fi cer is called the pious gra ndso n (hsi ao
sun) . To call the sac rifi cer the pious grandso n is rather
unusual, for in the ot her po ems , the sa cri fi cer is invar ia b
ly called the descendant (tseng �' or grea t grandso n).
33
The on ly ot her exceptio n is poem 282, "Yung," in which the
sacrificer called him self "pio us so n. " As "Yung " is a poem
in whic h King Wu makes a sacrific e to his father, King Wen,
we may infer that the sacrifi cer in the present poem is King
Ch1e ng, the so n of King Wu. But this is onl y speculatio n .
The third stanza is the clim ax of the ceremon y . We are
to ld by the Book of Rites that the sacrificer , his wife , the
invok er , and so me of the guests of honor all take turns
making pledges to the im personator s, and the im personat ors
themselves also toast one anothe r. The tota l number of
ro unds that the im persona tor has to drink is nine . Hence
the li ne "Healths and toasts go cr issc ros s" is qui te des-
cript ive of the scene . The fo llowing passage from the Boo k
of Rites may fill in what is left unsaid by the poem .
The im personat ors of the Chou dynasty are
seated. Com municati ng thro ugh the invoker , they
are plied wit h food , drink , and the wan dance used
in the sacrifice to the Fo ur Direc tions . The
ri tuals of the Chou are si mil ar to tho se of the
Yin , be cause their ways are the same . The im per
so nators of the Hsia re main sta nding till the end
of the sacri fice . The im perso nators of the Yin
are seated. The si x im perso nators of the Chou
make toas ts to one anot her . Tseng Tzu (505- 436
B.C. ) remarked , "The rit ual s of the Chou are si mi
lar to a Dutch treat drinking part y , aren't
they?"26
The wine used in such a sacrifice is pro bably the yft -fla
vored wine made from black mill et . It was the best wine
34
from the Chou ro yal cellar .
Stanza fo ur is the mes sage whic h the in voker co nveys
from the im perso nators to the sacrifice r , the pious grand-
so n . The mes sage is usually a stri ng of well-tu rned good
wishe s whic h the inv oker has poli shed over a lif eti me . When
the message is co nveyed , the sacrifice com es to an end .
The functio n of the in voker as the master of ceremon y
is especi ally obvious in the fi fth stanza. He gi ve s a
successi on of or ders whic h are prom ptl y carried out . Fi rst
he annou nces that the spir its are drunk and asks the im per-
senators to ri se. Next he orders the band of bells and
drums to pla y music to retire them . Then he or ders the
stewards and the noble wi ves to clear away the dishes with
speed to sho w reverence . Fi nall y he pro claims that the ti me
has come for the lay feast .
The last stanza is a brief descriptio n of the la y feast
ending again wit h a blessing from the invok er . Here is the
entire poem :
Thick gro w the thi stles .
They begin to produce pri ckles .
What have we do ne si nce of old?
We plant wine- millet and co oking- mil let.
Our wine- millet is a bou nty;
Our co oki ng- mill et , a bumper crop .
Our gra naries are overflo wing ;
Our stacks are in their millions .
So we make wine and food
To make offeri ng, to make sacri fice ,
35
To ease and to wait upon the imp ersonator s,
So as to obtai n mi ghty blessi ngs.
In due order , treading stately ,
We bring ou r bulls and sheep
To perform autu mn and wint er sacrifice s.
Some kill the vic tims , so me co ok them ,
Some set them out , so me present them .
The invok er seeks the spirits by the temple gate.
The sacrific ial servi ce is prop erly done
To glor ify the aug ust ancesto rs ,
To wait upon the spirit -gu ardians .
The pious gran dso n shall enj oy happine ss ;
They will reward him with great blessi ngs ,
With lo ngevit y unendi ng.
We mi nd our co oking with great care .
The carcasses in the stands are enor mous ;
Some are roas ted , so me are broiled .
The noble wi ves are duly reverent,
They have prepared so many di she s
For the visitors and for the guests .
Healths and toas ts go cri sscross .
All rules and rit es are obs erved .
Every laug hter , every word prop erly uttered.
The spirit-g uardia ns have surely co me
To requi te us with great blessi ngs,
And a myriad years as our reward .
We have stri ven very hard
To perfor m our rites wi thout the sli ghtest error .
The offic ial invoker co nveys the me ssage,
Go es and gi ve s it to the pi ous gran dso n:
"Fragrant are you r pio us offeri ngs .
The spirits enj oy their dri nk and food .
They predict for you a hundred blessi ngs
Just as you expect , just as you rig htl y de serve .
You have brought the purified wine , the purified
grain ,
They are well placed, they are well set .
For ever they will reward yo ur ri ghteousne ss
With myriads and tens of myriads of blessi ngs."
The rite s have all been co mpleted;
The bells and the drums are ready.
The pious gran dso n goes to his seat
And the official invoker pro clai ms :
"T he spi rits are all drunk.
August im personat ors , please rise !
36
See them off wit h bells and drums !
The spiri t- guardians are gone !
My stewards and my noble ladie s,
Clear away the di she s wi thout delay.
My uncles and my bro thers,
Now it is ti me for the la y feast."
The music ia ns go in and pla y ,
To secure after-blessi ngs.
Your via nds are passed ro und;
No one is dis satisf ie d , all are happy .
They are drunk; they are sated .
The young and the old all bow their heads .
"T he spirits enj oy their drink and foo d ,
And will give our lord a long life .
You have bee n very gracio us , very good ,
You have done you r utmost .
By yo ur many so ns and your many gra ndso ns
You r line shall forever be con ti nued." 27
My last example is poe m 211, "Fu t1ien," of the Boo k of
Son gs . Thi s poe m describes a thanksgi vi ng sacrifice made to
the Fi eld Granddad . As the im personator is used to im per-
so nate the Fiel d Granddad , it can be established unequivo -
call y that the Chou people did not use on ly im personat ors of
the dead , but also im perso nator of gods .
"F u t'i en" is a poem of fo rty li nes in fo ur stanzas,
with ten verses in each stanza . It co ntains fo ur diffi cult
line s whic h have never been co rrectly explained , and co nse-
quentl y the available English versio ns are unsati sfactor y .
These diffic ult li nes must be explic ated before we can
understand the whole poem .
First , verse 9, "Y u chie h ;y.£ ch 'i," si mply means "to
stop and to take a rest," the subjects of these verbs bei ng
37
supplied by the co ntext. The whole verse also appears in
poem 245 , "Sheng mi n, " which is about the miraculous birt h
of Hou Chi , as its seventh verse . Let us take a loo k at
Waley's translation of the fi rst ten verses of "Sheng min "
to see if my explication makes better sense . The myth of
Hou Chi begins as follows : "She who in the begi nning gave
birt h to the people , /This was Chia ng Yftan . /How di d she
gi ve birt h to the people ? /Well she sacrificed and prayed
/That she mig ht no longer be chil dless. /She tro d on the big
toe of God's foot print , /Was accepted and KQ1 what she
desired . /Then in reverence , then in awe /She gave birth ,
-- -
28
she nurtured ; /And this was Hou Chi ." Waley's trans la-
tio n of this stanza as a whole is very readable . Only
verses 7 and 8, whic h I have underli ned , are questionable .
To my mi nd , if we use "She stopped and she too k a rest (Yu
chieh � ch 'i ) , /She be came pregnant , she was in awe" to
substit ute them, the whole stanza would make a better sense .
Karlgren's rendering of line seven , "she was (i ncreased = )
enric hed , she was blessed," also does not make good sense in
thi s co ntext .
The seco nd problem in "F u t'i en" is verse 10, "Cheng wo
mao shi h." All co mmentator s agree that 1� shih ' means
'handso me scholar . 1 But what does this handsome scholar do
here? Waley's translation of the li ne , "Fine , my cho sen
men! " impl ies that he takes the nou n to be in plural and
38
they are the outs tanding field hands. Karlgre n1s "we offer
gifts to ou r fi ne offi cers " indica tes that he takes the
handso me scho lars to be 'o ffi cers of the fields .' My guess
is that the word '�' orig inally means 'long-bearde d' and
'handso me ' is a deri vative meaning . The Chine se people in
genera l are not hair y , and a few of them who are are con-
si dered handsome , and fit to be the im person ators of gods .
'Mao shi h ' reminds me of the lo ng- bearded men who were
employed by King Ling of Ch'u as impers onat ors in his shama-
nic rites . Furthermo re under "Offic ials of Spring ," the
Rite s of Chou , we fi nd the foll owing entry : 11 Shen shih
( spirit scholar ) : the spirit scholar takes charge of the
rites for the three celestial bodi es , i.e. the sun, the
moon , and the stars . He disti ngushes their names and their
tote ms . On the day of the wi nter so lstice , he bring s dow n
the heavenly gods and human spirits . On the day of the
summer so lstice , he brings do wn the earthly spirits and the
minor deities so as to remove dis asters from the state and
29
vio lent death from the people ." The com mentators maintain
that shen shih are tho se shamans that are parti cularly
learned and handsome . In my op inion, the handso me scholar
in this li ne is one of the handso me shamans ( shen shih ) .
Being lo ng- bearded , he is fit to represent the Field Grand-
dad. Therefore the handso me scho lar in li ne 10, the Fi eld
Granddad in line 17, and the Field Grandpa (t'ien tsftn )
39
in line 24 all refer to one perso n .
Third , the word yeh in verse 23 , "Yeh .£.!. !!!!!!:. mo u, " has
been mis constr ued . Waley1s translatio n of the line , "Bri ng
ing di nner to the so uthern acres" is traditional . Yeh used
as a nou n is the name of a sacrif ice . When used as a verb ,
it means to perform a yeh sacrifi ce . In the Rites of Chou ,
under "the Junior Lord of the Temple" we fi nd that one of
his duties is that "at the ti me of the ro yal hunt, he leads
the respons ible of fici als to make yeh sacrifice to the ani
mals in the suburb." But why should the animal s be sacri
ficed to? Well, so me of the animals are benefici al to
argr i culture . For example , the lynx kills the rats , and the
tiger kills the wild boa rs . And bot h the lynx and the tiger
are on the list of the animals to be sacrificed to . But who
is the greatest benefactor of argri cultu re? Why, the Fiel d
Granddad , of cou rse . Therefore the yeh sacrifice is prima
ri ly a sacrif ice dedicated to the Field Granddad.
Fo urth , the last tr oubl eso me verse is li ne 24 , 11 T1ien
tsftn chi hsi ." The meaning of the line is "T he Fiel d
Grandpa is very pleased . 11 The term t1ien tstt. n is not hi ng
but anot her name for t' ien tsu (t he Field Granddad). In
"Offi cials of Spring ," the Rites of Chou , one of the offi
ci als is entitled Offic ial of the Flute (y tt.eh chang) . Hi s
jo b description runs: "The Officer of the Flute takes charge
of the earther n drum and the Pin flute ••• When the state
40
pra ys for goo d year to t' ien tsu (the Field Granddad) , he
pla ys the flute and beats the earthern drum to entertai n
t'ien tsftn ( the Fiel d Grandpa)." Karlgren1s translatio n of
this line , "The inspe ctor of the fi elds come s and is
pleased," is the traditi onal int erpretatio n . Waley's "The
labour ers co me to take goo d cheer" is qui te ingenious but
incorre ct . Here is the po em :
Far they stretch , tho se big fiel ds ;
Every year we pay ten thousa nd in ta x .
We take our old crop
And feed our husbandmen .
For man y years we have had goo d harvests.
And now we co me to the so uthern acres,
Some are weedi ng, so me are ba nking .
The wine-mi llet and the co oki ng-millet are lust y .
We stop and we ta ke a rest,
And make an offeri ng to our handso me im perso nator .
With our strained brig ht wine ,
With our victim bulls and sheep
We sacrifice to the Soil , to the Fo ur Quarters .
Our fie lds have all done well,
That is the luck of our husbandmen .
We pla y zit hers , we beat drums
To br ing do wn the Fiel d Granddad,
To pray for sweet rain ,
So that our mille ts may be abunda nt,
Our men and women well fed .
The Descendant has co me
With hi s wife and chi ldren
To make yeh sacrifice in the so uthern acres .
The Field Grandpa is very pleas ed .
He takes food from the ri ght, from the left,
To taste if it is delic ious .
"The grain is well-c ultivated all over the acres .
All is fi ne and plentif ul.
I do n't think the Desc endant will be angry;
The husbandmen have been prom pt in their wor k. "
41
"T he Descendant's crops
Shall be thick as thatch, long as a bridge ;
The Descendant's stacks
Shall be hig h as cli ffs , hig h as mo unds .
He shall need a thousa nd barns,
He shall need ten thousa nd carts
For millet , rice , and spi ked millet .
The husbandmen are in luck.
The descendant is rewarded wit h mi ghty blessi ngs
And a lo ng life wit hout ending !"30
To sum up, the shamanism of the Shang co nsists of the
cult of natur e gods and the ancestor worship . The Chou
people put more emphasis on the worsh ip of their ancestors
than the natu r e gods , for a great majorit y of the poems in
the Sung sectio n of the Book of So ngs are co ncerned wit h the
ancestor wor shi p , whi le po ems li ke "Fu-t 1ien11 in whic h the
Fiel d Granddad is sacrificed to are ralatively few. But to
the Ch'u people , the cult of natur e gods was more im por tant
than ancestor worshi p . Thi s we will fi nd in ou r next chap-
ter , "T he Functio naries of Shamani sm."
42
NOTES
1 Fu SSu-ni en , "I Hsia tung hsi sho u, " Fu Ssu- nien ch 'llan
chi , vel . III , p. 85 .
2 These two li nes are Arthur Waley's tra nslation . See
Waley, The Book of So ngs , p. 277 or Ch'ft Wan-li , Shih
chin g chuan shi h , p.
6
24 .
3 Fu , v o 1 • I I I , p • 9 5 •
4 Ibi d. , pp . 89-97 .
5 Ch'en Meng-ch ia , "Shang tai ti shen- hua yft wu- shu,"
Yen-ch in g Hslleh- pao , 20 (19 3 6) , 538 .
6 David Haw kes translates li ng-h si u as 'the Fair One. '
See his The So ngs of the South , pp . 23 , 213.
7 Lee Nung-h wa, Chao- hsie n wu shu k1a o, p. 5.
8 Ibi d. , p. 3.
9 Ch1e n Meng-chia , P'u-tz 'u tsung-s hu , p. 562 .
10 Ibi d. , pp . 38 6-99 .
11 David N. Keig htley, "T he Religio us Co mmit ment : Shang
Theolog y and the Genesis of Chine se Poli tic al Culture,"
Hi stor y of Religio n 17 (19 78) , pp . 212- 13.
12 Ch'en Meng-ch ia , "Shang tai ti shen- hua yft wu-sh u, "
Yen- ching Hsll eh- pao , 20 (19 36 ) , p. 53 5.
13 Shi h san ching chu shu , p. 14 75 .
14 Burton Watso n, The Co mplete Works of Chuang Tzu,
p. 298.
1 5 Ibid . , p. 1 88.
16 Shih san ching chu shu , pp . 816-1 7.
17 Ibi d. , pp . 752- 55.
18 Sun I-j ang, Mo Tzu chien ku, pp . 76-77 and Burto n
Watson , The Basic Writ ings of Mo Tzu, p. 45 .
43
19 One was translated by Jame s Legge, anot her by Bernhard
Karlgren , and a third by James Hart.
20 Ch'ft Wan-li , Shang shu chi shi h , pp. 132-33 .
21 Clae Waltham, Shu Ching , p. 138.
22 Ch'ft, pp. 12 7- 33 .
23 This poem is my ow n translatio n . For its Chi nese text ,
see Ch'ft Wan-li , Shih Chin g chuan shi h , pp. 576- 77 .
24 Arthur Waley , The Book of So ngs , p. 250 .
25 This is agai n my translatio n . Its Chine se text ca n be
fo und in Ch 'ft, p. 562 .
26 Shih san chin g chu shu , p. 14 39 .
27 This is also my translation . For its Chine se text , see
Ch 'ft, pp. 403 -4 06 .
28 Waley, p. 241.
29 Shih san ching chu shu , p. 828.
30 This is my translation . See Ch 'ft, pp. 409-1 1 for its
Chine se text .
44
CHAPTER III
THE FUNCTIONARIES OF SHA MANISM
Who were the functio naries of shamani sm in Ch'u? The
best answer to thi s questio n lies in the "Ch'u Yft" (Dis
cou rse of Ch1u) chapter of the Kuo Yft (Dis cou rses of the
States). This text records a co nversation between King Chao
(rei gned 515- 489 B. C. ) of Ch'u and his learned minister ,
Kuan- she Fu. The king , after reading "Lft hsi ng" (T he Mar
qui s of 1ft on Puni shment) in the Shu Ching (B ook of Do cu
ments), was puzzled by the myth of the severance of co mmuni-
1
cation between Heaven and Earth. He turned to his mi nister
for enlight enment. The mini ster's answer co nsists of a
threefold di vis ion of the functio naries of shamani sm , namely
hsi (s haman) or wu (s hamaness) , chu (i nvok er ) , and tsung
(t emple office r) , and a brief histo ry of Ch'u shamanism from
the remote legendary past to the late Western Chou ti me .
Thi s text is one of the keys to the understanding of
shama nism in ancie nt Chin a . Unfort unatel y onl y a portio n
2
of it has been translated into Englis h . This is the
reason why I have endeavored to translate the whole text
and quo te it in its entiret y here :
45
King Chao co nsulted Kua n-she Fu, saying , "The
Book of Do cuments maintains that Ch'ung and Li
were respons ible for separating Earth from Heaven.
What do es that mean? Had they not done so , co uld
people go up to Heaven? "
"This is not what that statement means," re
plied the mini ster . "In ancie nt ti me s people and
gods di d not mi ngle. Only into a perso n who wa s
pure and si ngle- minded , staunch in adherence to
princ iple , so wi se that in all matters he al ways
took the ri ght si de , so sagel y that he spread a
far-r eaching radia nce, so intel li gent that he shed
lig ht on thin gs , so perceptive that he co uld hear
the min utest so und, wo uld the brig ht god descend .
One who was male was called shaman (hsi) ; one who
was female was called shamaness (w u)
:n -
"One who was respons ible for provi ding seats
in a proper or der for the gods , for providing for
them victi ms , ri tua l vessels , and seaso nal vest
ments so that the descendant s of the former sages
were made brig ht , and knew the titles of the
mou ntains and ri vers , the tablets of the dis tant
ancestor s, the rites of the ancestral temple , the
arra ngement of generatio ns in the chao and mu
order , the pot ency of purifi cation , the appr o
priat eness of eti quette , the rules of bearing , the
solemnity of appearance , the essence of si ncer
it y , and the vestments for pure sacrifice s, and at
onc e showed
g
reat reverence for the gods , was made
in voker (chu) ."
"One who was from a well-e stablis hed famil y
and knew the prod uce of the fo ur seaso ns , the
color of the vi ctims , the classification of jade
and si lk, the proper use of the co lored vestments,
the quantit y of the ri tua l vessels, the order of
the vario us tablets , the pos itio n of the sacrifi
cers , the locatio n of the altars and clearing s,
the gods from above to belo w , and the origi n of
famil y names and clan names, and at once earnestly
fo llo wed the anci ent laws, was made temple officer
(t sung) ."
"Therefore there were officers in charge of
Heaven, Earth, gods , peop le , and utilit ies , and
they were called the fi ve office rs . Each of them
had hi s own charge and did not in terfere wit h the
ot hers.s. The people therefore be came loyal and
hon est . The gods were therefore full of brig ht
virt ue . The people and the gods all mi nded their
own busin ess . Since the people were reverent and
not pro fane, the go ds besto wed on them good
thin gs . The people of fered sacrif ices , and no
disast er would co me , and their reso urces would not
be exhausted."
"When Shao- hao was on the decli ne and the
nine Li tri be s rebelled , the people and the gods
be came mingled and no thing co uld be differen
tiated . Everybod y offered sacrifice s; every
hous ehold had a shaman and an invoker without
having the essential qualities . The peop le were
imp overi shed by sacri fices wi thout obtaining any
benefits ."
"T he offerings were li mitle ss and the people
and the gods were of the same rank. The people
defil ed the sacred agreements and became irre ve
rent. The gods be came used to the deali ngs of the
people but did not rectif y them . Good prod uce did
not descend and there was not hing to be used in
the sacrifi ce . Di saster s came in succes si on and
few died of natur al death. When Chuan-hsft came to
the throne , he ordered Ch 'ung, Officer of the
So uth, to take charge of Heaven , whic h was duly
returned to the gods , and Li, Office r of Fire , to
take charge of Earth, whic h belo nged to the peo
ple, so that Earth and Heaven returned to norm alc y
and did not trespass upon each ot her . That is the
meaning of separating Earth from Heaven."
"Later the three Miao tribe s revived the
deeds of the nine Li tribe s. Yao termin ated the
three Miao tri be s and rei nstalled the descendants
of Ch1u ng and Li , who did not forget the ancie nt
laws, to their offi ces . They kept their offi ces
do wn to the dynasties of Hsia and Shang. There
fore the Ch'ungs and the Lis were in charge of
Heaven and Earth for many generations and were
responsible for their separation . During the Chou
Dynast y , Hsi u Fu, Lord of Ch'en, was one of their
descendants. In the reign of Kin g Hsftan , the
of fices were replaced by Ssu-ma (com mander of
ho rses). To glor ify their ancestors and to inti
midate the people , the descendants of Hsi u Fu
bo asted : 1C h1u ng upheld Hea ven; Li subj ugated
Earth. ' But they were helpless against the dis or
der of their ti me . Otherwi se si nce Heaven and
Earth have been fo rmed , there would be no need to
separate them again. " 3
47
Acco rding to this text , the his to ry of Ch'u shamanism
from the remote past to the late We stern Cho u seems to have
been a record of cons tant struggle between go verment sha-
�� J2.2.E:t.!1a:r_�..§ h�Ilt
�
-
�
�
�
-
· When the po werful legendary
kin gs , such as Chuan -h sU and Yao , came to the thro ne , reli-
gion was fir mly under state co ntrol and Heaven was severed
fro m the earth, for only the king had the privil ege to
com muni cate wit h Heaven . But when the ruling king was less
powe rful, ordin ary people began to shamanize . Thi s was the
si tuation when "everybod y offered sacrif ice ; every hous e-
hold had a shaman and an in voker ."
The order in which the three functio naries of sh aman-
ism app ear in Kuan-she Fu's speech can be cons idered the
rank they held in the theocratic hier archy that they had
for med . The shaman (hsi or wu) was of the hig hest ra nk.
This is qui te understa ndable, for the king of Ch1u was the
head shaman. No wonder the pi cture of the shaman was
paint ed in a very ideali stic and flatte ri ng lig ht . Next to
the shaman in rank was the invoker (chu ) . He assiste d the
shaman in th e rit ual and acted as a master of ceremony . He
made invo cations for the master of the sacrifice and co n-
veyed the blessi ng speech (k u tz'u) from the im perso nator
to the sacri fice r . The temple officer (t sung) was respon-
sible for the supply of offer ing s in the sacrifice , whic h
in clude , among ot hers, seasonal produ ce , vic tims , jade ,
48
si lk, and ri tual vessels . He was an im por tant man behind
the scene . But his rank was obviousl y lo wer than tho se of
the shaman and the invok er .
Thi s three-fold division of the functi ona ries of sha-
mani sm in Ch'u was pro bably of Shang or igin and the rank of
the shaman was hig her than the invoker can be se en in the
foll owing stor y :
Long ago , in the ti me of Pao , Duke Wen of Sung
[61 0-589 B.C. ], there was a mi nister named Kuan
ku the Invok er , who served in the ancestral tem
ple of the state. Once a shaman appeared fro m
the temple, beari ng a club , and sai d , 11Kuan-ku,
what does this mean? The sacramental jade s and
circlets do not fulfill the proper standa rd , the
offeri ngs of wine and mil let are impu re , the
sacrific ial animal s are not fat and flawless as
they should be , and the ceremon ies appr opr iate to
the fo ur seaso ns are not performed at the right
ti mes ! Is this your do ing or Pao 's?" Kuan-ku
replied , "Pao is an infa nt, still in swaddling
cloth es . What do es he know of such matters? I
am in charge , and it is my doi ng! " Then the
shaman rai sed his club and struck Kuan-ku , and he
fell dead on the alta r.4
We know that Sung was a duchy enfeoffed by the Chou to the
defeated Shang people . The functions of the in voker in the
above stor y are very si milar to tho se described in the
di sco urse of Kuan-sh e Fu. The fact that the shaman co uld
strike Kuan-ku , the invoker , wit h a club and kill him
in dicates that the soci al status of the shaman was hig her
than that of the invo ker .
49
Because the shaman was the one int o whom the bright
god wo uld descend , he was ofte n called by anot her name, the
im person ator (shi h) . The word shih and the word chu (i n
vok er ) are often mention ed in the same breath by Chuan g Tzu
(c.J69-286 B.C. ), the great Tao ist philos opher in the boo k
that bears hi s name. In one of hi s many fables we are tol d
that Yao , the first sage ki ng, wanted to ce de the empire to
Hsft Yu , a hermi t of great virt ue . Hsft Yu decli ned the
offer of the rulership of the world , saying , "T hough the
cook may not run his kitc hen properl y , the imp erson ator and
the in voker (shih chu) at the sacrifice do not leap over
the wine vessels and sacrifi cial stands and go take his
5
pla ce ." It is from this passage that the idiomatic ex-
pressi on "yfteh chu tai pao " (t o leap over the sacrific ial
stands and go ta ke the coo k's place), an equivalent to
"back-s eat driv er" is deri ved . Passages in whic h the im-
personator and the invoker are menti oned toget her can also
be fo und in chapter fo urteen, "the Turning of Heaven" and
6
chapter nine teen , "Masteri ng Life ."
From these passages we learn that the im perso nator and
the in voker are partners who co operate closel y at the
sacri fice . Many good examples can of co urse be fo und in
the Nine Son gs to demo nstrate this . But for the sake of
econom y , let us just examine one of them , "the Lord amid
the Clo uds." The im personator of thi s so ng is natu rall y a
50
male shaman, si nce "Lord " (c hftn ) is a male epit het . We may
assume that he has practiced austerities for seven days and
fasted for three days before the sacrifi ce , just as we are
to ld by Chuang Tzu and the Book of Rit es . In addition, he
is ri tuall y im maculate, fo r he has "bathed in orc hid water ,
shampooed with perfume , /And dressed in a many-c olored robe
like a flower ." Therefore the spirit of the Lor d amid the
Clo uds has descended into him ri ght away . But who is there
to welco me and entertain the Lord amid the Clouds ? From
the last two lin es , "Long ing for my lor d , I heave a great
si gh. /My heart is trou bled ; I am very , very sad," we may
infer that it is the female invoker who welco me s and enter-
tains the descending god . The entertai nment may incl ude ,
as we can gather from this and the ot her so ngs, wine , food ,
music , dance , sex, and the ri di ng of the chariot .
� � he shama n and the in voker also work toget her in re
calling the so ul of the si ck . Thi s is do cumented by the
Summons of the Soul (C hao hun) . I beli eve thi s poem was
writte n as a manual for calling back the wandering so ul of
a sic k king . In the prolog ue , God on Hig h says to Shaman
Yang: "There is a man on eart h belo w whom I wou ld help.
Hi s so ul and his bo dy are separated . Divine where his so ul
is and call it back. " Shaman Yang points out that div ina-
tio n is the jo b of the Master of Dreams and that the order
of God on Hig h will be diffi cult to carry out , for after
51
the di vina tio n , the man' s bo dy mig ht have dec ompo sed , and
it mig ht be too late to revive him . Therefore Wu Yang
imm ediatel y begins to summon the so ul, saying , "0 so ul,
7
co me back ! •••• "
But Shaman Yang does not summon the so ul alone . She
or he is assisted by an invo ker . The text of Chao hun
----
says , "0 so ul, co me back ! and enter the gate of the capi
tal. /The invoker summons you , walking backwards to lead
you in . /The bamboo baske t of Ch'i n, the co lored cords of
Ch'i, and the spi rit banners of Cheng: /All so ul-calling
articles are well-prepa red ; and wit h long- drawn crie s he
8
summons you. "
A detailed descrip tio n of the clo se relatio nship be-
tween the female shaman and her assist ant can be fo und in
the Tale of the Ni san Shamaness. In this Manchu folk epic ,
Teteke , the Ni san shamaness, is engaged in bringing back
the so ul of Serg udai Fi yanggo from the underworld . Sergu-
dai Fi yanggo was the on ly so n of a very weal thy man named
Baldu Bayan in the Lolo village . He died suddenly when he
was on a hunting trip . Bald u Bayan hire d the Ni san Shaman-
, .. /--·-- -'----� ..... ,. 9
ess fro m another village to
(
revive ) his son •
.... ,_,__,__ __ ..,.,..,-
When the Nisa n shamaness begins to shamani ze , she
fi nds the Lolo village shamans who accom pany her on tambou-
rine s are out of tune, and she sends for her assist ant ,
Nari Fi yanggo, a seventy- year-old man of her own village .
52
When he co mes , she asks him to help her by harmoniz ing
beautif ull y wit h the tune, and entrusts the tambour ine an d
drum to him . At the very beginning of the seance , she
gives him ma ny ins tructions , as can be seen from the fol -
lo wing lin es :
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Lead assist ant
standing to the si de ,
great assist ant
standing next to me ,
submi ssi ve assist ant
standing near ,
clever assist ant
standing ne arby,
having ope ned you r thin ears,
lis ten !
Having close d yo ur thick ears,
Li sten !
Having fastened the roo ster
to my head ,
make ready !
Having tied to my foot
the stri ped dog ,
make ready !
Place at my si de
one hundred lumps
of ol d be an paste .
Having wrapp ed one hundred bundles
of coa rse pap er ,
make ready !
I am go ing to pursue a so ul
into a dark place .
I surmi se that I will go
to .the la nd of the dead .
I am go ing to fetch a life
in an evil pla ce .
I am goi ng to rai se
a fallen so ul.
Trusted assist ant
take charge of leading me .
Truly try hard
to revive me when I co me back .
Throw water
53
Hoge
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
Hog e
�
Hoge
�
10
around my no se:
twent y measures.
Po ur water
arou nd my face :
fort y buckets .
It is inte resti ng to note that the Ni san shama ness is a
yo ung widow and her assi stant is a wi do wer of seventy. But
in the tale she addresses him as 'my yo unger brother ,' and
he calls her 'my elder siste r. ' They shamani ze toget her
11
and are also sexual partn ers .
Armed wit h the knowl edge that the shaman does not
shama nize alone but is al way s assist ed by a partn er , we
shall be able to sol ve one of the mo st con trovers ial prob
lems in Li sao , that is , the identit y of NU HsU in line 66 .
Firs t, ho wever , it is necessary to prove that Ch1U Yftan ,
the author of Li sao , was a shaman. Fort unately a few
pi eces of good evid ence are not too far to seek. They can
be fo und ri ght in Li � itsel f .
To begin with , in li ne 2, the poet states that he
'descended ' on the day of keng yin . In other words , he
became a shaman on that day. The word hung (� ), as Cheng
Kang-min rig htly po int s out , means 'to de scend ' in archaic
Chine se . When so meo ne begets so meone or when so meone is
12
born , the word used is invar ia bly sheng (� ). For the
use of the word hung, let me just cite two examples .
Fi rst, it was recorded in the Tso Comm entary that in the
54
seventh month , 32 nd year (662 B.C. ) of Duke Chuang a god
descended (h ung) at Hsi n in the Kuo state. Seco nd, in a
sacrific ial hymn to the ancestors of Shang, we fi nd the
follo wing lin es :
God 's appo intment did not fail ;
In the time of T1a ng it was fulfilled .
T1 ang came do wn (h ung) in his due ti me ,
Wi se war ning s dail y multi plied ,
Magnifice nt was the radiance that shone belo w .
God on hig h gazed do wn;
God appo inted him to be a model to all
the la nds.13
T'a ng was the fo under of the Shang dynasty. He was not an
or di nary human bei ng. Like the Heavenly King Hwanung of
the Korea n myth, he came do wn fro m heaven to rule over the
14
peop le . The day keng yin was a very im por tant day in
Ch1u . Accord ing to the "Royal Hous e of Ch'u, " Shih chi ,
"Ch1u ng-li was co mpetent and was able to il luminate the
whole worl d under heaven . Lord Ku besto wed upon him the
merito rio us title Great Brig htness. When the tribe of
Kung- kung rebelled , Lord Ku ordered Ch'ung-li to kill them .
When the tribe was not co mpletely killed , the Lord on the
day of keng yin killed Ch ' ung-li and made his yo unger
brother Wu-hui a Ch'ung-li . He too k over the of fice of the
15
Offi cer of Fire and the ti tle of Great Bright ness . "
In the Kor ean myth of Tang un from Samguk yusa, we are
inf or med that "i n the fiftiet h year of the reig n of Emperor
55
Yao , on the day �b ng yin Tangun made P'yongyang the capital
of his co untry." Is thi s a coi nci dence? Pro bably not .
It is more likel y that Ch'u shama nism and Korea n shama nism
are of the same ori gin , and they bot h hol d the day keng yin
as an important day.
In the seco nd place, the phrase 'ch 'u tu' ( W f!t. ) in
line 3 means 'i nitiation.' Lite rall y ch 'u means 'fir st ' or
'begi nning ,' and tu means 'to transcend ' as a verb and
'transcendence ' as a nou n . For ex ample, the phrase ti tu
(� U J!t. ) means 'to become a mon k, ' but its lit eral meaning
is 'to shave (t he hair from the head ) and to transcend the
world of mortal lif e. ' The word tu also appears in line 67
of the Far-off Jo urney (Y ftan Yu), whic h is translated by
Haw kes as "I wanted to leave the worl d and forget about
returning : /M y though ts were reckless wit h a heady free-
17
do m. " Here Hawkes' translation is qui te close to the
ori gi nal text , though not very exact . In sho rt, if I were
to tra nslate the first three li nes of Li � ' I wo uld put
them as follows :
A descendant of Lord Kao Yang,
My augu st father was called Po Yung.
When Jupiter moved to the first mont h of the year ,
On the day of keng yin , I descended .
My father , ov erseei ng my ini tiat io n ,
Gave me an auspi cio us name.
56
In the third place, Ch'ft Yftan was dressed as a shaman.
In lines 38-39 , the poet says that he would emulate the
wi se men of ol d and put on clot hes whic h were not in accor d
wit h the fashion of his day , for he would fol low the pat-
18
tern that Shaman P1eng and Shaman Hsie n have left. At
the end of the poe m , when he is co mpletel y disi llusioned ,
he again says that he would go and jo in Shaman P'eng and
Shaman Hsien in the place where they dwell.
Fin all y , li ke the gods of the Nine So ngs , the poet
make s two heavenly jo urneys in an ai rbor ne chariot in th is
poem . He had to be a shaman to be able to make such magic
flig hts .
The evidence I have presented in the precedi ng para-
grap hs , I stro ngl y beli eve , is concrete enough to prove
that Ch'ft Yftan was a shaman. Now when he engages in such
flig hts , he is shama ni zi ng and he needs so meone to assist
him . Thi s is where Nft Hsft co me s in . She must be a sha
maness and Ch'ft Yftan 's assi stant. She is there , li ke Nari
Fiy anggo in the Tale of the Nisa n Shamaness , to revive the
shaman when he come s back from the jo urney. Her name is
one clue that she is a shamaness . In anci ent China many
shamans too k their name after the great shama ns . For
example, there were many shama ns by the name of Hsien .
During the reig n of Emperor Wu (rei gned 14 0-93 B. C. ) of
Han, there was a famous shama ness by the name of Li Nft-
57
19
hsft . Thus the Nft Hsft in Li � is probably also a sha-
maness .
In co nclusion , the functio naries of shamanism in Ch1u
were the shaman (hsi or wu) , the in voker ( chu) , and the
temple of ficer (tsung) . Their functions were well-defined
by the text of the "Ch'u Yft " (Disco urse of Ch1u ) chapter of
the Kuo Yft (Dis co urses of the States ) . The shaman was of
the hig hest rank, for the Ch'u king was the head shaman .
Next to the shaman was the invok er , who assi sted the shaman
in the seance . The temple officer was an impor tant man
behi nd the scene , but his rank was lo wer than those of the
shaman and the invoke r.
58
NOTES
1 Ch 1U Wan- li , Shang Shu chi shi h , pp. 250- 61 and
Clae Waltha m , Shu Ching , pp. 228- 36.
2 Jan J. M. de Groot has translated a portio n of this
text into Englis h in hi s The Reli gious System of China ,
VI , pp. 11 90-91 . But it co ntains many error s. The
most serio us one is his mis taking a part of the invok
er's jo b description for that of the shaman's . Groot 's
translation was quot ed by Mir cea Elia de in his Shaman
is m : Archaic Techniq ues of Ecstasy, pp. 451-52 .
3 "Ch'u YU," Kuo YU , pp. 559- 64 .
4 Thi s is Watso n's translation wit h slight emendation ,
see Burton Watso n , trans., Mo Tzu, p. 98.
5 This is Burton Watso n's tra nslatio n wit h emendation .
See Watso n, trans., The Com plete Works of Chuang Tzu,
p. 33 .
6 Watso n , pp. 150, 202 .
7 Wang I, Ch'u tz'u chang chU , pp. 11 9-20 . Cf . David
Haw kes , The So ngs of the So uth, pp. 10 3- 04. My int er
pretation of the Prolog ue is di fferent from his .
8 These li nes are my own translation . See Wang I, p. 12 2
and cf . Haw kes , p. 105.
9 Margaret No wak and Stephen Durrant, The Tale of the
Ni san Shamaness : A Manchu Fo lk Epi c TSe attle: Unive rsi
ty of Washington Press , 19
77T;
pp. 39- 56 .
10 No wak and Durrant, pp. 57-59 .
11 Ibi d. , p. 88.
12 Cheng Kang-min , "Li sao 'hung' tzu chUeh," Chien- she
16: 12 (May, 19 67) , pp. 22-23 and 4.
13 These are li nes 16 -22 in poem 304 , "Chang fa," the Boo k
of Son gs . See Waley, p. 277 .
14
For the Kor ean myth of the Heavenly King Hwanu ng, see
Peter H. Lee , ed . Anthol og y of Korea n Lite rat ure : From
59
Earl y Ti mes to the Nin eteenth Ce
J
tury (H ono lulu: The
On1vers1ty Press-0f Hawa11, 1981 p. 4 and Il Yon ,
Samguk yusa (i n classic al Chi nese), vol . I, p. 2.
15 Lee , p. 3.
16 Il Yon , vol . I, p. 2. The co mmentator in Samguk yusa
thought that keng yin was name of a year in the sexage
nary cycle , not the 27th day in that cycle and ques
tio ned the cor rectness of the text . This is probably
the reaso n why the translator of the 11 T angun 11 myth
omi ts keng yin in his translation . See Lee , p. 4.
17 Hawkes, p. 85 .
18 Wu P'eng and Wu Hsie n were two great sh amans of the
Shang dynasty. They ap pear freq uentl y in the oracle
bone inscri ptio ns and the Classics of Mount ains and
Seas (S han Hai Chin g) . Like Ssu-ma Chien , who thought
Ch'ung and Li were one perso n , David Hawkes takes P'eng
Hsien as the name of a si ngle shaman. See Hawkes,
P
• 24 .
19 Han Shu, 25 A.
60
CH APTER IV
THE ARCHAIC TECHNIQUES OF ECS TASY
So far as we know there is not a si ngle scien tific or
syste mat ic account of how the ancie nt Ch ine se shaman a
chieved the st ate of ecst asy . As we cannot travel through a
time tu nnel back to anci ent Ch ina to do fiel d st udy , the
best we can do perhaps is to gather as many data as possi ble
and then use them to speculate on how thi s could have been
done .
To achieve ecst asy , the ancient Ch i nese shaman had
three possi ble meth ods available to him . The fi rst and most
ordinary way wa s to dance to the drum or the music of ot her
music al ins trumen ts unt il he wa s possessed . The second was
to use alco holi c drink . The use of alco holic drink wa s
especi ally im portant in the ancest or worship ceremony , for
the shaman who pl ayed the im personator of the dead did not
dance. He wa s usuall y seated thr oughout the whole ceremony .
The third possi ble way wa s to use the drug Cann abi s sati va ,
or hemp , commonly known as mariju ana . Hemp was readil y
available to the shaman , but te xtual references to its use
are so few and far bet ween that I have si mply thr own thi s
possibilit y in for good measure . In the fol lowing para
graphs I shall disc uss each possi ble method in turn .
61
The basic technique to ind uce trance is to dance to the
rhythmic beat of the drum unti l one is po ssessed . The
definition of the wor d wu, whic h I translate as shaman, is
given by the Shuo-wen chi eh-tzu ( 2nd century A.D. ) as fol-
lows :
Wu is a chu ( an in voker ) , a wo man who can serve
the invi si ble and bring do wn the gods by dancing .
The chara cter wu ( � ) is an image of a person
danci ng with two sleeves . It also means kung ( a
pro fessio nal) . In antiquity Wu Hsie n created the
pro fessio n of �. 1
Hsft Shen's definitio n of wu is not entirel y sati sfactor y .
Fi rst, as we have seen in our disc ussio n on the functi ona
ries of shamanism , the impe rso nator (�) and the in voker
( chu ) are partners in the seance , but they have differen t
functio ns . Second , not all shamans are female: the very
example he gi ve s us , Wu Hsien ( shaman Hsie n) is a male
shaman, for sh aman Hsien , accord ing to "Chftn Shih" (The
Prince Shih ) of the Book of Docu ments, was a mini ster of
-
2
- -
Ta Wu (non -da table) . But he is certai nly ri ght in saying
that a shaman is one "w ho can serve the in vis ible and bring
dow n the gods by danci ng."
Many pre-Ch 1in texts bear out the close relatio nship
between shama ni sm and dance. The legendary fo under of the
62
Hsi a dynast y , Yfi , is doubtle ss a shaman . Yfi's st ep (Yfi QQ)
3
is a synonym for the shamanic dance. Yfi 's son , Ch 'i,
according to T'i en wen , "often called upon God , /And ob-
4
tained the Nine Variations and the Nine Songs." The Ni ne
Variations is clea rl y another name for the �dance , for Mo
Tzu says , "Ch'i gave himself up to plea sure and music ,
eat ing and drinking in the fiel ds . Ch 1 ia ng- ch1i ang , the
fl ut es and chime s sounded in uni son [for the Di rectio nal
Sacrif ice ]! He drowned hims elf in wine and behaved in de-
centl y by eat ing in the fiel ds . Splendid was the Wan dance ,
but Heaven cl early heard the sound amd Heaven di d not ap-
5
prove." The Hai wai hsi chin g of the Cl assic of mountains
and seas (Shan hai chin g ) informs us that on the plain of
Ta-yfi eh , Ch 'i, the king of Hsi a , danced the Nine Tai . He
rode on two dragons , on th ree la yers of cl oud . He held the
pheasant -plu me s on his left hand , and a jade ri ng on his
6
ri ght , and wore jade girdle pendant s . Thi s seems to ind i-
cate that the wan dance is also called the Ni ne Tai and Ch'i
----
too k an acti ve part in it , for he wa s probably the leader of
the dan ce .
The nautre of the wan dance has been a subject of
controversy . The most reliable descript io n of this dance is
poem 38 , "Chien hsi," in the Book of Songs :
63
Boom boom , boom boom !
The Dire ctio nal Sacrifice and the wan dance .
When the sun is just at zenit h ,
He is at the head of the front row.
Thi s tall man is so grand ,
In the duke 's court he dances the wan .
He has st rength like as a ti ger ,
He holds chariot rei ns as if the y were rib bons .
Now his left hand holds the flute ;
Hi s right hand , the pheasant -pl umes.
He is so ruddy, as th ough smeared with ochre .
The duke says , "Give hi m a goblet ."
"On the hill grows the hazel ;
On the swamp the li quorice .
Of whom do I th ink ?
Of a handsome man from the West .
Oh that handsome man
Is a man from the West ." 7
This short poem was colle cted from the st ate of Wei , where
the ruling cl ass was from Chou and the subj ects were the
defeated Shang people . Therefore the duke was one of the
descendants of Prince K'ang , Ki ng Wu's younger broth er . The
tall man , the leader of the dance , wa s probably a man of
Shang , for "The schol ars of Yin are fi ne and nimble , /They
make lib ations and sacri fi ces at the capital (Mao 23 5, 11 .
8
35-3
6
). 11
The last st anza is obviousl y an impro vised song
sung by the tall man to fl atter the duke . We can le arn
several feat ures of the wan dance from th is poem . Fir st ,
the most im porta nt musical instr ument is the dr um , but
during the dance , the dancers also play the flu tes . Second ,
the dance is used in the Directio nal Sacrifi ce , a sacrifi ce
6
4
of Shang origin .9 Third , the paraphern alia of th e dancers
are the flute and the pheasant -plu mes . Fourth , the dance is
performed by many dancers in rows . It is also worth noti ng
that the duke of Wei is a spectator , not a part ic ipant in
the dance .
From another source we le arn that ei ght dancers make up
a row and a grand wan dance needs ei ght rows , that is ,
""""10
si xty-f our dancers . According to the Spring and Autumn
Annal s, in the fifth year of Duke Yin (71 8 B.C. ) , the build-
ing of the te mple for Chung Tzu , Duke Yi n's consort , was
comple ted and for the first ti me si x rows of pl ume-dancers
were used in her honor. The Tso Commenta ry says that when
the wan dance wa s about to be performed , Duke Yin consulted
hi s mi nister Ch1ung Chung for the number of rows to be used .
Ch'ung Chung's reply wa s : "The Son of Heaven uses ei ght ,
1 1
barons use si x, mini sters use four and scholars two ." To
conform to the rit es , Duke Yin therefore used si x rows of
dancers to make sacri fi ce to Chung Tzu. Thi s may explain
why when Confucius heard that ei ght rows of dancers danced
in the court of the head of the Chi Family of Lu he wa s
furio us and said , "If this man can be endured , who cannot be
12
endured!"
But why is th is dance called the wan dance? We know
that the word wan denotes 't en thou sand . 1 But when used
loos el y , it means 'a great many . 1 We also know that in the
65
bronz e and oracle ins criptions wan is a pictog ram of a
scorpio n ( � ) . Quite a few in teresti ng theories have been
proposed to expl ain the wan dance . Ho Hs iu , a Han commenta-
tor of the second cent ury A.D. , for example , maintained that
the wan wa s the war-dance of ten thousa nd sol diers who
13
fought wi th King Wu in the conquest of Shang . Arthur
Waley , for anothe r example , suggests that the dance wa s a
'scorpion ' dance , for "t he pat ter n the dancers tr aced may
14
have resembled a convent ion al ized pi ct ure of a scorpi on."
The reason why the pict ogram of a scorpion is used for the
word wan is very convinc ingl y explained by Tung Ming , the
second son of the famous oracle inscri ptio n scholar Tu ng
Tso-ping . Tung Ming is a photo grapher by professio n . He
points out that the scorpio n is a very prolific in sect . A
femal e scorpio n will give birth to several scores or even
more th an a hundred baby scorpions at a ti me . As soon as
the bab y scorpions are born , they insti ncti vel y attach them-
sel ve s to the body of the ir mother . Most of the baby scor-
pions ride on the back of the mot her scorpion . They pack
toge t her as sesames and seem uncountab le . It was this scene
that made the ancie nt Ch ine se use the scorpion as an almo st
1 5
uncounta ble number wan , ten thousa nd . With Tung Ming 's
expla nation of the word "wan " and the descri ptio n of the
dance in "Chie n hsi " we may concl ude that the wan dance is
princ ipall y a pl ume dance performed by many dancers .
66
That the wan dance wa s a popular dance in Ch 'u can be
seen in the fo llowing st ory . In the twent y-e ight h year of
Duke Chuang of Lu (666 B.C . ), Pri me Mi nister Tzu Yllan of
Ch 'u int ended to bewitch the widowed queen of his older
brot her , King Wen (reigned 689-77 B. C. ). He bui lt a pavil-
ion along si de her pala ce and st ruck up a wan dance. Hearing
the noise the queen wept , saying , li My lat e lord used thi s
dance to keep his sold iers in tr ai ni ng for battle . Now our
Prime Min ist er , instea d of di recti ng it agai nst the enemy ,
16
aims it at the survi vor . Isn't it st range in deed!" In
order to bewi tch his widowed si ste r-i n-la w wit h the wan
dance, Tzu Yllan , like the tall man in ''Chien hsi, " must have
been the lea der of the dance .
The Great Uniq ue (T'ai- i) , the supreme god of the Ch 'u
people , enj oyed a tr emendous vogue in the second and fi rst
17
centu ries B. C. Emperor Wu (re ig ned 14 0-87 B. C. ) of the
Han dynast y worshiped the Great Unique at Kan-chuan (Sweet
Spri ng Palace ). li The worship begins at dusk and ends at
dawn . Shooti ng st ars often pass over the altar . Seventy
boys and girls are made to si ng toget her . In the spring
they si ng 1ching yang (vernal sun ) ; 1 in the summer they si ng
1chu meng (vermillio n brigh t) ;' in the autu mn they si ng 'hsi
hao (weste rn white ness) ; 1 and in the wint er they si ng 'hsfi an
18
ming (myster io us darkness).' " But in addition to si nging ,
they al so performed the wan dance . This can be deduced from
67
the following two verses in number 8, 11Heaven and Earth ,11 of
the Han Nine tee n Sacri fici al Songs : 11 A thous and boys dance
around in ei ght rows . /In hig h spirits and harmony they come
to entert ain the Great Unique ." Here the word ch ' ien (one
thou sand), li ke the word wan (t en thousa nd), is obvio usl y a
hyperbole . Actually the dance wa s performed by si xty-four
dancers . Since the Han Nine teen Sacrific ial Songs were com-
posed after the model of the Nine Songs , Han's worship of
the Great Unique wa s a revival of Ch'u' s belief , and the wan
dance wa s performed to entertai n the Great Unique in Han
tim es , we have every reason to believe that the dance scene s
descri bed in the prolog ue , 11The Great Unique , Monarch of the
East ," and 11the Lord of the East1 1 of the Nine Songs are also
a wan dance .
The dynastic lege nd of Shang is summed up succi nctly in
two verses in poem 304 , 11Ch1ang fa , 11 the Book of Songs : "Yu-
jung wa s making a Dire ctio nal Sacrifi ce , /God appointed his
child to bear Shang11 (l l. 7-8) . The meani ng of the se two
li ne s is very well expl ained by a passage from Lft- shih
ch ' un-ch 'i u:
The cl an of Yu-j ung had two beautif ul daught ers .
They built a mound of nine tiers and beat drums
before every meal . God sent a swallo w to see
them . The bird tw itte red gaily and the two
gi rls fel l in lo ve wit h it and scrambled to ca tch
it . They covered it with a jade basket . Af ter a
68
little while , they opened the basket to take a
loo k . The swallow left two eggs and flew nort h
wit ho ut returning . The two girls made so ngs, the
last li ne of one of them was "A way flew the swal
lo w. " Thi s was the begin ning of the so ng style of
the nort h.19
We are informed that one of the girls was called Chien- ti .
She swall owed at least one of the swallo w eggs and became
pregnant and gave birt h to Hsie h (� ), who was the first
male ancestor of the Shang people . Si nce Chi en-t i, the
ancestress of the Shang people , built a mou nd of nine tiers
and beat drums before every meal, she was do ubtless a female
shaman.
Ordin ary peo ple also shama ni zed in ancie nt China . For
a de scription of the shamani sm of the co mmon people , we can
turn to a short poem co mpo sed in the state of Ch1e n, which
20
was annexed by Ch'u in 479 B.C. This is poe m 136, "Wan
chi u, " of the Boo k of So ngs :
You are mi ghty powe rful
On the top of the Mou nd Bo wl.
You are indeed full of feeli ngs
More than we have bargained for .
K'an, yo u beat yo ur drum
Beneat h the Mound Bo wl.
Be it wint er , be it summer ,
You hol d uprig ht yo ur egret feathers !
K'an, you beat your earthern jar
Along the path to the Mound Bo wl.
Be it winter , be it summer ,
You hold upright you r egret plu mes !21
69
The Mound Bowl , according to Karlgr en , was the tradi tio nal
22
pleasu re-ground of the Ch'e n people . The name suggests
that it is a building in the shape of an amphithe ater . The
paraphernal ia are the drum , the eart hern jar, and the egret
pl umes, very si mil ar to tho se we have encountered in poem
38 , 11 Chien hsi .1 1 Traditi onally thi s poem is taken to be a
satire on an idle youth . But that of course is a narrow-
minded Confuciani stic vie w . It is , to my mi nd , in praise of
a compete nt and enth usi astic female shaman , who , obli vious
to the change s of the season , kept drumming and dancing to
sharnani ze .
A companio n poem to 11Wan chiu1 1 is poem 137, "T ung men
chi fen, " of the same ant holog y . Here our heroi ne is iden-
tified as 11 The daughter of Tzu Chung11 and 11Mi ss Ytlan from
the southern si de : 11
Elms of the East ern Gate ,
Oaks of the Mound Bowl--
The daughter of Tzu Chung
Trips and sways beneath them .
An auspic ious day is chosen .
Mi ss YUan from the souther n si de
Instea d of twi sti ng her hemp
In the market place trips and sways .
The auspic ious day being over,
Let 's go back toget her .
11You are lovel y as the mallow
And give me a bouquet of pepper plan ts . "23
70
Again thi s poem is taken as a cri ticism of a girl who neg-
lects her duty--to twi st her hemp. But the to ne of the
speaker of the poem seems to ind ic ate the co ntrary. My
impr essi on is that the speaker is enamored by her dance , her
beauty, and is very proud of the gift , a bou quet of pepper
plant s, that she gi ve s him .
Som e Chine se co mmentators feel uneasy about the word
shih (m arket place) in li ne ei ght, and maintain that it is a
loa n word for � ( 1rff ), meaning 'swift ' and used to des-
24
cribe her dance . But I can see no reaso n for the emenda-
tio n . The "Book of Cho u, " Chan-kuo Ts'e says , "T here were
seven market places in the pala ce of the Duke Huan of Ch1i,
with seven hundred female shama ns . Hi s people criticized
him . The prime mini ster Kuan Chung built three home s for
the female shamans to cover up Duke Huan's wrong polic y and
25
too k the blame upon hims elf." From Samguk yusa of Kor ea,
we learn that the Heavenly King Hwanung descended with three
thou sand fo llo wers to a spot under a sandalwo od tree atop
Mount T1 aebaek, and he called that place the market place of
26
god . Lee Nung-hwa suggests that in ancie nt ti me s peo ple
gat hered at the market place at regular inter vals to barter
and trade, and profe ssio nal shaman s went there ei ther to
offer their service or to demons trate their po wer to co nvert
people and therefore their altar was called the market place
27
of god . Thus there was not hing strange for the Chi nese
71
female shaman to dance in the market pla ce .
But dance is onl y one of the th ree possi ble means to
ind uce tranc e. Our next topic is the use of alco hol ic drink
to achieve ecst asy . The effective ness of alcoholic drink
naturall y has much to do with the ri tual convent ions at that
time . Both the Book of Rites and Chuang Tzu infor m us that
before the sacrifi ce , the impers onator and the invoker have
to practice austeri ties for seven days and fast for thr ee
28
days . As ascet icis m greatly enhances sensiti vit y , it is
not diffic ult at all for the im personator to gain ecst asy
with just a small am ount of alcoh olic drin k .
It is worth not ing that the alc ohol ic drinks used in
Ch'u were different from tho se used in the royal house of
Chou. In the prolog ue of the Nine Songs , "t he Great Unique ,
Monarch of the East ," cassi a wine and pepper drin k are used
to make libations to the supreme god . But in the case of
the Great Uniq ue , alcoh olic drin k is onl y one of the indu ce-
ments that fi nall y bring hi m down to possess the im persona-
tor . There are also food , music , and dance . From line 14 1 ,
Li sao , "Heari ng that Wu Hsien is about to descend in the
evening , /I prepare the st rained pepper wine to in vite
29
him , " we may infer that the st rai ned pepper wine is in-
st rumental in br ing ing down the great shaman Hsie n .
The Chou people were just ly famous for their soberness ,
for archaeologi sts inform us that after the fall of Shang ,
72
the making of bron ze wine vessels decli ned co nspi cuo usly.3 0
Despite this fact, there are a cons ider able number of offi-
cials in the ro yal ho use of Cho u who are in volved with the
maki ng of wine . Among them the mo st important person is the
director of wine (chiu cheng) . He is in charge of the
polic y of wine , supplies material for the making of wine
according to recip es , disti ngui she s fi ve gra des of wine by
the degrees of their purity, and classi fies three ki nds of
wine under the headings of the sacrifici al wine , the old
31
wine , and the clear wine .
Anot her offic ial who is related to the sacrific ial wine
is the steward of the Son of Heaven's priv ate do main (t1ien
shi h) . He is responsible for the supply of the worm wood
(A rtemi si a api acea) and the white rush (Imperata cylindr ica
32
var. majo r) at the sacrif ice . We do no t know the exact
functio ns of these herbs , but we can guess that prob ably the
worm wood is used as a spi ce to flavor the wine , and the
white rush is used to strain the wine .
The use of the white rush to st rain wine is reco rded in
the Tso Co mmentar y . In the fo urth year of Duke Hsi (656
B.C. ), when Duke Huan (r eigned 685-6 43 B.C. ) of Ch1i led the
jo int fo rces of several states to attack Ch'u, King Ch ' eng
(r eigned 671-627 B.C. ) of Ch'u sent a messenger to the
invad ing armi es to demand an expla natio n fro m Ch1i, saying ,
"M y lo rd is in the nort h sea . I am in the so uth sea . We
73
are just li ke the hor se and the cattle : even when in heat,
we have no thing to do wit h each ot her . Why do yo u unex
pectedly come to my lan d?" Kuan Chung, the prime mini ster
of Duke Huan of Ch'i , replied for the Duke , saying in part:
"Your tribut e of the white rush did not co me in . The Son of
Heaven had not hing wit h which to strain the wine in his
33
sacrif ice . I demand you to supply it ."
But the most well-know n and hi ghly-valued wine of the
Chou dynasty is called chft tsa ng ( f§ � ). Chft tsa ng
app ears frequentl y in bron ze inscri ptions and pre-Ch 'i n
texts . It inv ariably heads the list of gifts from the Chou
king . This speci al wine , accordi ng to Shuo -w en, "made from
black millet formented wit h the � herb , be ing frag rant and
34
soot hing , is used to bring do wn the spirits ." Yft tsa ng
therefore is a yft-f la vored black millet wine .
But what is �? In "Offici als of Spring , the Lord of
the Temple (Ch'un Kuan Tsung Po ) ," of the Rite s of Chou , we
fi nd among the many subor din ates of the Lord of the Temple a
yft speci alist . A part of the jo b descri ptio n of thi s yH
specia list is as follo ws : "The yft speci alist takes charge of
the vessels of liba tio n . When li bation is performed in
sacrifi ces or in entertai ning guests , the yd speciali st puts
yft and the tsang (black mill et ) wine in the rit ual vessels
and disp lays them •••• " One of the co mmentators poi nts out
the obvio us , that yft is a fragra nt herb . Another vaguely
74
says , "ytl and ts ang are the essence of a hundred plant s.
They are a trib ut e from the dis tant land by the ytl special-
ist . The fragrant herbs are put in the wine to bring down
35
the spiri ts ."
Obviousl y the commentar ies are not much hel p to ou r
understanding of �· I have consulted Tz 'u Ha i and Li Shih-
chen's Pen-ts 1ao kang-mu and found that the modern Chine se
name for � is � chin and thi s plant is identified as
36
Curcuma aromatica . The Encyclo pedia of Horti culture in-
forms us that Curcuma has more than fi fty species and it
belo ngs in the ginger famil y Zi ngiberac eae . Some species of
Curcuma are used as perfumes, and several are used in native
medici nes and religio us ceremonie s. It also poi nts out that
the most impor tant speci es , tum eric , is an ingredi ent of
curr y powder and is employed to col or rice and ot her
37
foods . Li Shih-chen says that when � is put into the
wine , the wine will turn yello w as gol d , therefore chft tsa ng
is referred to as 'huang liu ' (yello w flood or liquid
38
gol d) . This is a reference to poem 239 , "Han lu," of the
Book of Songs , in which we fi nd : "Fair is that jade-handled
39
spoon /And the yello w flood wit hin ."
To demonstrate the use of the yfi-f lavored black millet
wine and its religio us imp licatio ns , I have chosen two
in teres ting and rel iable liter ary sources as exampl es . My
fi rst example is four verses from poem 262 , "Chiang han," of
75
the Book of Songs :
I bestow on you a jade-handled ladle ,
And a yu vessel of yfi-flav ored black millet wine .
Report it to your model ancest ors
That I give you hil ls , lands and fiel ds .4 0
(1 1. 33- 36 )
The speaker of the se line s is King Hsfian (reig ned 827-782
B. C. ) of Chou. He wa s the only late Weste rn Chou king who
wa s able to rest ore the power of the royal house to some
extent . The person whom he addresses is Hu of Shao , a
general just re tu rned from a successful campaig n agai nst the
Huai barbaria ns . In additio n to rewarding him with hil ls ,
land s and fiel ds , the king also gi ve s him a jade-handled
lad le , which is used in making li bations , and a yu vessel of
the yfi-fla vored black mil let wine , whic h of course is the
means to bri ng down the spi rits of Hu's ancest ors so tha t he
can report his glory to them . The yu vessel is a bronze
wine contain er .
My second exampl e is an excerpt from "t he Announcement
Concerni ng Lo " in the Book of Documents . It is written in
the form of a dialog ue bet ween Duke Chou and King Ch 1 eng
(reig ned 11 04-1 068 B.C. ) concerning the buildi ng of Lo , the
new easter n capital :
76
The duke said , "t he king ha s sent messengers to
admonish the pe ople of Yin and at the same time to
inqui re after me , along wit h two yu vessels of
yfi-flaovored black millet wine , saying , 'This is
for pure sacri fice , which wit h my hands to my head
and my head to the ground I beg you to make use in
the sacrif ice . 1 I dared not delay for a si ngle
night but offered it to King Wen and King Wu ••• "
On the day wu-ch1en the king , being in the
new ci ty , performed the annual wint er sacri fice ,
offering King Wen one red bull and Ki ng Wu one red
bull . The king ordered the Recorder Yi to read
the in vocation to the august ancestors , in whi ch
it wa s announced that Duke Chou was to remain in
the new capital . The king was ready to call upon
his ancesto rs , killed the red bul ls , burnt them on
a woodpi le . Bot h spirits descended . The king en
tered the grand room and poured out the liba
tions .4 1
Two sacri fices to King Wen and Ki ng Wu ( reigned 1111 - 05
B.C. ) are performed in the above quotatio n . The fi rst one
is done by Duke Chou . No details about it are given except
that the yfi-fla vored black millet wine being used . The
second sacrifi ce is performed by King Ch 1eng . Unlike the
first one , thi s provi des us wit h much information and a few
qui te graphic det ails . We are to ld the time and pla ce and
the persons in vol ved in the sacrifice . We are informed of
the number and the color of the victi ms . And we also le arn
who wa s the invoker and the gist of the in vocat ion . But the
most impor tant part of thi s passage are the graphi c det ai ls ,
which are given in the origi nal Chine se in a most laconi c
st yle .
This st yle , to my mi nd , deserves a little dig ression .
77
The fol lo wing is a tra nsliter atio n of the ori gi nal text wit h
a rough Englis h equivel ant word for each Chi nese character
in parenthe ses . "Wang (King ) pin (call upon) , sha (kil l) ,
� (burn) . Hsien ko (All descend) ." Here is my tra nsl a
tion again : "The king was ready to call upon his ancesto rs ,
killed the red bul ls , burnt them on a woodpi le . Both spir
its descended." Compared with the orig inal , my trans latio n ,
whic h I have endeavored to make as terse as possi ble , seems
wordy. To return to the graphic det ails under our disc us
sion , we fi nd that the impor ta nt part of the whole ceremony
is vivi dl y described by the se si x Chine se characte rs . The
king wa s the master of the sacrif ice . When he wa s ready to
communicate wit h his grand-father and father , King Wen and
King Wu , he took the ceremonial knife (l uan tao ) and killed
the Red Males . The carcasses of the bull s were then put
above the woodpile and roasted . When the smel l of the roast
beef rose , the spi rits of the ki ng's ancestors would de scend
to enj oy it , for we are to ld that the spiri ts , li ke human
bei ngs , were ver y fond of food and drink .
The key word in the above passage is pin , which , so
far as I know , has never been correctly read until very
recently by K. C. Chang . As this is a very im porta nt dis
cover y , Chang's explana tion for his reading is well worth
quot ing :
78
Was Shang divination an act of Shang shamansim?
The inscri ptions make it clear that in quir ies were
dire cted to lo ng-departed ancesto rs , and that the
diviner served as an intermedia ry. The in scrip
tions often co ntain the word pin , whic h in later
classic al texts usuall y means to receive as a
guest or to be a guest . In the oracle bone in
scri ptions , the word is often placed between the
word for king and the name of a specific ancestor
or of Ti , the Supreme God . A phrase cons isti ng of
these elements is so meti me s interpr eted as "the
king recei ves as a guest a specific ancestor ," or
"the ki ng recei ves as a guest the Supreme Go d. "
But more likel y it means that the king "call ed
upon 11 a departed ance stor or God . Shan Hai Chin g
states that 11 Ch1i went up to pin heaven three
tim es," making it clear that pin refers to the
human chi ef goi ng to the deit y rather than the
ot her way rou nd.114 2
But to understand this passage fully, we have to make
more effort . We have to vi sualize that there were two long-
bearded handso me men who im personated King Wen and King Wu .
They were so lemnly seated . When the smell of the burnt
victims reached their nostrils , they mig ht , li ke God on hig h
in one of the od es , ask: "W hat smell is this , so stro ng and
43
goo d? " Then they were plied with the roast beef and the
yft-f lavo red black millet wine . Many (nine accor ding to "Chi
t'u ng, " Li Chi ) ro unds of toasts were made to the im perso na-
tors . In the meanw hile the in vok er , in this partic ular case
the Recor der Yi , would keep a close watch on their co ndi-
tio n . When they were drunk, the invoker would annou nce that
the spirits had descended and begin to read the invo cation
to them . To which the spirits would respond thr ough the
79
mouth pi eces of the impe rsonators possib ly in a crypt ic lan-
guage , whic h only the invo ker could decipher . Then the
in voker would convey the mes sage to the master of the sacri-
fice . The common formula for the mes sage would be somet hing
like th is : "Fragrant were your pio us offeri ngs , /The Spiri ts
enj oyed their drink and food . /They assig n to you a hundred
44
ble ssi ngs." Finall y the im personators would be sent off
to the accompaniment of the music of bells and drum s and the
ceremony would be over.
In our disc ussi on on the use of alco holic drink as a
means of ecst asy we are on solid ground , for we have ample
literary sources to document it . But unfortu natel y when we
deal with our la st top ic , the use of Cannabis or hemp as a
hall ucinogen to in duce tra nce , we can only make in ferences .
The first ti me I suspected that the anci ent Chine se shaman
might have used hemp to ind uce tra nce wa s when I read "t he
Senior Lord of Live s" of the Nine Songs . In this song the
shamaness pl ucks '' the gem-like flo wer of the sparse-hemp " as
a present and give s it to the departing god . The sparse-
hemp ( su ma ) is expla ined by Wang I as 'spirit- hemp ' ( shen
45
rna ) . But what does Wang I mean by spirit -hemp?
Li Hui -lin , a botani st , poi nts out that hemp wa s so
widel y cultivated in ancient Chi na that the phrase 'l and of
mulbe rry and hemp ' became a synonym for 'cul ti vated fi elds .'
As a fiber plant , the hemp was used to make rope , hemp-
80
clot h , fi shnet , and later in Han tim es , paper. Hemp seeds
were edible and were a maj or grain . But the coverings of
the seeds , produced by the female hemp flo wers , are called
rna-fen , and the mal e hemp flower s, whic h are called ma-p'o,
are tox ic . Their medic inal and physio logic al effects are
recorded in the earli est pharmacopoeia in exi st ence , the
Pen-ts 'a o Ching . Thi s work wa s attr ibuted to the leg endary
Emperor Shen-nung of about 2,000 B.C. , but was act uall y
compiled in the fi rst or second century A.D. Li believe s
that the Pen-ts 1ao Chin g was based on earl y tra ditions
passed down from ancie nt , even prehi st oric ti mes . It says ,
"i f rna-fen or ma-p'o were taken in ex cess, it would make
the user see hall ucinat ions [l iter ally 'see ghosts '] and
run wi ldly . If taken over a long period , it make s the
46
user communicate with the spirits and li ghtens his body."
Li also quotes from Ming-i pieh-l u , a work by the
famous physic ian T1ao Hung-chi ng of the fi fth cent ury A.D. ,
in whic h T'ao says , "Ma-fen is not much used in prescri p-
tions nowadays . Shamans use it in combin ation wit h gi nseng
47
to set forward time in order to reveal futu re events ."
Li concl udes that the medici nal use of the hemp plant
wa s widel y known to the Neolit hi c people s of nort heaste rn
Asia and Cannabis played an important role in the shamanic
ri tua ls , and the use of thi s hall ucinogeni c drug in Chi na
48
slo wly decli ned with the establ ish ment of Confucia nism .
81
As the Pen-ts 'ao Ching was co mpiled in the fi rst or
seco nd century A.D. , we may assume that the infor matio n on
the medi ci nal and physiolog ic al effects of the hemp flo wers
were readil y available to Wang I and his co ntempora ri es . So
when Wang I used 'spirit- hemp ' to explain 'sparse- hemp, 1 he
was very li kely referring to the hemp whic h would enable one
to see or to co mmmuni cate with the spirits .
To sum up, the ancient Chine se shaman relied primar il y
on the dance to the drum to achieve ecstasy and the mo st
pop ular dance of that time was the wan dance . Alcoh olic
drin k was used both in the sacrifi ce to natu re gods and in
the ancestor wor ship . While the Ch'u people used cassi a
wine and pepper drin k in their sacrifice to the natur e gods
as tho se appear in the Nine So ngs , the Cho u peo ple used the
Yfi -flavored black millet wine to bring do wn the spir its of
their ancesto rs . As to the use of hemp or marij uana as an
int oxica nt, we do not have direct evidenc e and therefore it
can on ly be inferr ed . The use of hemp co uld be esoteric and
resulted in our lack of liter ary reco rds .
82
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
NOTES
Chft Tuei-c hih , "Shih wu," in Chung-kou shang-ku shih
lun-wen hsfta n-chi , pp. 993-7 ; Chow Tse- tsung, "The
Child birt h Myth and Ancie nt Chi nese Medici ne : A Study
of Aspects of the Wu Traditio n," in Ancie nt China :
Studies in Earl y Civili zatio n , p. 66 . Cho w's transla
tio n of the Shuo- wen passage is as fo llows : 11Wu is a
chu (i nvoker or priest ), a woman who is able to render
[
herself] in vis ible , and wit h dance to invoke gods to
co me do wn. The character symboli zes the ap pearance of
a perso n dancing wit h two sleeves . It also means kung
(a craftsman). In antiquity Wu Hsien created the pro
fession of the wu."
Ch1ft Wan- li , Shang shu chi shi h , p. 205 ; Clae Waltham,
Shu Ching , p. 18 4.
Jao Tsung- yi , Ch'u tseng- shu shu cheng (C ommentary on
the Ch'u Si lk Manuscript
)
, pp. 4-5 . The text of A-1 0
reads , "Tsan hua fa tiao , wei yft wei wan, " can be
rendered into Englis h as "To dige st the jumping pat
tern , to do Yff 's step and to do the � dance." Jao
thought � was the name of a perso n and tried to emend
it with Min g , who was drow ned when he tried to bring
the floods under co ntrol .
This is my translat io n. Cf . Hawkes's trans latio n : 11 Ch1i
was often the guest of God and obtai ned the Nine Pien
and the Nine Songs ." See Hawk es, p. 50 .
Watso n , The Basic Writ ings of Mo Tzu, p. 11 6.
Yftan Ko , Shan hai chin g chiao chu , pp. 209-11.
This is my tra nslatio n based on the text of Chft Wan-li ,
Shih Chin g chuan shih , pp. 69-70 . But the int erpreta
tion of the first two verses and the last stanza is
entir ely mine . The phrase fang tsia ng ( 1J � ) , whic h
I translate as 'Directio nal Sacrifi ce ' app ears in the
Boo k of so ngs three tim es . In poem 38 , "Chien hsi ,"
we have "fang chiang wan wu (T he Dire ctio nal Sacrifice
and the wan dance)." In poem 205 , "Pei shan, " 1. 16,
we have "Hsien wo fang tsiang, " whic h means "they
appreciate my abilit y in doi ng the Di rectioa nal sacri
fice ." And in poe m 30 4, "Ch'ang fa," 1. 7, we have "Yu
jung fang tsiang," whic h means 11 Yu- jung was making the
83
Di rectio nal Sacrifice ." Waley 's tra nsl atio n of the se
thr ee verses is as fol lows : "He is just goi ng to do
the Wan dance (p. 221 ); " "[ Everyone ] Is surprise d I am
sti ll so st rong (p. 320 ) ; and "The cl an of Sung wa s
favoured (p. 277 ) ."
8 Ch 'i l, p. 45 1 .
9 Ch1en Meng-chia , P' u-tz 'u ts ung shu , p. 576 .
10 Waley , The Book of Songs , pp. 338-40 .
11 Shih san chin g chu shu , pp. 17 27-28 .
12 Waley , The Anal ects of Confuci us , p. 94 .
13 Waley , The Book of Songs , p. 340 .
14 Ibid .
15 Tung Ming , Wan hsia ng : Chi a-ku wen shi h hua chi , p. 25 .
16 Shih san chin g chu shu, p. 17 81 .
17 Han Shu , 25 A.
18 Chang Shou-ping , Han tai yil eh-fu � yil eh-fu ko tz 'u,
p. 89 .
19 Fu Ssu-ni en , "Yi Hsi a tung hsi shuo," Fu Ssu-ni en
ch 'i lan chi , vol . III , pp. 87-88 .
20 Tso Chuan , Duke Ti ng , 16 th yea r .
21 This is my tra nsl ation . For it 's ori ginal text , see
Ch '
i
l, p. 232. The commentators are prejudiced against
shamanism and explain the word ta ng in li ne one as
'reckle ss.' For example , Karlgren 's tra nsl ation of
the fi rst two line s is "How reckle ss you are , /On the
top of the Yiln-k 'i u" (The Book of Odes , p. 87). But
when the same word appears in poem 255 , "Tang," li ne
one , it is explained as 'mig hty . 1 Waley 's trans lat io n
of the fir st two line s of poem 255 is "Mig hty is God
on high , /Ruler of His people belo w. " (The Book of
Songs , p.2 52 ) I belie ve my inte rpret atio n of the fir st
st anza is correct .
22 Karlgren , The Book of Odes , p. 87 .
84
23 This poem is also my tra nslati on . For it 's Chine se
text , see Ch 'H, pp. 233- 34 . Karlgren points out that
the pepper plants are used for magical purp oses , in
ind ucing the spir its to descend . See Karlgren, pp. 87-
88.
24 Ch'H, pp. 87-88 ; Mi Wen-kai and Pei Pu-hs ien , Shih
chin g hsi n shang �y en chiu , vol . I, pp. 68-70 .
25 LH Ssu- mien , Hsie n Ch'i n shi h (A Hist or y of Pre-Ch 'in
Chin a) , p. 275 .
26 Il Yon , Samguk yusa (i n Chin ese ) , vol . I, p. 2.
27 Lee Nung-h wa, Chao- hsie n wu shu k'a o (S tudies Qa An
cie nt Korea n Shama nsi m , p. 85 .
28 See James Legge, trans . Li Chi (t he Boo k of Rite s),
vol . II , p. 292 and Burton Watso n , The Complete Works
of Chuang Tzu, p. 202. In Chuang Tzu, the practice o£
austeritie s is for 'ten ' days, not seven days .
29 Haw ke s ' translation of thi s li ne , "I heard that Wu
Hsie n was descending in the evening , /So I lay in wait
with offeri ngs of peppered ric e- balls" is based on the
traditi onal com mentary. The word hsH (� ) is a
variant of �
•
It means 'strained wine or 'clear
win e. ' Cf . The Book of Odes , poem 165, 11. 35 -36 ,
"W hen we have leisu re , /We drink thi s strained wine
(K arlgre n , p. 109) .1 1
30 Hsu Cho -yun , Hsi Chou shih (A Hi stor y of the Western
Cho u) ,
PP
• 244-48 .
31 Shih san ching chu shu , pp. 668-70 .
32 Ibi d. , pp. 662-6 3 .
33 Ibi d. , p. 1792 .
34 Ibi d. , pp. 770-72 ; Hsu Cho -yun , Hsi Chou shih , p. 244 ;
and Ch'H Wan-li , Shang shu chi shih , p. 188.
35 Ibi d. , p. 772 .
36 Tz'u Hai , p. 446 ; Li Shih- chen , Tu chHeh pen- ts'ao
kan g-mu , p. 512.
37 See Curcuma in Encyclope dia of Horticultu re .
85
38 Li Shih-chen , p. 51 2.
39
Waley , The Book of songs , p. 21 3.
40 These li ne s are my own tra nslation . Wa ley 's version
of the same lin es , "I be stow upon you a jade sceptre
and a jade gobl et , /And a bowl of black mead . /Announce
it to the Mi ghty One s /That I give you hil ls , la nds
and fi elds ," is quest io nable and unusable . See Wale y ,
p. 132.
41 For the Chine se te xt of this passage , see Ch'fi Wan-l i,
Shang shu chi shih , pp. 18 7-89 . My tra nsl ation is
based on Cl ae Wal tham , Shu Chin g , pp. 17 3-74 with
emendations .
42
K. C. Chang , Art , Myth , and Ri tual , p. 54 .
43 Waley , The Book of Songs , p. 243 .
44 Ibi d. , p. 21 0.
45 See Ch'u Tz 'u chang chfi in Ch 'u Tz 'u chu � chung ,
p. 41 •
46 Li Hui-lin , "The Ori gin and Use of Cannabis in East ern
Asi a : Ling uistic -Cultural Implicat ions ," Economi c
Botan y, 28 (19 74) , pp. 293-295.
47 Ibi d. , p. 296 .
48 Ibi d. , pp. 296-301 .
86
CHAPTER V
THE CHARIOT AS A RITUAL VESSEL
The purpose of this chapter is two fol d . Fir st , to
establi sh , using reli able lite rary sources, that there is a
speci al kin d of chariot used as a rit ual vessel in ancie nt
Chin a . Second , to expl ain why when dragons are ment io ned
toget her wit h the chariot in the Songs of the South , dragons
are a fig ure of speech for horses. My disc ussi on is prima-
ri ly based on the te xt itsel f , but I wil l also use the
finding s of the archaeologi sts to support my argument .
The tw o-wheele d , horse-drawn Chine se chariot mus t have
been a symbol of wealth and power in ancient China , for the
making of a chariot would have taken hundreds of te chni-
ci ans . In the excavations of An-yang , it wa s di scovered
that exquis itel y made chariots were buried wit h the dead
Shang kings . Some of them were pulled by two horses , some
by four . They were obviousl y lu xury grave goods for the
dead kings to enj oy . It has been reported that remain s of
seven chariots from various sites are avai lable for detail ed
st udy and reconstru ctio n . Thanks to the tirele ss effort s of
Chi nese archaeolog ists , accurate and det ailed inform atio n on
1
the Shang chariot is available to us .
The Shang chariot consist ed of five maj or parts :
87
wheels , axle , body mounted on the axle , shaft , and yoke
( fig ure 1 ) . In the words of Kwang-chih Chang , a lea ding
Chi nese archaeol ogist , "both chariot and horses were rich ly
decorated with bronze and tu rquoise ornament s, and the char-
2
iot body wa s perhaps pai nted with anim al desig ns." What I
should add here is that most of the ornaments were in the
shape of dragons .
The most co mmon ri tual vessels were the ti ng ( tripot ) ,
the ts un (wine container ) , and the ts u ( meat st and ) . But
the chariot wa s also one of the rit ua l vessels that the
ancie nt Chine se people used to make sacrifice to Heaven or
to the ir ancest ors . In the "Rit ual Vessels" chapter of the
Bo ok of Rites , in a disc us sion of the value of si mplicit y ,
th ere is a brief and rather obscure st ate ment : "t he grand
chariot has one round of breast- buffer ( ta lu fan yin i
3
chiu ) ." From the commenta ry on this passage we lea rn that
the grand chariot is the chariot that the Shang people used
to make sacrifice to Heaven , and the whole sente nce means
that the gra nd chariot is drawn by horses wearing onl y one
round of breast -buff er . So far as I know , there are no
descriptions of how the Shang people used the chariot to
make sacri fice on the Shang oracle bones . We may infer
th is , however , from a poem from the duchy of Sung , the st ate
where the descendants of the conquered Shang people conti-
nued to make sacrifice to their ancesto rs . Poem 302 , "Lie h
88
ts u, " of the Book of Song s is a hymn to T'ang , the founder
of the Shang dynast y. Someone must be im personating him so
that he can drin k the clear wine in the fir st st anza , sup
the soup in the second st anza , and ta ke a joy ride in the
grand chariot in the third . Notice that the chariot is
expressed by a formulaic synecdoche :
Oh , oh , the glorious ancestor !
Great are his ble ssi ngs .
His repeated gifts are count less .
They reach al l of you .
We have brought him the clear wine ;
He will gi ve us perfect happine ss.
Here is also a well seasoned soup ,
With the rig ht ingred ients and the ri ght flavor .
He ha s descended in si lence
And st opped all contentio ns .
He secures us a ripe old age
Long after our hair has grown yello w .
Wit h our bronze axle caps , our bronze-clad yoke s,
Wit h ei ght bells ji ngling ,
We come to entertain him .
We are appoi nted to perform thi s great sacrifi ce .
From Heaven prosper ity ha s descended ,
Good years that are abundant .
He ha s come and he ha s accepted ,
He sends down endless bl essi ngs .
He loo ks favorably on the winter and aut umn
sacri fices
That T' ang's descendant brings .4
The above poem is my tra nsl at ion . It dif fers from Waley 's
versio n in at least th ree impo rt ant pla ces . Fir st , while I
take thi s poem to be a hymn to T'ang alone , Waley thought it
89
wa s to the ancest ors of Shang coll ect i vel y . As the obj ect
of worship invo lve s the whole poem , th is diffe rence is a
considerable one . Second , my translation of 11 . 9-1 0 is "He
ha s descended in si lence/ And sto pped all conte ntions ." The
fir st two words of line 9, "t sou chia ,11 is a pitfall . It is
an idiom atic expres si on whic h can mean eit her "t he descent
of the spirit ," or "praying for the descent of the spirit ,"
depending upon the context . Waley 's rendition , 11Because we
come in si lence ,/ Setti ng all quarrels aside ,11 seems to
in di cate that he tum bled in the pi tfall , for the descent of
the spirit become s the coming of the worshipp ers . Third ,
Waley 's tra nsl ation of 11 . 13 -14, the formulaic synecdoche
for the chariot , "With our le ather -bound naves , our bronze-
5
clad yokes,/ With ei ght bells a-j angle ," is based on the
tra diti onal commenta ry . The remains of the chariots dis cov-
ered by archaeologi sts prove that the traditio nal commentar y
wa s wrong, for the wheels of the chariot are kept in th ei r
proper pl aces not by le athe r, but by bronze caps with linch-
6
pins .
By the ti me of Chou , the ri tual chariot is ca lled the
jade chariot (� lu ) . A very in formative descript ion of the
jade chariot can be found in the Rite s of Chou under the
entr y of "t he direc tor of covered chari ots , offic ial s of
spring (chin ch'e, ch'un kuan) 11: 11The direc tor of covered
chariots is in charge of the polic y of the royal chariot s.
90
He dis ti ngui shes their use and their flags , and arranges
them in ranks to co ntrol their entra nces and exi ts . The
king has fi ve kinds of chariots . The first is called the
jade chariot , with bronz e frontle ts , twelve ro unds of
breast- buffers , bearin g the great flag wit h the sun and moo n
7
desig n , and twelve streamers , for sacrifice ." According to
the same so urce , the seco nd is called bro nze chariot (chin
lu) , which the king uses to entertain hi s guests . The third
is called ivor y chariot (hsia ng lu) , whic h the ki ng uses to
give audienc e. The fo urth is called the leather chariot (k e
lu) , whic h is a war chariot . The last one is called wo oden
chariot (m u lu) , whic h the king uses to hunt. We also learn
that di fferent chariots bea r differe nt flags and are drawn
by hor ses with diffe rent deco ratio ns . It sho uld be pointed
out here that the bro nze fron tlets and the breast- buffers
are decorations and equipment for the ho rses that draw the
chariot .
How the Chou people used the jade chariot to make
sacrif ice to their ancestors can be il lustrated by poem 283 ,
"Tsai chien ," of the Boo k of So ngs . The deceased and dei -
fied king in the poem refers to King Wu, the co nqueror of
Shang and fo under of Cho u :
They have co me to see the deified king
To learn what is the establis hed rit ual.
The dragon banners are flutteri ng,
The chariot bells and the banner bells chime .
91
The bronze horse ornaments ti nkle
And sparkle with a glori ous shine .
They are led to see their chao ancest or
To pay their homage and filial pie ty to him .
He increa ses the ir long li fe ,
Whic h is theirs to keep forever .
Fine are the many favors
Be sto wed by the glorious deified ancestor .
May he grant us many bl essi ng s
Cont inuousl y in our great abundance.8
For a more det ailed descriptio n of the Chine se chariot ,
we have to wait unt il the middle of the third century B.C. ,
when Hsfin Tzu (312-221 B.C. ?) , the greatest Confucia n after
Mencius , wrote the book that bears his name . The grand
chariot depi ct ed by Hsfi n Tzu runs as fol lows :
Thus the Son of Heaven has his grand chariot
spread with soft mat s to sati sfy his body . By his
si de are placed fragrant herbs to satisf y his
nose , and before him the carved bronze decorations
on the shaft to sati sfy his eye . The sound of the
phoenix bells and the Wu and Hsiang music when he
is proceeding sl owly , the Shao and Hu music when
he is proceedi ng rapidl y , give sati sfaction to his
ear . Nine dragon banners fly to sati sfy his de
si re for a symbol of tru st . Painting of a recum
bent rhino ceros and a rearing tig er , horse girths
of wate r-dragon patter n , fine woven spreads , and
dragonhead ornaments sati sfy his desi re for awe
some spect acle . And the horses which draw his
grand chariot must be of the utmo st reli abilit y
and hi ghly trained before he will consent to ri de .
In thi s way he satisfies his desi re for safety .9
The above passage is invalu able because it ca n be cons i dered
an aut hent ic witne ss account of the ancient Chine se chari ot .
92
By perusing thi s passage , we can understand why the horses
are fig urativel y called dragons . It can al so il lu mina te
some of the obscure line s in the Ni ne Songs . To cite just
one example : By knowing that there can be a painting on the
si des of the box , in thi s parti cular case , of a rearing
tig er about to attack a recumbent rhin oceros , we realize
that line 12 of "t he River God, " 11 Shen .2.2. yfian hsi ts ung
wen yQ_, " has been mis inte rpreted . It should neit her be
tra nsl ated as "Riding a whi te tu rtle , follo wed by st rip y
fis h '' as Waley ha s done , nor as "Riding a white tur tle , he
chases the spotted fis hes" as Hawkes has rendered it . It is
a painting on the body of the wat er chari ot . And the pain t
ing is the scene of a white tu rtle chasing a spotted fish .
I know thi s might make the poem sound less exotic and read
ers who are fond of the fant astic mig ht be unwill ing to
forgo the tra diti onal reading . But I beli eve mine is a
correct reading and it has the merit of making the poem more
logical and coherent . For one thing , it spares the Riv er
God the tr ouble of changing his tra nsportat io n and abandon
ing the water chari ot , which has enough magic power to scale
Mount K' un-lun as well as to roam the Ni ne Rive rs . For
another , it conforms with the ot her pie ces of thi s set of
songs in which the gods desce nd and ascend in the same
chari ot .
Why are the horses that draw the chariot in the Songs
93
of the South often referred to as drago ns? Jessi ca Rawso n's
account of the Cho u chariot provi des us a very good answer :
The wooden chariot , which in shape the Chou took
over from the Shang, would have gliste ned wit h
bronz e. Strai ght bands deco rated the si de s of the
box , and bro nze parts were used as co mpon ents of
the axle and the harness . In the earl y Western
Cho u , the most impor tant and decorative section of
the axle was a ro und shaft-holder attached near
the bo x of the chariot wit h its flat flange lying
along the axle to wards the wheels (f i gure 3) . On
the ot her si de of the wheel was the axle cap, kept
in pla ce by a li nchpin . Such axle caps became
shorter during the centuries of the Western Chou .
At the same ti me , the shaft fitti ng was replaced
by a so mewhat larger and co mpletely cir cular set
of bron ze fitti ngs .
The system of yoki ng the ho rses to a cross -s haft
had alway s been im porta nt, and a bronz e fit ti ng in
the shape of an in verted V was used for thi s
purpo se , rei nfo rced at the top by a bo ss or tube .
At a later date , the ot her two ends of thi s V
shaped yoke were decor ated with two finia ls. A
ji ngle was attached to thi s yoke and shaft co m
plex . The actual harness of the ho rses was ri chly
or namented wit h a fro ntlet at the centre of the
face (fig ure 2) , and bronze or naments for ming a
mask on the eye s and nose . A further mask was
often mou nted above the ears. The thong s of the
harness were decorated wit h beads , co wri es , or
bro nze plaques, and passed through decorated
cro ss-t ubes. A bit wit h rectangular cheek- pie ces
was used from the late Shang perio d . By the end
of the Western Chou this plain fo rm had been
elabor ated, and a great variet y of desi gns , parti
cularl y of co iled dragons , was in use (fi gure 4) .
These co pio us and often hampering bronz e or naments
underline the ceremo nial nat ure of the chariot ,
which must have been an aweso me si ght.10
By examining fig ure 3 we understand the meaning of the
wor d, ' dragon-sh afted (1.5) , 1 in "the Lord of the East,'' for
94
the wooden shaft is deco rated with a bro nze fit ti ng on whic h
coi led dragons can be seen . Simi larl y by lo oking at fi gures
2 and 4 , we understand why the ho rses are called drago ns ,
for the fro ntlet and the mask they wear are dragons . To use
an or nament of a ho rse to stand for the ho rse is the use of
synecdoc he , a fi gure of sp eech co mmo nly employed in classi-
cal Chine se poe try. Unfort unately thi s particular fi gura-
ti ve use of dragon has gone unnoticed and has been taken
lite rally for the past two thousa nd years.
An example of this misr eading can be fo und in "the Lord
of the Hsia ng," the Nine So ngs . Witne ss Waley's transla-
tio n :
Driving her winged dragons she has go ne to
the North ;
I turn my boat and make for Tung-t 1ing.
. . . . . .
In the mo rning I gallop my hors es through the
lo wlands by the river ;
In the evening I stay my co urse at that
northern shore .11
(11. 9-1 0, 29- 30 )
Here is another versio n of the same li nes by Haw kes :
Nort h I go , dra wn by flying drago ns ,
Bending my co urse to the Tung-t 1ing lake.
. . . . . .
In the mor ning I gallop beside the ri ver ,
And stop at dusk in the northern is land.12
13
Waley's version is prob ably based on Chu Hsi 's com mentary.
95
It is a co nfused jumble . Haw kes give s us a better ren
deri ng. But it is still incon sis tent . We wonder why Lord
Hsia ng's chariot , which is drawn by flying dragons in 11 . 9-
10, becomes one dra wn by ho rses in 11 . 29- 30 . By reading
the synecdo che corre ctly, we can remove the inco nsiste ncy
and get a straig ht-for ward versio n as fol lows :
I drive north on my flying -dragon chariot
By way of the Tung-t1ing Lake;
At dawn I galloped besi de the Great Ri ver;
At dusk I rei ned my ho rses on the northern is le .
Ch1U YUan is a goo d reader and a goo d imitator of the
Nine Son gs . He understand s full y that the flyi ng dragons
are a synecdo che . When he describe s the vehicle of his two
heavenly jo urneys in quest of a beauty in his long poem , "Li
sao," he uses "The Lord of Hs ia ng" as his model . He begins
by saying that his chariot is drawn by dragons . But as if
to forest all his being misu nderstood , he would remin d his
reader just a few li nes later that they are ho rses . Here is
the vehi cle of his first jo urney:
I yoked a team of jade dragons to a pho eni x
fi gured car
And waited for the wind to co me , to so ar up on
my jo urney.
I watered my ho rses at the Pool of Heaven ,
And tied the rei ns up to the Fu- sang tree.14
(1 1. 93 ' 98)
96
Co uld jade dragons draw the chariot? Po ssi bly yes , for
not hing is impo ssible in a shama ni stic jo urney . But more
pro bably they were the decorations of the hor ses . In his
secon d jo urney Ch'ft Yftan has a di fferent chariot :
Harness winged dragons to be my co ursers ;
Let my chariot be of fine work of jade and ivory !
. . . . . .
My eig ht dragons flew on wit h writ hing
undulat io ns ;
My clo ud-embr oi dered banners flapp ed on the wind .
. . . . . .
The groom 's heart was heavy and the hor ses for
longing
Arched their heads back and refused to go on . 15
(11. 170, 18 1 , 185)
By the ti me when we come to line 185, we should reali ze that
the winged dragons and the eig ht dragons in li nes 17 0 and
18 1 are fig urative speeches. Thi s is presumably diffi cult
for an inex perienced reader to dis cov er , for the winged
dragon s and the hor ses are separ ated by fo urteen lin es . His
im pressi on co uld be that the chariot was at first drawn by
drago ns , but in one way or an ot her , they were tra nsformed
into ho rses by the end of the poe m . But there is no excus e
for such a misr eading in "Yftan yu (t he Far-off Journe y) ,"
where the ho rses follow the drago ns im mediatel y :
I harness eig ht dragons , coil ing and curveti ng,
And bore a cloud banner that flapp ed in the wind .
97
I set up a brig ht standard made of the rainbow ,
The fi ve co lo urs dazzli ng the eye wit h their
co ntrast.
Splen di dly the yoke- hor ses bo wed and tos sed their
heads;
Proudly the trace- hor ses arched and curved
themselves.16
(11. 52-54)
To concl ude , I believe I have ci ted sufficie nt examples
to demonstrate that when dragons are menti oned toget her wi th
the chari ot , they are a synecdoc he for ho rses . If I have
succeeded , my readers will certainl y understand the follo w-
ing passage from "Monthl y Instructio ns," the Boo k of Rite s
( "Ytleh ling ," Li Chi ) with perfect ease :
In the first month of spring ••• the So n of Heaven
occ upies the apar tment on the left of Ch 1ing- yang
hall; ri de s in the pho enix chariot drawn by the
azure-drag ons and carrying the green flag •••• 17
98
NOTES
1 K. C. Chang, Shang Ci vilization , pp. 196-200 ; Shih
Chang-j u, "Yin Tai ti ch 'e," Ta-lu Tsa-c hih , 36 , no . 10
(19 68) , 31 7-320 ; and Tseng Yung-i , Yi li ch1e � k1a o,
PP •
42- 47 .
2 Chang, p. 200.
3 Shih san chin g chu shu, p. 14 32 .
4 The text I use for my translation is Ch 'H Wan-li 's Shih
Ching chuan shih , pp. 620-21 . Ch'H's note s are very
useful but not flawless . Some of my int erpretations
differ from his radica ll y , for example , 1. 16, where my
translation is "We are appoi nted to perfor m thi s great
sacrifice ," if I follo wed his not es , it would beco me
"Our charge is great and lo ng."
5 Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs , p. 217.
6 Jessica Rawso n , Ancie nt Chin a : Art and Archaeolo gy ,
p. 1 01 •
7 Shih san chin g chu shu , pp. 822-23 .
8 Ch'H Wan- li , Shih Chin g chuan shi h , pp. 578-79 . My
translation of thi s poem is again very differe nt from
Waley's version , see Waley, The Boo k of Son gs , p. 225 .
9 Thi s is Watso n's translation with slig ht emendation . I
substit ute 'grand chariot (t a lu) ' for his 'great car
ri age' and 'a reari ng tiger ' for his 'a so lit ary
tiger .' See Burto n Watso n, Basic Writ ings of Mo Tzu,
Hsftn Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, p. 90 and Liang Ch ' i- hsiu ng,
Hsft n Tzu chien shi h , pp. 254-5 5.
10 Rawson , pp. 101-10 3.
11 Arthur Waley, The Ni ne Son gs : A Study of Shamani sm in
Ancie nt China , pp. 29- 30 .
12 David Haw kes , The So ngs of the So uth, pp. 37- 38.
13 Chu Hsi , Ch1u Tz'u chi chu , vol . II , p. 3.
14 Thi s translation is Haw kes ' with a slig ht emendatio n .
99
Prob ably in an attempt to keep up with the ill usion of
dragons , Ha wkes renders the word � (ho rses ) as 'dragon
steeds.' See Hawkes, p. 28.
15 Ibi d. , pp. 33- 34 .
16 Ibi d. , p. 84.
17 Shih san ching chu shu, p. 1361 .
10 0
CHAPTER VI
AUTHORSHIP AND DATING
The autho rship and the dating of the Nine Songs are two
clos el y related proble ms . On the one hand , if we accepted
the tra diti onal vie w that Ch 'U YUan (£. 343-285 B.C. ) wa s
the auth or , then it would be unnecessary for us to di scus s
the date of their composi tio n , for it would be reasonable
to as sume that they were composed around 300 B.C. On the
other hand , if we can est ablish that they were written lo ng
before Ch 'U YUan 's time , then Ch1U YUan is natu rall y not
the ir auth or .
Before rejecti ng Ch'U YUan as their author and propos-
ing a possi ble new date for their composit io n , I believe it
only fair to give the tra dit ional vi ew a brief account and
point out why it is incorre ct .
The tra ditio nal vi ew on the auth orship of the Nin e
Songs come s from Wang I (f l . 107-1 44 A.D. ), the compiler
of Ch 'u Tz 'u, who al leged that Ch'U YUan wrote them . The
follo wing passage is my tra nsl atio n of Wang's preface to
the Nine Songs :
The Ni ne Songs were composed by Ch'U YUan . For
merl y the people who li ved in the southern part of
10 1
Ch 'u, bet ween the YUan River and the Hsiang Riv er ,
were very superstit io us and fond of making sacri
fic es . When they made sacri fice s, they composed
songs , beat drums , and danced to enter tain all
gods . When Ch'U YUan wa s exiled to th is area , he
was very bitter and sad . He saw the rit ual and
the music and dance of the common people . He
found that the words of their songs were crude and
composed the Nine Song s for them . On the one
hand , he related his reverence in serving the
gods ; on the ot her hand , he revealed his being
wronged. And he also used them to remonstrat e.
That 's why there are many la yers of meaning , and
some st anzas and line s are mixe d up , and full of
different inter pretations .1
Wang I's vie w has been accepted as true for al most two
thous and years . It has never been challenged until the
tw enti et h century when Hu Shih said , "The Nine Songs have
nothing to do with the legen d of Ch'U YUan . When we take
a closer loo k , we will find that the se nine pie ces are the
olde st ones among the whole antho log y . They are the songs
2
and dances of the people of Hsia ng.' ' Lu Kan-j u was the
first schol ar who agreed with Hu1s opinio n . In his A Criti-
cal Biog raphy of Ch 'U YUan , Lu lists two impor ta nt reasons
offered by Hu . Firs t, if the Ni ne Songs were written by
Ch'U YUan , then not hing could be found as a source of the
Songs of the South . A liter ary histo ry of Ch'u Tz'u would
become a record of miracle s. Second , the Nine Songs are
clea rl y pi oneeri ng works earl ier than Li sao and ot her
pie ces . Hu and Lu would rather at trib ute thi s evol ut ion to
the genre as a whole th an to a si ngle person called Ch'U
10 2
3
Yfian .
Hu is certa inl y correct in maintai ning that we should
attr ib ute the evol ut io n from the Nine Songs to Li sao to the
genre as a whole rather than to a si ngle person called Ch'fi
Yfian , for evol ut ion is sl ow and usually ta ke s more than a
man 's li fe ti me to run its course . Later in my disc ussi on on
the dating problem I shall build up the case for Hu's the a-
ry . But I do not ag ree wit h him when he says that the songs
were the reli gious songs of the Hsia ng people . I believe
the reverse is true . They were first composed for the court
and lat er became popular and available to the people . For
the ti me being , I shall first poi nt out that Wang's all ega-
tion that the Nine Songs were modeled on the fol k songs of
the south of Ch 'u was unfounded and then disc us s why Ch'fi
Yfian is not th eir auth or .
I would argue that the Ni ne Songs were pri maril y writ-
ten for .t he court on the basis of the follo wing th ree obser-
vations . Fi rst , in the prolog ue , "The Great Unique , Monarch
of the East ," a jade weight is dis pla yed . Thi s jade weight ,
accordi ng to the Ri tes of Chou (T1 ie n-fu , Ch ' un-kuan , Chou
li ) , is a great tre asure of the st ate . Only on the occasion
of a great sacrifice or a great funeral does the t1 ie n-fu
off ici al ta ke it out and di splay it . After the ceremony , he
4
put s it away . For a commoner to possess such a precio us
tre asure is agai ns t the law and punish able by death . The
10 3
presence of the jade weight in dicates that the se songs were
songs of the court , not of the common people . Second , the
gods that the female in voker or shamaness bring s down in
th ese songs all come in a grand st yle--eac h of them ride s
in a chariot of a speci al desig n. If one performs the Nine
Songs to the letter of each song , one needs at least ei ght
luxur iousl y decorated chariots as props. In Han ti mes , when
the se songs were alre ady misr ead , the Han court bui lt wooden
dragons and wooden chariots as st age props. But eit her the
real chariots or the wooden one s are far beyond the economi c
means of the common people . Third , the incl usion of a hymn
to "t he Martyr s of the State '' is also a piece of st rong evi-
dence that the ceremony is a nati onal one , for the common
people do not have the rig ht to hol d a ceremony for the
sol diers who died in act ion , only the head of a st ate does .
Anci ent China wa s a the ocrat ic societ y . The monopol y of
sacrifice was the monopol y of politi cal power . There were
rules governi ng the gods tha t one could worship . The higher
one's soci al st atus , the more gods one could worship . The
son of heaven could worship the God on Hig h and all other
gods . But the barons could onl y worship tho se within their
terri to ry . As to the commoners , all they could worship were
5
the househol d gods , such as the god of the sto ve .
Why is Ch 1U YUan not the author of the Nine Songs? One
of the reasons can be deduced from the references he mad e to
10 4
them in his own works . He made thr ee references to the Nine
Songs , one in T'i en wen and two in Li sao . The th ree refe-
rences are as follows : (1 ) "Ch'i often called upon God , /And
obtained the Ni ne Variations and the Ni ne Songs (l. 65 ,
T' ien wen) ." (2) "In the Nine Vari atio ns and the Nine Songs
of Ch'i /The House of Hsia made revel ry and knew no res-
6
traint ( 1. 7 4, Li sao) , 11 and (3) "I pla yed the Nine Songs
and danced the Nine Shao dances /To have a holid ay and to
while away my sorrows (l. 183, Li sa o) ." From the fi rst
reference we know that the re wa s a leg end which mai ntained
that it was Ch'i, the second ruler of the Hsia dynast y , who
fir st obtained the Nine Songs from God and made use of them
long ago . From the second and the third references, we can
concl ude that the Ni ne Song s were enter tain ing and even
lice ntio us in natu re , for Ch1i abused them and became dis si -
pat ed and Ch'U YUan played them to while away his sorrows.
In short , the se references impl y that the Ni ne Songs had
come into exi stence long before his time and he is not the ir
autho r.
Incide ntall y , the nine songs could be a common name and
not a proper name . In the Han Ni neteen Sacrificial Songs
number 8, "Heaven and Earth ," we find the follo wing verses :
"As st atel y as the ol d model , /To serve the Supreme God , /We
come toget her to entertain the Great Unique . /The nine songs
are played with an out sta nding effect .•. /We mak e the se new
10 5
7
tune s last forever." We all know that the Han Nine tee n
Sacrifici al Songs were composed after the model of the Nine
Songs . But few of us notice that the se Han songs refer to
them selv es as the nine songs . Because of thi s example , I
suspect that any set of songs that the ki ng or the emperor
uses to make the suburban ( chiao ) sacri fice , or a sacrifice
to the Supreme God and ot her gods can be called the nine
songs . To put it another way , only the nat ure of the songs
counts , the text s are imm ater ial . Did the Ch'u poet write
the Nine Songs on the ol d model of Ch1i ? I do not know .
But it is a possi bilit y .
In his introd uctio n to the Nine Songs , Arthur Wal ey
delibe ratel y avoided voici ng his opinion on the aut horship
of the Songs , for one of his st udents , David Hawkes, was
writ ing his Ph . D. th esis , "The Problem of Date and Aut hor
S
ship of Ch 'u Tz 'u, " at that ti me . Hawkes ' disc ussio n on
thi s problem , unfortun atel y , tu rns out to be quite careless
and illogica l . The greater part of the poems in th is an-
tholog y are written in one of two st yle s. The rest in a
mixtu r e of bot h . One of them is called the "Song st yle ,"
because all ele ven pieces of the Nine Songs are written in
this form . A typical "Song st yle " li ne runs li ke this : "t urn
turn turn hsi turn tu rn. " The ot her is named "Sao st yle " after
Ch'fi Yfian 's famous lo ng narrat ive poem , Li sao . A ty pical
"Sao st yle " line runs like th is : "t urn turn turn tee tu rn turn
10 6
hsi , tum tu m tum tee tum tu m, " whose length is more than
double that of the "Song st yle ." Hawkes is cert ainly ri ght
in saying , "I think there can be little doubt tha t Sao-
st yle verse wa s evolved from the Song st yle ." But when he
come s to disc us s the aut horship of the Songs , he hest ati ng-
ly maintai ns : "This suggests to my mind that the author was
a Ch'u poet writi ng not long after Ch 't\ Yt\an and fami liar
9
with his work . "
My research shows that the Ni ne Songs were written
before the si xth century B.C. , at least two hundred years
before Ch't\ YUan 's ti me . In Shuo Yt \an , or the Park of
Speeches, a colle ction of effe ctive speeches compiled by
Liu Hsia ng (77-6 B.C. ) , there is an intrig uing st ory about
a Ch'u prin ce , named E, who went on a state visit to the
st ate of Yt\e h. He wa s ent ertained by the Yt \eh people with a
shamanic seance on board an exqui si te boat whic h floated on
a riv er . At the end of the seance the Yt \eh shaman le aned
on the oar and improv ised a song . The prince could not
understand the song and summoned an inter preter . The int er-
preter duly put the Yt \eh song into a Ch 'u one . The pri nce
wa s plea sed with the song and showered favor on the shaman .
Both the Ch 'u version of the song and a tra nslit erat ion of
1 0
the Yt\eh song are recorded in the st ory.
Prince E ( commi tted sui ci de in 529 B.C. ) wa s a his tori-
cal personage . King Kung (590-60 B.C. ) wa s his fath er , and
10 7
King Kang (5 59-45 B.C. ) and King Ling (540-29 B.C. ) were his
elder brother s. The visit wa s politi cally motivated , for
Ch'u 's easter n neig hbor , the state of Wu , wa s on the rise at
that ti me and had annexed many of Ch'u's former satellite
stat es ; Ch'u want ed Yll eh , Wu's southern neig hbor , to grow
powerful so that she could act as a check on Wu's expansio n .
A great ma j orit y of Chine se schol ar s are convin ced that the
stor y is true and ta ke the Ylle h-j en Song as one of the
forerunners of Ch 'u Tz 'u. Let us first take a loo k at the
words of the song :
What night is tonig ht to be flo ating in the
st ream?
What day is to day to be with the prince in the
same boat ?
Being spoken evil or well , I do not care at all .
My heart is full of in cessant longing to know the
pri nce .
The hill has tre es and the tr ees have branches.
My heart del ight s in you but you don't know it .11
This little song has only si x line s and the message is qui te
plain . The Ylleh shaman , whose sex is not in dicated by the
te xt , expresses his or her lo ve for the guest of honor ,
Prince E. What is more important is how this song is writ-
ten . We fi nd that the fi rst four li ne s are written in a
halting Sao st yle and the la st two in So ng st yle , almo st an
exact copy of "The YUan has its angelic as ; the Li its or
chi ds . /I th ink of my young lord , but dare not speak" (11.
10 8
9-1 0, HF J) •
Since the Sao st yle was evol ved from the Song st yle , I
would rather take thi s little song as one of the lin ks
betwee n the Nine Songs and Li sao in the evol ution of Ch'u
Tz'u. In ot her words , the Ni ne Songs must have been in
exi st ence before 529 B.C. If the Ni ne Songs di d not exist
before that ti me , we may legiti mat el y ask , could the int er
prete r of Prince E put the Yfieh-j en Song into the form as
it is? It is unli kel y . To explain th is , let me use a de
liberatel y chosen analo gy . Let us suppose that Yfian Mei
(17 1 5-1 797) , a maj or Ch ' ing poet , had very good command of
Engl is h and wanted to tra nsl ate the Sonnets of William
Shakespeare into Chin ese . Could he tra nsl ate them int o the
vernacular Chine se poetic form as Professor Li ang Shi h-chiu
did? The answer is no , becaus e vernacular poetry did not
exi st in YUan 's ti me , and the possibilit y of his in vent ing
a new mediu m , the vernacular poetic form , would be very
slim inde ed .
We can see at a gla nce that the "t um tu m tum tee tum
tum hsi tum tum tum tee tum tum " verse patt ern of the Sao
st yle is far more versatile as a medi um of expression than
the "t um tu m tu m hsi tu m tum " verse patt ern of the Song
st yle and that the former evol ve s from the lat ter . But how
long would it take for the Song st yle to evolve into the Sao
st yl e? We may presume that no one can give us a definite
10 9
answer . But let us use another anal ogy . If we compare the
prose of the his tori cal do cuments of early Weste rn Chou
(1 1t h cent ury B.C. ) such as "t he Speech at Mu " and "t he
Announcement Concerning Lo " in Shu (Book of Document s) with
that of the Tso Comment ary (written in 4th century B.C. ),
we notice that the archai c Chine se prose ta ke s about seven
centuries to develo p from its inc ipient stage to its matu-
rit y . It is in deed a long and sl ow process . Therefore it
is no exaggeratio n to sa y that it may take decades of years
or even centu ries for the Song st yle to evolve into the Sao
st yle . But some conservative scholar s may not be convi nced
by the the ory of liter ary evol ution . We have to produce
something more concrete to persuade them . Fort unately we
can fi nd a few pi eces of inte rnal evidence to make our case
st ronger.
One piece of evidence that I want to present first is
the use of the war chariot described in "t he Martyr s of the
State ." This war chariot has two whe els and is dra wn by
four horses . It is ident ic al with the war chariots men-
tioned in the Book of Songs . The la test piece in the Book
of Songs is poem 153, "Hsi a chtla n" of the Kuo feng section ,
whi ch , according to Chtl Wan-li , wa s composed around the
12
twenty-s eventh year of Duke Chao (5 1 5 B.C. ). Histor ians
of anci ent China generally agree that the chariot had been
is use in war s si nce th e late Shang dynast y around the 13 th
11 0
century B.C. and that its importa nce in mili tary operat ion
had decreased co nsi derably by the end of the Spring and
Autumn period (770-476 B.C. ) . In ot her words , at the be
gi nning of the Warring States perio d (475-221 B.C. ) the
mou nted so ldie rs , be cause of their greater mobilit y , had
gradually co me to replace the war chario ts . We lea rn that
in 302 B.C. King Wu-l ing of Chao (reig ned 325-299 B.C. )
introd uced a milit ary innov atio n . He dis carded the war
chariots entirel y and adopted the rid ing habit of the nort h-
western barbarians for his so ldiers and made them learn to
shoot on hor seback. The in novation had an ins tant success .
He co nquered the State of Chung-sh an, in vaded Lin Hu and Lou
13
Fan, and Chao be came one of the big pow ers . All the other
states im mediatel y fo llo wed King Wu-ling 's suit .
The reason for the decli ne of the war chariots and the
rise of the mounted sol diers has been clearly poi nted out
by Jessica Rawso n . In her words , the "chariots cannot have
been very practic al. It must have been impo ssi ble to take
large numbers of them long dist ances to campaig ns on the
frontier s. Ruts in poor roa ds , bad terrai n , the summer
rain s wit h floods , and broad rivers would have co mpletel y
14
inca pacitated them. " Likew ise , the poet of "the Martyrs
of the State " write s, "M y left trace ho rse is dead; my
rig ht one , wou nded. / The two wheels are sunk; the fo ur
hor ses, stuck." It is clear that the poet fully realizes
1 1 1
the cumberso meness and the vulne rabil it y of the war chariot .
Of co urse it is possi ble for the poet to have depi cted a
battle scene of long ago . But it is more likel y that he
co mpo sed it while the chariot was still an impor tant weapon .
Therefore I would suggest that he was a poet of the late
Spring and Autumn period . Because the eleven pieces of the
Nine Songs are homo geneous in style, if one of them was
co mpo sed in the late Spring and Autu mn period , natu rall y the
ot her pie ces would have been co mposed at the same time .
My next piece of evidence is also from "the Martyrs of
the State." We notice that the Ch'u so ldiers use im ported
weapo ns , the Wu halberds and the Ch'i n bo ws . Bot h were the
best avail able at that ti me . The state of Ch'i n had a long
hi stor y and is therefore of no use in ou r detecti ve wor k .
But the state of Wu had an usuall y short histor y. As a
matter of fact, it is the shorte st-lived of the powerful
states . The rise of Wu is recor ded in the seventh year of
Duke Ch 1eng (584 B.C. ) , when Wu waged a war against a neig h
bor ing small state, Tan. At that time she was looked do wn
upon as a barbarian tribe . The fall of Wu is dated 473
B. C. , when she was co mpletel y exting uished by YUeh . There
were only seven ki ngs : Shou- meng (reig ned 585-561 B.C. ) ,
Chu- fan ( reig ned 560-548 B.C. ) , Yu-chi ( reig ned 547-531
B.C. ) , Yu-mei (reigned 530-527 B.C. ) , Liao ( reigned 526-51 5
B.C. ) , Ho-lU (reigned 51 4-496 B.C. ) , and Fu- cha ( reigned
1 1 2
49 5-473 B.C. ) ; the state lasted only 11 3 years . Wu be came
reall y strong under the last two kin gs . Ho -lfi was able to
sack Ying , the capital of Ch'u, in 506 B.C. , and King Chao
of Ch 'u ( reigned 51 5-489 B.C. ) fled. Fu- cha defeated Yfi eh
in 494 B.C. and Kou - chien , the king of Yfieh , was forced to
beg for a peace treat y , whic h was sig ned in the same year.
Then Fu-cha engag ed hi mself in the nort h to co nten d for
hegemo ny against Chin . Wh ile he was thus oc cupied , Kou
chien , the defeated king of Yfi eh , was slo wly but patiently
prep aring for his revenge . After twenty years of pre para
tion , he fi nally termin ated Wu in 473 B.C.
We do not know the exact date when the sharp Wu halberd
became famous and a great quantit y of them be gan to be
exported to the ot her states. But we can guess that, not
unli ke the arms sales of the Uni ted States of America , the
sale of the halberds co uld have given an edge to Wu over the
other states, and the sudden surge of power of the last two
kings in the politica l aren a of anci ent China might have
been at least partl y the result of the sale and the use of
thi s deadl y weapon . Since the use of the Wu halberds by the
Ch'u so ldiers has a defi ni te upper limit of 584 B.C. and a
po ssi ble lo wer limit of 473 B. C. , it would be reasona ble to
assume that "T he Martyrs of the State'' very li kely was
com pose d in the seco nd half of the si xth century B.C. This
co rrelates well wit h the use of the war chariot .
113
From the argu ment s I have presented in the precedi ng
paragrap hs , we may co nclude that the mo st prob able date for
the com positio n of the Nine So ngs is in be tween the rise of
the state of Wu in 584 B.C . and the death of Pri nce E of
Ch'u in 529 B.C. We may assume that it was during this
perio d that one of the Ch'u king s co mmi ssio ned a co urt poet
to co mpo se the Nine Son gs for him . The Ch'u kings who
reig ned during thi s period are Ki ng Kung (590-60 B.C. ) , King
Kang (559-45 B. C. ) , King Hsi a-ao (544-41 B.C. ) , and King
Ling (540-29 B.C. ) . I have examined thor oug hly all avail
able hist orical reco rds on these fo ur kings and dis covered
that the be st candida te is Ki ng Ling .
King Ling was the seco nd so n of King Kung (reig ned 590-
60 B.C. ) . Ling ( ''the spiri tual " ) is a pos thumous title .
Hi s name was Wei , alias Hsiung -chien . Among all the Ch1u
kings , King Ling is prob abl y the most well-known for his
indu lgence in shamani sm . Therefore the po sthumous title is
si gnifica nt and a fit descriptio n of his life .
For example, King Ling bui lt a mou nd at Changhua sur
mo unted by a new pal ace, so lel y for the purpo se of perform
ing shamani c rit uals such as tho se described by the Nine
Songs . We do not know the exact date when he began to build
it , but it was co mpleted in 535 B.C. Thi s const ructio n work
must have been a cons idera ble one , for we fi nd it recorded
in the Tso Co mmenta ry , Reco rds of the Grand Hi stor ian of
114
China , and the "Dis co urse of Ch'u" in the Di sco urses of the
States (K uo ;yi!) . The Tso Co mmentar y says, "T he King of Ch 'u
entertained Duke Chao with the ri tual on the newly bui lt
mou nd . He used lo ng-be arded men as im person ators of go ds
and gave Duke Chao a bow of Ta-ch 'ft as a gift of good wi ll
1 5
(D uke Chao , 7th year) ." The "Dis cou rse of Ch'u" co ntains
much more inform ation on the bui lding of the mou nd , and I
will translate and quo te it in its entiret y :
Ki ng Ling built a mound at Changhua and as
cended it wit h Wu-chft [his senior min i ster
]
,
aski ng: "Isn't the mo und beautif ul?" Wu-c hfi re
plied , "I have heard that the king of a state
considers it beautif ul to besto w favors on wo rthy
of fici als , pleasurable to bring peace to hi s peo
ple, inte lligent to list en to virt ues , and dis
cerning to win the good will of the dis tant peo
ple. I have not heard of any who co nsi der it
beautif ul to have a tall building with red-lac
quered wo odwor k , or plea surable to li sten to the
thrilli ng, lo ud , cacop hono us , and multit udinous
music al ins truments, or disc erning to watch the
spectacular, to see the luxuri ous , and to gaze at
the lice nti ous ; nor have I heard of any who co n
si der it intelligent to be able to dis ti nguish the
vario us qualiti es of to nes."
"M y fo rmer so vereign Ki ng Chuang bui lt a
mo und called Pao -ch ft . Its heig ht was just eno ugh
to watch the goo d or bad omens of the atmo sphere ,
its size was just enough to di spla y the ri tual
vessels , the wood it used would not inter fere wit h
the defence of the citi es , its expenses needed no
support from the state co ffer , the peop le went
about their dail y rout ine s as usual, and the offi
cials di d not change their usual audien ces . Who
were at the state din ner? They were the Duke of
Sung and the Baron of Cheng. Who acted as the
im personat ors of gods in the ri tual ? They were
Hua-yftan and Ssu- fei . Who assisted in the
115
rit ual ? They were the Baron of Ch'en, the Baron
of Ts'ai, the Visco unt of Hsfi , and the Co unt of
Tun, who were in turn waited upon by their respec
tive hig h of fici als. My fo rmer so vereig n was
therefore able to remove dis orde r and co nquer hi s
enemi es wi thout incurr ing any enmi ty fro m the
various feudal lords . Whereas in building this
mou nd , my sire , the people of the state were worn
out , the revenue was exhausted , the crops were
ruined , the hundred officials were dist urbed , the
whole state all chipped in for the work , yet
several year s had elapsed before it was co mpleted .
I know that you wanted the other feudal lords to
partici pate in the opening ceremon y , but all of
them refused and none had co me . Then you dis
pat ched Grand Chamberlai n Chi-chien to in vite the
Duke of Lu, and intim ida te him with the Incident
of Shu, and he was the only guest you had got .
You made the charming , lang uorous yo ung maidens
invoke rs and the handso me lo ng-bearded men im per
so nators of gods . I reall y co uldn't see anything
beautiful in it .1116
So Ki ng Ling got a so und lecture from his senior min ister .
But the lecture reveals much about the person alit y of King
Ling . We learn that he was qui te good at music , for he was
able to "disti nguish the various qual itie s of tones ." We
also learn that he was a sensual man, for he loved "to watch
the spectacular, to see the luxu ri ous , and to gaze at the
lic entious ." But what are the spectacular, the luxur ious ,
and the lice ntio us? To my mind , they refer to the decent of
gods wit h a dazzli ng li ght, the rich ly deco rated chari ots ,
and the love scenes between gods and maidens descri bed in
the Ni ne So ngs respecti vely . Furthermore , we learn that he
made in novat io ns in the shama nic ri tes . Wu-c hfi poi nts out
11
6
that King Chuang (reigned 613-591 B.C. ) used Hua-yll an, a
cabinet mini ster of Sung, and Ssu- fei , a prince of Cheng,
as im personat ors of gods , and the Baron of Ch1e n and ot hers
assist ed in the rit ual as invok ers . Instead of fol lo wing
this well- e stablis hed co nvention , King Ling made "the
charming , lan guorous young maidens invoke rs and the handsome
lo ng-bearded men im person ators of gods ," who were ob viousl y
pro fessio nal shama ns . The purpo se of these in novat ions , I
strongl y belie ve , was to meet the requirements of the text
of the Nine Son gs . For example , in "the Junior Lord of
Live s" it is menti oned that the altar is fi lled with fair
ladi es and the god is referred to as "my bon ny on e." To put
such a poe m into perfor mance , an all male cast of barons and
hig h offic ials would of cou rse be less effective and aesthe
ti call y less sati sfying than the one made up of the charm
ing , lang uorous yo ung maidens and the handso me lo ng-bearded
men . And what do "the thrilling , lo ud , cacop honous , and
multit udinous music al ins truments" refer to? I suspect that
they refer to "T une the zit her stri ngs and beat the drums in
uni so n . / Strike the bells until the bell-s tand roc ks . /The
flutes are piping , the reed-org ans blo wing " in "the Lord of
the East."
Anot her so urce can be quo ted to sho w that King Ling was
prob ably the head shaman and he too k an acti ve part in the
seance :
117
For merly King Ling of Ch'u was proud and disd ai n
ful to his in feriors . He was in so lent to the wise
and devoted himself to serving the spir its . He
beli eved in shamani sm . He fasted and purified
himself to sacrifi ce to God on High and all ot her
gods . He held the feather plu me and danced in the
altar . When the Wu people attacked Ch1u and the
news was brought to him , King Ling kept on drum
ming and danci ng as if no thing had happened and
said , "We are serving God on Hig h and entertaining
the ot her gods . Surely we will be blessed." He
did not send troops to rescue the besieged ci ty
and the heir ap parent and the queen and his co ncu
bine s were taken priso ners by the Wu peo ple. It
is in deed a great pit y.17
When the ki ng "hel d the feather plume and danced in the
alta r, " he was ob viousl y an impers on ator trying to bring
dow n a certain god . Thi s incid ent too k place shor tly before
hi s death in 529 B.C. King Ling , a sta unch belie ver in
shamanism till deat h , was pro bably respons ible for the com-
mi sion of a cou rt po et to co mpo se the Nine So ngs .
118
NOTES
1 Ch'u Tz'u chang chft in Ch'u Tz'u chu � chung, p.3 3.
2 See "T u Ch 'u Tz'u"' in Hu Shih wen ch 'un, vol . II ,
p. 94 , quo ted by Yu Tse- ch 'eng, Ch'u Tz'u kai lun,
p. 72 .
3 Yu Tse- ch'eng, p. 72 .
4 Shih san chin g chu shu , p. 776 .
5 See Kuo Yft , p. 567 and "Chi fa ," Li Chi in Shih san
ching chu shu , pp. 1588-90 .
6 This is Hawk es' translation . See Haw kes , p. 26 .
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Chang Shou-pi ng, Han tai yfteh-fu � yft eh-fu ko tz'u,
(T aip ei : Kuan -wen Boo kstore , 19 70) , p. 89.
Se e Arthur Waley , The Nine Son gs : A Study of Shaman ism
in Anci ent Chi na, pp. 16-1 7 and Geoffre y R. Waters ,
Three Elegies of Ch'u, p. 5.
Hawkes , The So ngs of the So uth, p. 36 .
The story of Prince E is quoted in full by Ling Shurr
sheng, "Kuo Shang and Li Hun of the Ni ne Songs and the
Ceremo nies of Head- hunting and Head-fea st," Bull etin of
the Instit ute of Ethnolo gy, Academia Sini ca, 15
(
19
6
1
�
416-7 .
The text of the Yfteh -j en Son g can be fou nd in Chu Hsi 's
Ch'u Tz'u hou ;yii, vol . I, p. 10 in Ch 'u Tz'u chu �
chung and Yu Tse-ch 'eng, p. 30 .
Chft Wan-l i, Shih Ching chuan shih , p. 259 .
Tz'u Hai , p. 19 46 .
Jessica Rawso n , Ancie nt China : Art and Archaeol og y, p.
10 1 . The inef fecti veness of the war chariots on a
certain terrain was di sco vered as early as the first
year of Duke Chao (541 B.C. ). The Tso Co mmentary says ,
"Chung- hang Mu-tzu of Chin defeated the Wu-ch ung and
ot her Ti tribe s in T'ai -yftan by the use of foot so l
diers . When they were about to fig ht , Wei Shu said ,
119
'They are all foot- men , while our for ce co nsists of
chariots . We must meet them in a narro w pass . Let us
substit ute ten men for each chariot , and we shall
overc ome them . Even straite ned in a pass, we shall
overc ome them . Let us all turn ou rselves into foot
so ldi ers . I myself will take the lead. 1 Accordingly
he put asi de his chariots , and for med the men into
ran ks , fi ve chariots furnis hing three ranks of fi ve men
each. A favorite of ficer of Hsfi n Wu [Chung-hang Mu
tzu] was unwi lling to take his place among the foot
so ldie rs . Shu beheaded hi m as an example .•• He in
flicted on the Ti tribe s a great defeat."
15 Ta-ch 'fi is a place name. The bo w was obviousl y a very
precio us one . After having gi ven it away, Ki ng Li ng
regretted. The Grand Chamberlain Chi-chien heard about
it and went to see the Duke of Lu. The duke in formed
him of the gift . He bo wed and offered his co ngratul a
tio ns . "On what do you co ngratulate me?" asked the
duke . "Ch'i, Chin , and Yfieh ," replied Chi-chien , "have
wished to get thi s bo w for a lo ng ti me . Our ruler did
not see it fit to give it to any of them but to you .
You must be prepared to defend against these three
neig hbors to keep this treas ure . The duke was fright
ened and returned the bo w to Ki ng Li ng.
16 Kuo Yfi ,
pp. 541-42 .
17 Quot ed by Peng Yi , "Ch'u tz'u chiu-ko ti min g-yi wen
ti ," Shu-mu chi -kan , p. 12 0 from Huan ta n hsi n lun.
12 0
CHAPTER VII
TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
Not unlike the Autho rised (K ing James) Versio n of the
Son g of Son gs , a majorit y of the so ngs in the Nine So ngs
are diffi cult to understand because the speakers are not
identified in the origi nal text . I have demonst rated clear-
ly in Chapter II , "the Functi onari es of Shama nsi m, " that the
im person ator (s hih ) and the invoke r (chu) co ope rate clos ely
in the shamanic seance and the text of the Nine So ngs is one
of the best evidenc es of this pra ctice . To make the Nine
So ngs easie r to understand for the general reader, I have
follo wed the goo d examples set by Aoki Masaru and Hugh J.
Schon fiel d . Aoki , in his Soj i KyUk a no Bukyoku teki Kekko
(T he Dramatic Cons truction of the Nine Songs ), suggests that
the Nine So ngs is a set of opere tta and in so me of the so ngs
the shaman and the shamaness si ng in duet and dance toget h-
1
er . Schon field , on the ot her hand , in his translation of
the Son g of Son gs , divi de s the Song into Cantos and verses ,
and alloca tes the parts to three spea kers , He , She , and
2
Chor us . I fi nd Schon fiel d's structure very il luminat ing .
It is helpful to the intelligent rea ding of the poem . This
is why I have divided eig ht pieces of the Nine Son gs into
stanzas and iden tified the speaker of each stanza. In doing
12 1
so , I am guided by my own perceptio n of the feeli ng and
import in the ori ginal text. Thi s is arbitrary and there
fore can onl y be tentative , for I am only one of the inter
preters of the Nine So ngs .
12 2
ABBREVIATIONS
When no spea ker is in dica ted , the speaker is the cho
rus. Thi s happ ens in the cases of Tung Huang T1 ai I and Li
Hun, which function as the prologue and the epilogue of thi s
set of sacrific ial so ngs. Wh en the spea ker is the very god
of a given so ng, with the exception of Hsia ng Fu Jen, who is
doubtl ess a godde ss , it is assumed that the actual spea ker
is the male im personat or who pla ys the role of the god .
CRS Chorus
FI Female Invoke r, the Shama ness who admini sters the
ceremon y
HC
HFJ
HP
KS
LH
SK
SSM
TC
THTI
TSM
YCC
Hsia ng Chffn , the Lo rd of the Hsiang
Hsia ng Fu Jen, the Lady of the Hsia ng
Ho Po , the River God
Kuo Shang, the Martyrs of the State
Li Hun, a Trib ute to the Spir its
Shan Kuei , the Mou ntain God
Sao Ssu Ming , the Junior Lord of Live s
Tung Chffn , the Lor d of the East
Tung Huang T'ai I, the Great Unique , Monar ch of
the East
Ta Ssu Ming , the Senior Lor d of Li ves
Yffn Chung Chffn , the Lor d amid the Clouds
12 3
THE GREAT UNIQUE , MONARCH OF THE EAST
(T UNG HUANG T1A I I)
On thi s luck y day and in thi s hour so auspi cio us ,
Let us in reverence entertain the Monar ch on hig h .
He holds his lo ng sword by its jade pom mel;
Hi s girdle-gems ti nkl e wit h a li n- lang.
From the jewelled mat with its jade weig ht
Why not no w take the precio us bo uquet?
We offer basi l-fl avour ed meat laid on strewn orc hids ;
We make li bations wit h cassi a wine and pepper drink .
Now the stic ks are rai sed ; the drums are struck.
The si ngers in a slow and measured time gentl y si ng;
Then, when the pipe s and zit hers jo in in , they si ng al oud .
The Spirit move s proudl y in his glor io us vesture ;
Gusts of fragran ce fill up the hall.
The five no tes chime in a ric h arra y .
The Lord is pleased and besto ws on us jo y and health.
12 4
COMMENTARY
The prerequi site to perfor ming an impor tant sacrifi ce
is the choos ing of an au spicio us day. The Rit es of Chou
(" Kuei-j en , Ch 'un-kuan," Chou li ) maintains that divin ation
be made before perfor ming sacrif ice . Many ins ta nces of �
chiao (divi ning the suburban sacri fice ) are recorded in the
Tso Co mmentar y . The purpo se of the divi natio n is often
twof ol d : to determine whether the da y cho sen is auspicio us
or not and to determine the number of vic tims to be used in
the sacrif ice . Even in an obviousl y less form al shaman ic
seance , the one descri bed by poem 137, "T ung men chi fen, "
in the Book of So ngs , we fi nd the li ne , "A n auspicious day
J
is cho sen." The poet reverses lia ng chen to chen lia ng in
the first li ne , using poetic lice nce for the sake of rhyme .
Thi s so ng is an obj ecti ve descriptio n of the sacrif ice
made to the Great Unique , Monar ch of the East , and is in
all like lihood sung in chorus . The perso n who holds the
long sword by its jade po mme l is the impers onat or of thi s
supreme deit y of the Ch'u people . He is app ropri atel y
dressed to befit the rank of the god he im perso nates . He
takes a standing pos ition. At the very begi nning of the
ceremony he prob ably stands still . But gradu ally he begins
to sway. Thi s is why the ti nkling of his gi rdle gems can
be heard.
12 5
The jade weig ht , or the tab let of power , as Bert hol d
4
Laufer put s it , is a great tre asure of the st ate (T' ien -f u ,
Ch 1 un-kuan , Chou li ). Only on the occasion of a great
sacrifice or a great funeral does the t' ie n-fu offic ial ta ke
it out and disp lay it . After the ceremony , he put s it away .
The presence of the jade weig ht in thi s song is an in dis-
putable evidence that the Nine Song s are primaril y written
for the use of the Ch'u court .
The cassia wine and the pepper drink are the count er-
part of the yll-f lavo red bla ck mill et wine of Chou , the
reig ning royal house . As we fi nd that the cassia wine is
ment io ned twi ce in the Nine Songs , once here and the other
ti me in '' the Lord of the East ," and the cassi a spray in "t he
Senior Lord of Lives ," and the cassi a flower in Li sao , we
may begi n to suspect that the cassi a has much to do with
Chine se shamanism . The same is true with the pepper plant s.
At the end of the shamanic dance described in "Tung men chi
fen," the shamaness gives her company a bouquet of pepper
pla nts as a gift . Hearing that Shaman Hsie n is about to
descend in the evening , Ch'U YUan prepares the st rained
pepper wine (chiao hsl l) to invi te the deified shaman (Li
sao , l. 14 1). The use of pepper drink seems wi despread and
long -la sti ng . In the poem entitled "On Hearing a Shamanic
Seance Performed in Some Chi angnan (t he south of Yangt ze )
Household at Nig ht " by the T1 ang poet Li Chia- yu , we fin d
12 6
the following couplets : "After the rain the breeze is fresh
and the ri ver is le quiet . /Having recovered from the into xi-
5
cation of pepper drink , people retu rn from the seance."
When food and drink are offered and songs and music are
performed , the invited god come s down and ta kes possesio n of
the impe rsonator . At this ver y moment , the god and the
impe rsonator are one . Therefore the im personator is refer-
red to as the Spirit , who now move s about proudly in his
splendid atti re . Very likel y he ta ke s a lea d in a dance
whic h is the cl im actic fi nale of thi s prolog ue .
12 7
THE LORD OF THE EAST
( TUNG CHUN )
FI : The sun is about to rise in the east .
It shine s upon my rail in gs , the sacred mulberr y tr ee .
TC : I rein my horses and drive slo wly .
The nig ht sky gli mmers , and the day ha s dawned .
Dragon-shafted , wit h a car of thu nder design
Bearing cl oud banners that twi st and trail ,
And I, heaving a great si gh , my chariot is ready to
take off .
I cannot make up my mind and loo k back wit h longi ng .
The music and the spectacle are so enter taining
That all beholders forget to return .
CRS: Tune the zi ther st rings and beat the drums in uni son .
Strike the bel ls until the bell-st and rocks .
The flut es are piping , the reed-organs blowing ,
The spirit- guardia n is clever and lovel y .
Whirling around , the dancers are like ki ngfishers
on the wing .
Verses are chanted to acc ompany the dance ;
The tune and the ti me are in perfect harmony .
When the Spirit descends , He covers the sun .
12 8
TC : In shirt of blue cl oud and skirt of white rainbow ,
I gather my reins and heavenwards my chariot zooms .
Lift ing my long arrow, I shoot the Wolf of Heaven ;
Wiel di ng the Ladle , I pour myself some cassi a wine .
Then with the bow in hand , I plu nge deep down
To st art the dark and murky journey to the east again .
12 9
COMMENTARY
In the tradi ti onal te xt of the Nine Songs , "t he Lord of
the East" is number seven . By a close comparison with the
Han Nin etee n Sacrifi cal Songs ( Han chiao shi h shih chiu ko ) ,
Wen I-to disco vered that thi s song should follo w the pro-
log ue , "Tung-huang T1ai- i,' ' imme diatel y and take the lea d
6
before all the ot her songs . By this rearrangement , we can
have the ei ght gods in four pai rs . The lea ding pair are the
Lord of the East , the sun god , who is a giver of the sun-
shine , and the Lord amid the Cl oud , who is a giver of the
rain . The second are the god and the goddess of the Hsiang
River . Next come the Senior Lord and the Junior Lord of
Live s. And the last pair are the River God and the Mountain
God . Sinc e th is new sequence is more logi cal and better
organized , I have adopted it wi thout reservatio n .
The Lord of the East is doubtle ss a sun god . I assign
the fi rst two line s to the female invok er , the next ei ght
line s and the la st si x li ne s to the sun god himself . Li nes
11 to 18 can be sung eit her by the chorus or by a si ngle
voice , the in voker alone . These eig ht line s are a brief but
vivid descri ptio n of the shamanic seance . All necessary
elem ents are there . The music pla yed by many ins tr ument s,
the zi ther , the drum , the bell , the fl ute , and the reed-
organ is probably in a crescendo . The clever and handsome
13 0
shaman is im personating the sun god . Many dancers are
whirli ng around , each of them hol di ng a pheasa nt-plume s in
her hand, so when they raise the pheasa nt-plumes toget her ,
they look li ke a floc k of ki ngfis hers in flig ht . There are
si ngers acco mpan ying the dance . As the ritual is well re-
hearsed , everything is in perfect harmon y . And in due
co urse , the spirit of the sun god de scends to take po sses-
si on of the im perso nator . Some co mmentators maintain that
the sun is blocked out be cause many spirits de scend at the
same ti me . Others say that the sun god descends with a
7
large ento urage . Howeve r, I believe that the descent of
one god is eno ugh to block out the sun . We sho uld remember
that this so ng is dedicated to the Lor d of the East alone .
Line 2. Fu- sang is the sacred mulberry tree or the land
where thi s sacred tree grows . In the famous Ch'u Sil k
Manuscri pt ten suns are depicted agai nst the backg rou nd of
this sacred tree , wit h one of them above the tree and the
other nine suns in its branches, representing the anci ent
ten day week (hsffn ). The land of Fu- sang or the land of
sunrise was later ident ified wit h Japa n , be cause Japa n is
to the east of China .
Line 5 . Lung- chou ( �
�
.;fi.J, ) is a wooden shaft with a
bro nze fitti ng which is deco rated by many dragons . Sheng
lei (
�
� ) : Sheng refers to the car, and lei is leiwen
(
�
� ) , a very pop ular decorative motif in the bro nze age
13 1
next onl y to the t1a o-t 1ieh ( 1f � ) desig n. The box of
the car is decorated wit h the lei wen patt ern. Chu Hsi 's
assertio n that the car is on wheels of thunder is purely a
8
creation of his own imaginat io n .
Line s 20-23 . The li nes here are mi splac ed . I have
fo llowed Waley's rearrangement and made li ne 23 my line 20 ,
9
li ne 20 my line 21, and line 21 my li ne 23 .
Line 21. The Wolf of Heaven is the name of a star, the
culprit respons ible for the ecli pse of the sun , for when the
Wo lf of Heaven is hungry, he will swallo w the sun.
Line 22 . The Ladle is a group of si x stars which for m
10
the shape of a dipper (� tou ) .
13 2
THE LORD AMI D THE CLOUDS
(YUN CHUNG CHUN )
CRS: He 's bathed in orchid water , shampooed with perfume ,
And dressed in a many-colored robe li ke a flow er .
The Spirit , zi gzagging , has descended into him .
The blaz ing lig ht shine s wit hout an end .
Why not soj ourn in the Hall of Long Life
And glo w bright as th e Sun and the Moon?
In a dragon chariot drawn by divine horses
He take s a joy ride to have a good ti me .
The Spirit has descended in brig ht maj est y,
When all at once He soar s again into the clou ds .
He lo oks down on the province of Chi and far beyond .
Traversing the Fou r Seas , his flig ht knows no end .
FI : Longing for my lo rd , I heave a great sigh .
My heart is troubled ; I am very , very sad .
13 3
COMMENTARY
The worship of the Lord amid the Cl oud s was recorded in
the oracle ins criptions of the Shang dynast y and cont inued
to early Han ti mes . The fi rst twe lve li nes obj ecti vel y
des cri be how the spirit of the god descends into the im per-
sonator , the male shaman of the fi rst two li nes , and after
taking a joy ride in the chariot suddenly fli es away , le av-
ing th e in voker to si gh and to pine endlessl y.
Line s 3 and 4. "The Spirit , zi gzagging , has descended
int o him . /The bl azi ng lig ht shine s wit hout an end. " Arthur
Wal ey , in tra nsl ating the Sung Sectio n of the Book of Songs ,
encounters the same phenomenon . He says : "The spiri ts of
the dead , in the se hymns as in the bronze ins criptions , are
'very bright '; a dazzli ng radia nce surrounds them . The same
conception , ext ended to livi ng monarchs , dominat es earl y
Irania n religio n , and was taken over by the Buddhi sts ,
Mani cheans , and Ne storians , to be embodied in the nimbi and
haloes of their divi niti es . It is sti ll currentl y expressed
11
in the haloes of Christ ian saint s ."
I do not know how thi s effe ct is to be achie ved . The
method by which the "bla zi ng lig ht " was portra yed in the
rit ual may have been si mi lar to that of the shamanic Dancers
of Evil of Sri Lanka , who dance to a qui ck drum beat in the
dark , holding a torch . Once in a while they throw certa in
134
chemicals into the air , which , when lit by the torch , burst
12
into bri ght flame , very much like minia ture fi rewor ks .
Line 5. The word 'chien ' (� ) is not a meanin gless
exclamat ion , but an interrogative adverb. It can mean 'why '
or 'who ' depending on the co ntext.
Line 6. Ti -fu (�
n�
) , divine yoke- hor ses , is a
synecdoc he . The exi stence of the yoke -h orses impl ies the
presence of the trace-hor ses .
13 5
THE LORD OF THE HSIANG
( HSIANG CHUN )
HFJ : Pla yfully my lord chooses not to come .
For whom did he descend to the mid-s trea m is le?
Thinking of his gentle eyes and wins ome smile ,
I speedil y set out on my cassi a boat .
I bid the YUan and Hsiang st ill th eir waves,
And the wat er of the Great River flow gentl y .
I st rain my eye s but fail to fi nd my husband .
Blo wing my bamboo pip e , of whom do I think?
HC : I drive north on my fl ying-dragon chariot
By way of the Tung-t 'i ng lake ;
My flag is of fi g-leave s, bound with basil ,
Its curved hal yard , of ir is ; its canton , of orchi ds .
I gaze to wards the farthe st shore of Ts 1 en-yang ,
And in a dazzli ng li ght I cross the Great River .
But before my power is fully disp layed ,
You have heaved many a si gh for my sake .
HFJ : Asl ant my tears flow in purling st reams ;
Bitt erly I lo ng for my lord and am in dist ress .
Oars of cassi a and steer ing-p lank of magnolia
Do but chip ice and pi le up snow .
13 6
Like plucking fi g-le ave s in the st ream
Or gat heri ng water- lil ies on the tree- top ,
Estra nged hearts belabor the mat chmaker ;
And flig hty lo ve is easil y broken .
The water over the st ony shallows foams and spumes;
The fl ying-dr agon chariot dal lie s wit h ease .
Insincere fri endship begets long sorrow ,
You break your tr yst and tell me you've no time .
HC : At dawn I galloped besi de the Great River ;
At dusk I reined my horses on the nort hern is le .
The birds were perching on the roof ,
And the water encircled the roofed al tar .
I dropped my thumb -ring into the Great River ,
I cast my girdle-gem on the shore of the Li .
I have plucked the gali ngal e on the fragrant isle
To gi ve to the one there belo w .
BOTH : Good time s are few and far betwe en ,
Let 's make the most of this rare reunion .
137
COMMENTARY
This so ng , "t he Lord of the Hsiang ," and th e next one ,
"t he Lady of the Hsiang ," are compani on poems . They cele
brate the hiero gamy of the god and the goddess of the Hsia ng
Riv er . Their courtship seems to be a complete reversal of
the courts hip bet ween the human maiden and the god in the
ot her songs . In the beginning they look for each other in
vain . The road to love is full of frustrations , mi sunder
st andin gs , and complaint s. But at the end they rush to meet
each ot her and have a happy ending . The formula for the
courts hip in the ot her songs , by contr ast , is lo ve at first
si gh t wit h a disast rous ending . Here the god , li ke a drag
onfly that skims over the surface of a pond and lea ve s the
agitated water ri ppling for a long time , descends to give
favors to the human mai den . But in a flash he is gone ,
lea vi ng the forlorn maiden pi ning and wailing .
Both Waley and Hawkes were led astra y by the tra ditio n
al interp ret ation and made Hsiang Chtln a goddess . I do not
think it necessary to di scus s why they were wrong. I have
dividied this poem into five st anzas . The Lady of the
Hsiang and the Lord of the Hsiang si ng the first four st an
zas in turn and si ng the fi nal coupl et to gether .
Line 2. The mid-strea m is le is a likel y lo cation for a
seance . Like some of the Greek gods , Hsiang Chtln is very
13 8
li kely a pla yboy and enjoys making lo ve to human maidens .
The Lady of Hs iang 's to ne in the first two li nes is a
jealous one .
Line 7. Fu-ch ftn ( � � ), lite rall y means 'lord
husband,' can be used as a guide- post to identif y the sex
of the spea ker .
Line 8. Thi s is a rhetori cal questio n . The one that
the spea ker thinks of is obvi ousl y the Lord of the Hsia ng.
Line 9. Flying drago n (fei lung �� ) is a synec-
do che , for the chariot is deco rated wit h many bron ze or na-
ments in the shape of dragons .
Line 10. Wang I's assertio n that the word chan (� )
13
is synon ymous with chuan (t o turn, to bend ) is unfound ed .
The Hsia ng ri ver flows north to the Tung-t'i ng lake and the
Great River (Y angtze Riv er ) is to the north of the lake.
Hsia ng Chftn 's jo urney starts from the Hsiang ri ver . He
flie s over the Tung -t 'i ng lake, and fi nally crosses the
Great River . The jo urney is from the so uth to the nort h ;
there is no need to turn or to bend . Chan si mply means
'by way of ' or 'en ro ute.'
Line s 11 - 12. "M y flag is of fi g-l eaves, bou nd wit h
basil , /Its curved halya rd , of iris ; its canton , of or-
chird ." These two li nes are a descri ption of the flag that
the chariot of the Lord of the Hsia ng bears. But they used
to be taken as a description of a boat . My translatio n is
139
14
based on the expli cat ion of of Wen I-to . There is a
patter n in the descri ptio n of a chariot . The horses and
the car come fi rst , often followed im mediatel y by the flag
or banners whic h that chariot bears . To cite two exampl es :
the Junior Lord of Live s came "In a whirl wind chariot with
clou d banners," and the chariot of the Lord of the East is
"Dragon-shaft ed , wit h a car of thu nder desig n /Bearing cl oud
banners that twi st and trail ." Origi nall y the flag ident i
fied the soci al st at us of the owner of the chariot . The
cl osest modern counte rpart that I can thin k of is the make
of a motor wehi cle follo wed by its specific model name ,
such as Ford Musta ng .
Lines 29-30 . "At dawn I galloped besi de the Great
River ; /At dusk I rei ned my horses on the nort hern isl e. "
These two li nes are ir refutable evide nce that the flying
dragon is a chariot .
Line 31 . "The birds were perching on the roof " in di
cates the ti me . It is eve ni ng , the ti me to begin the
seance . Compare "Hearing that Shaman Hsien is about to
descend in the evening , /I prepare the st rained pepper wine
to invite him ( Li sao , 1. 141).
11
Line 32 . "And the water encircled the hall " indi cates
the pl ace where th e god , the Lord of the Hsia ng , will be
landing . It is the same pl ace where the bridal chamber is
bui lt in the next song .
14 0
Line s 33-34 . A possi ble reason for dropping the thumb -
ring and the gi rdle-gem is that the Lord of the Hsiang is
rushing to meet his beloved goddess . It is easy for people
to drop things when they rush along . Compare a passage in
"Fit for Emperors and Kings ," Chuang Tzu : "In Cheng there
was a shaman of the gods named Chi Hsie n . He could tell
whet her men would li ve or die , survive or peris h , be fortu-
nate or unfortu nate , live a long ti me or die young , and he
would predict the year , month , week , and day as though he
were a god hi mself . When the people of Cheng saw him , they
1 5
dropped everything and ran out of his way. " Another
possi ble reason is to jettiso n al beit symboli call y so that
the flying chariot would be lighter and faster .
Line 36. The one there belo w (hsi a �) , like the
dist ant one (ytlan che , 1. 38 , HFJ) , is a term of endearment .
Si mi lar te rms are 't he separated one ' (l i chtl , 1. 18, TSM) ,
1 dear iris 1 (sun , 11 . 6 and 26 , SSM) , 1 the one from the
dis tant shore ' (chi ££, 1. 8, HP), and 't he one I mi ss '
(shou ssu, 1. 8, SK ) .
14 1
THE LADY OF THE HSIANG
( HSIANG FU JEN )
HFJ : The Prince of God descends on the northern is le .
It saddens me to st rain my eyes wi thout seei ng him .
Soft and gentle the autumn wind blo ws .
The waves of Tung-t ' ing rise and the lea ve s of tr ees
fall .
HC : Up on the white-se dge knoll I survey.
I have a tr yst with my fair one at sunset .
Why do the bi rds gather in the duckweed?
And what is the fish -net doing on the tree- to p ?
HFJ : The Yfian has its angelicas ; the Li its orchi ds .
I th ink of my young lord , but dare not speak .
In a daze I loo k at the dis ta nce ;
All I see are the swirling water s.
HC : Why does the elk browse in the courty ard?
Why does the dragon come to the water brin k?
At daybreak I galloped my horses on the ri ver bank ;
At sunset I reached the weste rn shore .
I heard that my fair one had summoned me .
I wish I could take off with her in my chariot .
14 2
CRS: Let us build a bridal chamber in the water ,
And thatch it with a roof of lot us lea ves ,
With walls of iris , an altar of purple shel ls ,
And the hall is st rewn with sweet-sce nted pepper,
Beams of cassi a , rafters of tre e-orchi ds ,
Lint el of magnoli a, a bower of peonie s.
Fig lea ves woven to make a curtai n .
Spl it basil plaited into a mat
To be held wit h a weig ht of white jade ,
And st rewn with rock-orchid , that it may smel l sweet .
Angelicas laid on the lotus roofing
And twined wit h bast of asarum .
A hundred fragrant plant s shall fill th e courtyard ,
And of delig htful perfume s are the porc h and gate .
Many-colored is the Chiu-i surrounded wit h welc omers .
The descending of the Spirit looks li ke clou ds .
HFJ : I threw my sle eves into the Great River ,
I cast down my chemi se on the shore of the Li .
On the sand bar I have plucked the galingale
To gi ve to the dist ant one .
BOTH:Good times are hard to come by ,
Let 's make the most of our reuni on .
14 3
COMMENT ARY
The lyricis m of "the Lady of the Hsiang " is diff ic ult
to co nvey in an Englis h tra nslation . But it is generall y
acknow ledged that the first fo ur li nes of this poem is the
best of the Nine Son gs , and perhap s also the best of the
entire entire ant holog y .
Thi s so ng, like the previ ous one , is a duet , to be su ng
in turn by the go ddess and the god of the Hsia ng. I have
divided the poem into seven stanzas of unequal lengths .
Stanza 5, the longe st one , which is about the building of
a bridal chamber for the sacred marriage , can of co urse be
sung by the Lord of Hsiang . But as the stanza is a co m
pletely obj ective narrat io n , it is more reasonable to assign
it to the chorus .
In the first fo ur stanzas the god dess and the god of
the Hsiang are lo oking for each ot her in vain , whic h I
beli eve is a co mmonp lace theme in love poet ry. As this so ng
is dedicated to the Lady of the Hsia ng, she is the invi ted
godde ss who descends from the sk y . Naturall y the Lord of
the Hsia ng will pla y the role of the ho st (o r the invoke r)
to welcome her . So when the building of the bridal chamber
is com pleted , she rushes do wn from the blue .
Line 1. The phrase, 'the Princ e of God (t i tzu) , 1 has
created great havo c in the inter pretation of this so ng.
14 4
Many com mentators use this as a piece of evi dence to support
16
the theor y that Hsia ng Chfin is the daug hter of Yao , not
realiz ing that if thi s were inde ed the case , both poems
would beco me an accou nt of the lesbia n love between the two
daug hters of Yao , or the two conc ubine s of Shun. "The
Princ e of Go d, " like "you ng lord (kung tzu)" in li ne 10,
refers to the Lord of the Hsiang .
Line 33 . Chiu-i ( JL � ) , or the Nine Preci pito us
Peaks , is a part of the Hsiang Mou ntain on an is land in Lake
Tung-t 1ing. This , to my mind , co uld be represented by a
rai sed platform on the stage. The Lord of the Hsiang and a
host of female shamans surround ed this imagined mou ntain to
welco me the descent of the godde ss .
Line s 35- 36 . "I threw my sleeves into the Great Riv er ,
/I cast do wn my chemi se on the shore of the Li " are perhaps
the earliest liter ary record of streaking . The Lady of the
Hsia ng is anything but cons ervati ve . The Co nfucian co mmen-
tators are embarrassed and maintain that the words for the
sleeve s (me i ) and the chemise (t'ie h ) are co rruptio ns of
- 17
one kin d or anot her .
14 5
THE SENIOR LORD OF LIVES
( TA SSU MING )
TSM: Open wide are the gates of Heaven !
My chariot is of black cl oud desig n .
I bid the gusty wind s be my vanguard ,
And order the sharp rain to la y the dust.
FI : My lord is descending in a spiral .
I' ll overpass the Mulberr y Grove to fo llow you .
TSM: Teeming wit h people are the Nine Lands .
Why is their life- span for me to deci de ?
FI : Hig h we soar , serenel y we glide ,
Pure ai r-borne , drivi ng yin and � ·
Speedil y , lor d , we go toget her .
I will conduct you to Chiu -kang .
CRS : Float ing is the long vestment of God .
Dangling are his jade pendant s.
TSM : One yin and one �·
The mass do not know what I am doing .
14 6
FI : I pluck the gem-like flower of the sparse-hemp
To give to the separated one .
Very soon I will grow old ,
Not to st ic k close r is to drift furth er apart .
CRS: The harness bells ji ngle and ji ngle again .
Heavenwards the dragon chariot zooms .
FI : Long I st and , twi sti ng a cassia spray .
Why the more I think of him , the sadder I grow?
CRS: What is the use of growing sad der?
If only the present could st ay forever the same !
But man 's fate is fixed ;
His meetings and partings are not his to arrange .
14 7
COMMENTARY
Structural ly .thi s so ng is the mo st co mplicated one
among the Ni ne So ngs . It has only 28 li nes . But to make
sense out of it , I have di vided it into ten stanzas. The
god , the Senior Lord of Liv es , and the female in voker si ng
in duet wit h the chorus wedging in a few li nes of co mments.
Line 2. The chariot bo dy , or the box of the car, is
decorated with the cloud patter n , or yftnw en (� � ), one
of the pop ular decorative patterns of anci ent Chin a . Both
Waley and Ha wkes take the word 'sheng ' (
�
) as a verb , and
cons equently in their tra nslatio ns the god is ri ding on a
18
dark cloud , not in a chari ot .
Line 6. 1K1u ng- sang1 ( � � ) means the mulberry
grove , bei ng synon ymous wit h 'sang-lin , 1 the altar dedicated
to the God of Soil of the Shang people . The reference to
k'ung- sang suggests that the wor ship of the Senior Lord of
Lives mig ht have been of Shang origi n . All imp or tant public
events too k place on the alta r of the God of Soil , the
perfor mance of the suburban sacrifice was just one of
19
them . But in differe nt states the altar of the God of
Soil had differe nt names. A passage in Mo Tzu says , "Tsu
in Yen is li ke She- chi in Ch'i, sang-lin in Sung [the duchy
given to the descendants of the defeated Shang peo ple], and
Yft n-meng in Ch'u, a place where men and women gather to
14 8
20
si ghtsee." As we have seen in Chapter IV , the Mount Bo wl
of the state of Ch1e n was also the altar of the God of Soil .
Line 12. 1T i1 (� ) in thi s co ntext is a term the
female in voker uses to address the Senior Lord of Li ves . It
is not God on Hig h . Chiu-kang is Mount Kang in Ch1u. It
must have been a well-know n sacred place, for in 531 B.C.
King Ling of Ch'u exti nguis hed the state of Ts1a i and in the
eleventh month of that year he used Prince Yin of Ts'ai as
a vi cti m to make sacri fice to Mount Kang (Tso Chuan, Duke
Chao , 11t h year) .
Li nes 15-1 6. These two lines are ambig uous and sug
gestive . The god and the female in voker are in the same
chari ot .
Line 18 .
Line 21.
'The sepa rated one ' is a term of endearment.
Li ng-l ing is the so und of the bells, not the
so und of the wheels . One should remember that the chariot ,
like a modern fig hter , zo oms into the sky . No so und of
wheels co uld be heard.
14 9
THE JUNIOR LORD OF LIVES
(SHAO SSU MING )
FI : The autu mn orchid and the deer-fol der
Grow thic k belo w the roofed altar .
From green lea ves and white sterns
Gusts of fragrance assail me .
As all men are to have th eir lovel y chil dren,
Dear ir is , why should you be downcast and sad?
The autumn orchid is in its spl endor;
Green its leave s, purple its st erns .
Filled is the alta r wit h fair la die s.
But wit h mi ne only his eyes meet and his heart twine s!
CRS: He carne in wit hout a word and left without notice
In a whi rl wind chariot with cl oud banners .
No sorrow is greater than being separated ali ve ;
No joy greater tha n the moment of falling in love .
FI : In a lot us robe with a basil belt
Swi ftl y you carne , and as swiftl y went .
At ni ght you lodge in the suburb of the Ci ty of God .
Lord , for whom are you waiti ng amid the cl ouds?
I will wash your hair in the Pool of Heaven ,
And dry your hair in the Valley of Sun .
15 0
In vain I await my bonny one to come .
Again st the wind I wil dly shout my song .
CRS: With peacoc k canopy and kingf is her st reamers
Your chariot mount s to the ninth Heaven , where you
subdue the Broom-star .
Brandis hing the lo ng sword to protect the young ,
You alone , dear ir is , are fit to be the judge of man !
1 51
COMMENT ARY
The spea kers of thi s so ng are not di fficult to ident ify
if we are willi ng to take the cue from li ne 11: "He came in
without a word and left wit hout notice ." He refers to the
Junior Lord of Live s. Therefore onl y two vo ices are heard .
One is that of the female invok er . The ot her is that of the
chor us .
Line 2. T'a ng (� ) is the roofed alta r . It is often
bui lt upon a mo und, whi ch is called chin g ( � ) . The Ch'u
people were mou nd buil ders .
Line 6. Sun ( � ) , or Dear Iris , is a term of
endearment.
Line s 19 -20 . 'I will wash yo ur hair ' and 'I will dry
you r hair ' are co nventi onal expressio ns sho wing willi ngness
to se rve . But the base metals are transmuted into gol d when
co mbined with 'i n the Pool of Heaven' and 'i n the Valley of
Sun. '
Line 24. The Broom-s tar is Halley's co met , considered
as an inaus picio us omen .
152
THE RIVER GOD
(HO PO )
HP : With you I roam the Nine Rive rs ;
The head-wind rises and the waves dash .
We ride in a water chariot with lot us canop y .
The yoke-horses are dragons ; the trace , hornle ss ones .
Scali ng K'un-lun , I survey in all dire ctio ns .
My heart soars up wit h the vastne ss of the world .
The sun is about to set , but I am too happy to re turn ,
To part with the one from the dis tant shore .
FI : In the fish-scale house and the dragon hall ,
Through the purpl e-shell porta l of the pearl room ,
What is the god doing there in the water?
HP : In a chariot of white turtle chasing the spotted fis h
I wander wit h you on the is le of the river .
The ice thaws and the freshet begins to rush down .
FI : You fold your hands and j ourney east wards .
I see my bonny one off on the southern shore .
HP : The waves, surge on surge , come to meet me .
Fishe s, shoal after shoal , escort me on my way home .
15 3
COMMENTARY
The [Yel lo w ] River God is a god the Ch 'u people
carried with them when they were forced to migrate to the
south . He is usualll y very greedy and unpredi ct able . But
he appears qui te amiabl e here . That the River God ta ke s a
wife each year is a well -known myth . It is unfortuna te
that some tra nsl at ors would read that myth into the end of
th is inno cent little song , where I could not fi nd a si ngle
21
trace of human sacrifi ce .
Line 1. The Nine Rivers refer to the delt a of the
Yellow Riv er . The name s of the Nine Riv ers appear in
22
"Trib ute to Yt i, " the Book of Document s. But they are
mytho logi cal geographical names.
Line 4. The water chariot is drawn by four horses .
While the yoke-horses wear frontl ets of dragons , the tr ace-
horses wear frontlets of hornless dragons .
Line 5. The myth ic mountain K' un-lun is supposed to be
the source of the Yel lo w River .
Line 8. 'The one from the dis ta nt shore ( chi �) 1 is
a ter m of endearment, referri ng to the female invok er .
Line 9. I have disc ussed thi s li ne in detail in Chap-
ter V, "The Chariot as a Ri tual Vessel ."
154
THE MOUNTAIN GOD
( SHAN KUEI )
FI : There seems to be someone in the mountain fol d
Cl ad in fig -leave s, wit h a belt of mist let oe .
Gentle are his eyes ; wi nsome is his smi le .
"Do you adore me for my lovel y ways?"
SK : In a chariot of red le opard chasing the spotted lynx ,
With a cover of magnolia and a flag of cassi a ,
Cl ad in rock-orchi d , with a belt of gal ingal e,
I have gat hered a bouquet to give to the one I mi ss .
I live in a dark bamboo grove , where I never see
the sky .
The way was perilous and that 's why I am so late .
CRS: High on the mountain top the banner pole sta nds alone ;
Belo w it the clou ds gather in droves.
All is dark and murky even in day ti me ,
The east wind sweeps and the di vi ne rain fal ls .
FI : Dallying wit h a cert ain Spirit -guardia n he forgets
to return .
The year being advanced, who will befl ower me ?
I pluck the Thrice- blo ssoming in the mountains
15 5
Among tall boul ders and enta ngled win e-creepers .
I complain of my lo rd's forgetti ng to return .
Surel y he mi sses me but he ha s no time to come .
The person in the mountains is as fragrant as
galinga le ;
She drink s from the rocky spring and shelters under
the cypress shade .
I know he love s me , despite all mis givi ngs that arise .
The th under rumble s; the rain darkens the sky ;
The monkeys chatter ; the apes scream all night ;
The gusty wind soughs ; the tr ees rust le ;
To thin k of my lord is to incu r endle ss sorrow .
15 6
COMMENTARY
The tit le of this song , shan kuei , has been mislea ding
si nce the Ch'u Tz'u or the Songs of the South was compiled
by Wang I in the second century A.D. This is because by
then the word kuei denoted not hing but the ghost of a dead
person and its archaic usage , whi ch means an in vis ile being
and is int erchangeable with shen (god ) or li ng (spiri t) , wa s
forgot ten . Many comment ators are thu s led astra y . Wang I,
for example , suggests that shan kue i is si mi lar to k' uei , a
one-legged beast , or hsiao- yang , a monster mentio ned in
23
Huai -nan Tzu . Chu Hsi , for another example , says , "Ac-
cording to Kuo �' the nymphs of tr ees and st ones are called
k'uei and wan-lien (t he shapel ess) . Do they refer to thi s
24
(shan kue i )?"
A number of examples of the archaic usage of the word
kuei can be found in Mo Tzu . For example , Heaven , or God
on Hig h , is referred to in part II of "t he Will of Heaven"
chapter as t'i en kue i or heavenly ghost . Al so in the sec-
ti on ent itled "Explaining Ghosts ," Mo Tzu pla inly says :
"The ghosts of past and present are of three kinds only : the
ghost of Heaven , the ghosts of the mountains and rivers , and
25
the ghosts of men who have die d. " Shan kue i is doubtl ess
a mount ain god . He was worshipped by the Shang people as
26
yll eh in the oracle ins criptions . I believe shan kue i is a
15 7
male god , al though many modern Chine se cri tics maintain
27
that shan kue i is female . The Goddess of Wu Shan (or
Mount Shaman ) is another matter unrelated to shan kuei .
Line 5. I take the fi rst word sheng as a noun and the
rest of the li ne as an adje cti val phrase . The correct
readi ng of ts 'ung should be 't o chase ' or 't o pursue . 1 The
synta x of this li ne is exactly the same as li ne 12 of "t he
River God. "
Line 7. In li ne 2 the Mountain God is seen by the
female in voker from a dis tan ce , and she thinks he is "Clad
in fi g-lea ves , with a bel t of mistlet oe." But when the god
describes himsel f , he is "Clad in ro ck-orchid , with a belt
of gali ngale ." The dis crepancy is intent io nal and artist ic .
Line s 11 -14. The banner pole is part of the paraphre-
nalia that the shamaness uses to bring down the spirit .
This short st anza is sung by the chorus ri ght after the
in voker and the Mountain God have come tog et her . Clo uds
and rain are euphemi sms for sex.
Line s 15 -27 . We may assume that the meeting wa s over
from line 15. The female in voker begins to mak e complaint s
rig ht away . The way she make s her complai nts and the way
she descri be s herself , "The person in the mountain is as
fragrant as galing ale , /She drinks from the rocky spri ng
and shel ters under the cypress shade," mus t have been an
inspiratio n to Ch'll YUan when he composed hi s Li sao .
158
THE MARTYRS OF THE STATE
(KUO SHANG )
We wiel d the Wu halb erds and wear the rhino armours .
When the hubs of the chariots clash , we combat wit h short
weapons .
Flying colors darken the sun ; the foe come li ke droves of
cl ouds .
Through the cross-fire of arrows our warriors press forward .
They have crossed our li ne ; they have broken our ranks .
My left trace- horse is dead ; my ri ght one , wounded .
The two wheels are sunk ; the four horses, st uck .
We rai se the jade stic ks and beat the rolling drums .
The ti me is again st us and the awesome Spirits are angry .
Many of our warriors are killed and lie dead on the open
fi eld .
They have gone out , but are never to return .
The plains are wide and the way home is dista nt .
The lo ng swords are at the ir waist ; the Ch'i n bows , under
their arm .
Though their head s were severed, their heart s felt no
regret .
Martia l was their spirit ; and so well did they fig ht .
Str ong and st eadfast to the end , they could never be
vanqui shed .
15 9
Their bodies have peri shed , but their spir its are pote nt .
Their souls are the heroes among the dead .
16 0
COMMENTARY
"T he Martyrs of the State" is a hymn to the Ch1u so l
diers who died in action . The inc lusio n of this hymn in the
Nine So ngs is a very stro ng arg ument against the theor y that
they are of fol k origi n , for the co mmon people are not
like ly--in deed do not have the ri ght--to perfor m a ceremo ny
for the fallen warri ors . Only the head of a state has thi s
privile ge .
Line 1. The Wu halberds are halberds im ported from the
state of Wu, Ch'u's eastern neig hbo r. The rise of Wu was
recorded in 584 B.C. , and her fall in 473 B.C. Wu was the
mo st short- li ved state among the pow ers . Thi s gi ve s us a
useful gu ide- post in our dating of the Nine Son gs . See
Chapter VI , "A uthors hip and Dating ."
Line 4. The word shih ( :t ) denotes that the warriors
are office rs . It is reason able to assume that those who
went to war in chariots were noblemen , and tho se who went
on foot as foot so ldiers were co mmon ers.
Line 13. The Ch'i n bows , like the Wu halberds , are
im ported weapons . Ch1in is Ch'u's western neig hbor , and is
the state whi ch fi nall y unif ies Chi na. As the dead have
lon g swords at their waist , one suspects that they are
office rs .
16 1
A TRIBUTE TO THE SPIRITS
(LI HUN)
The rites are accom pli shed to the beati ng of the drums ;
The bou quet passes from dancer to dancer in the Tai dance ;
The lovel y maidens si ng in a slow and easy measure .
Like orc hids of spring and chrysanthemums of autu mn
The rites shall go on until the end of ti me .
16 2
COMMEN TARY
Thi s short poe m is an epil oque . It is used to see of f
all partic ipat ing gods and the so uls of the dead . The
titl e , li hun, is approp riate . In its narrow sense , the
word hun means so ul. The so ul is invi si ble , but it can
anima te � ' or the bod y . When a man is sic k or dreaming ,
hi s hun wanders away from his � · But when he dies , his
hun and � are separa ted fo rever . Therefore when a man's
hun and � are separated for too lo ng a ti me , he is in
danger of death. But in its broa d sense , hun inc lude s all
in vis ible beings , the Supreme God and all natu re gods . All
of them need so mething , an im perso nator , a tree , or a sto ne ,
to manif est themselves. In this sense , hun is a synonym of
li ng (the spirit ) or shen ( god ) .
16 3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 1
12
13
14
15
NOTES
Aoki Masaru's Soji Ky
u
ka nQ Bukyok uteki Kekko has been
translated into Chi nese by Sun Tso- yftn . See 11 Ch1u
Tz'u chi u-ko chih wu ch 'ft ti chi eh-kou ,1 1 in Ch)ng kou
wen- hsfteh shih lun-wen hsftan chi (T ai pei , 19 78 ,
pp. 18 9-201 .
Hugh J. Schon fiel d , trans., The So ng of Son gs (N ew
Yor k , 1959 ) , pp. 87-1 28.
See Bernhard Karlgren , The Boo k of Odes , p. 88.
Berthold Laufer , Jade: A Study of Chi nese Archaeo log y
and Reli gion , p. ss:- Tz'u Hai , p. 1314.
Wen I-to , Shen- hua � shi h (M ythol og y and Poet ry) , p.
273 and Chen Shih- hsia ng, 11 0n Structural Anal ysis of
the Ch'u Tz'u Ni ne Songs ,1 1 Tamkang Review 2 (A pril
1971): 7-1 4.
Waley, for example, renders thi s li ne as "The co ming
of many spirits covers the sun. " See Waley , The Nine
Songs : A Study of Shamani sm in Anci ent Chin a , p. 45 .
Wang I asserts that the sun god descends with a large
ento urage. See Ch1u Tz'u chang chft , p. 44 .
Chu Hsi , Ch'u Tz'u chi chu , vol . II , p. 8.
Waley , p. 46 .
Ch'ft Wan-li , Shih chin g chuan shi h , p. 392 .
Waley, The Book of So ngs , p. 226 .
This was obser ved in a public televi sio n do cumentary
series , "Explore ," aired by KCET in August, 1986.
Wang I, Ch'u Tz'u chang chft , p. 36 .
Wen , p. 288.
Burton Watson , trans., The Co mplete Wor ks of Chuan g
Tzu , pp. 94- 95 .
16 4
16 Wang I, p. 38 .
17 David Haw kes , for example, was infl uenced by the Co nfu
ci ani stic vie w and translated these two li nes as fol
lows : "I'l l throw my thumb-ring into the ri ver , /Leave
my thim ble in the bay of the Li ." See Hawkes, pp. 39
and 185.
18 Arthur Waley, The Ni ne Son gs : A Study of Shamani sm in
Ancie nt China , p. 37 an d David Ha wkes , p. 39 .
19 Ling Shun- sheng, "P'u -tz 'u chung she chih yen-chiu ,"
and Chft Tu ei-c hih , "She," both in Chung-k ou shang-ku
shi h lun-wen hsftan- chi , pp. 1011-1031 and 10 33- 40 res
pecti vely .
20 Burton Watso n, trans., Mo Tzu, p. 97 .
21 See for examples, Haw kes , p. 42 and Bur ton Watso n, The
Col umbia Book of Chine se Poet ry, p. 51 .
22 Clae Waltham, Shu Ching , pp. 39-54 .
23 Wang I, Ch'u Tz'u chang chll , p. 48
24
Chu Hsi, Ch'u Tz'u chi ch u , vol . II , p. 10.
25 Sun I-j ang, Mo Tzu chien ku, pp. 12 3 , 153 and Wat son ,
Mo Tzu, p. 107.
26 Ch1e n Meng-chia , P'u-tz 'u tsung shu, pp. 594-99 .
27
Sun Tso- yftn was the first scho lar who atte mpted to
co nnect the myth of the Godde ss of Wu Shan wit h shan
kuei . But his argu ments are not co nvin ci ng. See his
"Chiu ko sh an kuei k1a o," Tsi nghua Hsfteh- pao , XI , 4
(19 3 6) , 977-1 005 .
165
Fig ure 1 • A reconst ructio n of the Shang chariot in
M 20 (a fter Shih Chang-j u, Pei tsu mu-ts ang, p.28) .
Fig ure 2.
frontl et .
A reconst ruction of a hor se wearing a
The frontl et is in the shape of a hor ned
dragon (a fter Tseng Yung- i, I li ch 'e � k'ao , p. 150) .
16 6
Fig ure J. above Branz� fit-
ti ng used to deco rate the
chariot shaft (a fter Jessi ca
Rawson , Ancie nt Chin a : Art
and
A
rchaeolo gy , p. 1 02 ) o .
Fi gure 4o left Bronz e hor se
fron tlet (a fter Rawso n , po
102) 0
16 7
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. English Sou rces
Barnard , Noel . ed . Earl y Chi nese Art and Its Possi ble In
fluence in the Pacific Basin . New Yor k , 19 72 .
Cambell, Jos eph. The Hero wi th a Thous and Faces. Bollingen
Seri es XV II. New York : Pantheo n Books , 19 49 .
Chang Kwang-chih . Art, Myth , and Ri tual. Harvard Univer
si ty Press : Cambri dge , Massachusetts , and London ,
Engla nd , 1 983 .
Shang Ci vi liza tio n . New Haven and London : Yale
Uni versit y Press , 1980.
Chen , Shih-h sia ng. "On Structural Anal ysis of Ch1u Tz'u
Nine Songs ," Ta mkang Revie w , II (A pril , 1971): 3-1 4.
Chow , Tse-t sung. "A ncie nt Chi nese Wu Shama nism and Its
Relati onship to Sacrif ices , His to ry, Dance- Music and
Poe try, " Tsing Hwa Jo urnal of Chine se Studie s. New
Seri es XII , 1 & 2 (December , 19 79
)
, 1-59 .
"The Childbirth Myth and Ancie nt Chi nese Medi
ci ne : A Study of Aspects of the Wu Tra di tion ," in
Ancie nt China : Studies in Earl y Civi liza tio n . ed . David
T. Roy and Tsuen- hsuin Tsien . Hong Kong : The Chi nese
Univers it y Press , 19 78 , pp. 43 -89 .
Di osze gi , Vil mos . Po pular Beliefs and Fol klore Tradi ti on
in Siberia . Bloom ington : India na Univ ersit y, 19
6
8.
Tracing Shaman s in Siberi a . trans . from Hun
garia n by Anita Rajkay Babo . New York : Humani tie s
Press, Inc. , 1968 .
Diosze gi , V. and M. Hoppal , ed . Shama nism in Sibe ria .
Trans. S. Sim on . Budapest, 19 78 .
Dod ds , Eric R. The Greeks and the Irrati onal . Berkeley:
Univ ersit y of Cali fornia Press , 1951 .
16 8
Eberhard , Wolf ra m . The Loc al Cultures of So uth and East
China . Leide n , 19 68 .
Edsman, Carl Marti n , ed . Studi es in Shama ni sm . Sto ckholm :
Almq ui st & Wil sell, 19
6
?.
Elia de , Mi rcea. Shama nism : Archaic Techni ques of Ecstasy.
Tra ns . Willard R. Trask, Boll ingen Series ?b. Princ e
ton , 19 ?2 .
A His tor y of Reli gious Ideas . Vol . 2, From
Gautam a Buddha to the Triu mph of Chri stia nit y . Trans.
Willard R. Trask. The Uni versit y of Chi cago Press:
Chicago and London , 1982.
Ellwood , Jr., Robert S. Many Peo ples, Many Fait hs . 2nd ed .
Eaglewo od Clif fs , N. J. , Prentice- Hall, Inc. , 1982.
Grimal , Pierre , ed . Laro usse World Mytholog y . Tra ns . Pa
tricia Beardsworth . New Yor k , 1984.
Hall owe ll, A. Irvi ng. "Bear Ceremonial ism in the No rthern
Hemi sphere," Americ an Anthropol ogi st , XX VIII (1 926 ) :
4?- 65 .
Karlgren , Bernhard . "Legends and Cults of Anci ent Chin a,"
Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Anti quiti es . No .
18 (
19 4
6
)
:
199- 3
6
5.
-
-- 1950 .
Shu Ching : The Boo k of Do cuments. Sto ckhol m ,
The Book of Odes . Sto ckholem , 1950 .
Keig htley, David N. "The Relig io us Co mmitment : Shang Theo
log y and the Genesis of Chine se Politic al Cultu re," HR
17 (19 ?8) : 211-25 .
----
�
--· ed . The Origins of Chine se Civi liza tion . Berker
ley: Uni versit y of Calif or nia Pr ess , 1983 .
Laufer, Berthol d . Jade: A Study of Chine se Archaeolog y and
Reli gion . Chi cago : Fiel d Museum , 1912.
Lewis , I. M. Ec static Religio n : An Anthropo logical Study
of Spirit Po ssessi on and Sha ma nism . Harmon dswort h ,
Engla nd : Penguin , 19?1 .
16 9
Li Hui -lin . "T he Origin and Use of Cannabi s in Eastern
Asi a : Li ngui stic -C ultural Implic ations ," Econo mic Beta
�· 28 (19 74) : 293 -3 01.
Lomme l, Andreas. Shamani sm : The Beginnin g of Art. Trans .
Michael Bullo ck . New York , 19 7.
Maj or , Jo hn S. "Research Priorit ies in the Study of Ch'u
Religion," Hist or y of Reli gion . 17 (19 78) : 226-43 .
Mi chael, Henry N. ed . Studies in Si beria n Shama nism . To
ro nto , 19 63.
Murray, Henry A. ed . Myth and Mythmakin g . New York , 1960 .
No wak, Margaret and Stephen Durrant. The Tale of the Nisa n
Shamaness : A Manchu Fol k Epic . Seattle : Unive rsit y
of Washington Press , 19 77 .
Paper , Jo rdan. "T he Meaning of the 'T'a o-t 1i eh, '" History
of Reli gion . 18, 1 (A ugust, 19 78) : 18 -41 .
Rawso n , Jessi ca. Ancie nt Chin a : Art and Archaeolog y.
New Yor k , 1980 .
"Rob ust Life of the Shang," Li fe . Vol . 51 , No . 13 (September
29 , 1961), 82- 91.
Rohde , Erwin . Psyche : The Cult of Sou ls and Belief in
Immo rtality amon g the Greeks . trans .
�
B. Hill is .
London : Kegan Paul, 1925 .
Row ley, H. H. "The Song of Songs : an Examin ation of Recent
Theor y, " Jo urnal of the Ro yal Asi atic Society. (April ,
19 3 8) .
Salmon y , Alfred . Antler and Ton gue : � Essa y on Ancient
Chine se Symboli sm and Its im plic atio ns . As cona , 1954 .
Schafer , Edward . The Divi ne Woma n . Berkeley, 19 73 .
Schon fiel d , Hugh J. trans. The Son g of Songs . New Yor k ,
1959 .
Shirokogo roff , S. N. Psychomental Co mplex of the Tungus .
Lon don , 1935 .
"Sramana-Shaman. Etymolog y of the Word Shaman,"
NCBRAS. LV (1 924) : 105-1 30 .
170
Thom pso n , Laurence G. Chi nese Relig ion : An Introd uctio n .
Belmont , 19 69 .
Waley , Arthur. The Analects of Co nfucius . New York :
Vintage Books , 1938 .
-- The Boo k of So ngs . New Yor k , 1960.
The Ni ne So ngs : A Study of Shaman is m in Ancie nt
China . Allen and Unwin , 1955.
Waltham, Clae. Shu Chin g ( a mod erni zed edit ion of the
trans lation by James Legge). Chicago : Henry Regnery
Co . , 19 71 •
Waterbury, Flore nce . "Bird-De ities in China ," Artibus
Asiae , Supp lement X, Asco na, 1952 .
Waters , Geoffrey R. Three Elegies of Ch'u: An Intro ductio n
to the Traditio nal Interpretation of the Ch'u Tz1u.
The Univer si ty of Wis co nsi n Press , 1985 .
Watso n, Burton . Basic Writings of Mo Tzu , Hsfi n Tzu, and Han
Fei Tzu. New York and London : Col umbia Uni versit y
Press, 1967 .
The Com plete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York and
London : Col umbia Uni versity Press, 1970 .
Watso n , Will ia m . Archaeol og y in China . London : Max Par
ris h , 1960 .
Art of Dynastic China . Lo ndon : Thames and
Hudso n , 1981.
Cultural Fron tiers in Ancie nt East Asia . Edin
burgh, 1971 •
Earl y Civ iliza ti on in China . Londo n , 19 66 .
Wolf , Arthur P. ed . Reli gion and Rit ual in Chine se Societ y.
Sta nfor d , 19 7 4.
Yang, C. K. Reli gion in Chine se Soci ety. Berkeley , 1967 .
Yang, Hsi en- yi and Gladys Yang. The Li Sao and Other Poems
of Ch'ft Yftan . Fore ign Langu ages Press, Peking , 1953 .
171
II . Chine se So urces
Aoki Masaru w * .IE J[! • "Soj i Kyuka no Bukyokut eki Kekko ,"
Shin agaku 7 (19 34 ) . Thi s has be en translated in to
Chine se by Sun Tso -ytin f* fF � • "Ch 1u Tz 1u chiu -ko
chih wu ch 1ti ti chieh- kou "� m fL iJ\ z .. lib 1¥.9 �.
in Chung kou wen-hstieh shih lun-wen hstian chi $ � )(
�.se �-x ��
1978 ' pp. 18 9-201 •
Taipei: Hstieh-sheng Boo kstore
Chang Shou-ping 5i fi zp. • Han tai yti eh-fu Yi!. ytie h-fu ko
Tai pei : Kuan-wen
Bookstore , 1970 .
Chao Ying-sh an � '"!li:. = . Ku chin g-tu ng chi mi ng-w en yen-chiu
it W ill � � )( if�
Tai pei: The Co mmercial Press ,
1983 .
Ch 1 en Meng-chia
� � � • "Shang tai ti shen- hua ytl wu- shu"
r:fi ft B'9 jjj$ � � � J1
• Yen-chin g Hstle h-pa o 20
(19 36) : 486-576 .
Yin hsti p 1u -tz 1u tsung shu JN: � � tf k* �
Peking : Science Press, 1956 .
Cheng Kang-min 15 ,5.Jt
�
• "Li sao 1 hung 1 tzu chtieh 11 111 H
• Chi en-sh e ij! � 16: 12 (M ay, 1967 ) : 22- 23 .
Chu H . &.. .:§: Sl � ,'IT, Taipei :
Shih- chieh Boo kstore , 1972 .
172
Chtl Tuei-c hih -M }t -;Z • "She " ffd: • Chung-kou shang-ku shih
lun-wen hstia n-chi
9:r � J: if !£! fni )( � �
• Taip ei :
Hua- shih , 19 79 . Pp. 10 33- 40 .
"Shih wu" � � • Chung-k ou shang-ku shih lun-wen
hstl an-c hi . Tai pei : Hua-s hih , 19 79 . Pp. 991-1 009 .
Ch 'tl Wan-li fl:Pr � _m • Shang Shu chi shi h fbj �
�
�
Taip ei : Ching- lien , 1983 .
------ · Shih Ching chuan shi h �� • Tai pei :
Ching-l ien , 1983 .
Fu SSu- nien 1-f liT:$. • "Hsi n huo p 'u tz 'u hsie h pen ho u chi
Fu Ssu-n ien ch 1tl an
chi . III : 223 -69 . Taip ei : Ching- lie n , 1980 .
"Yi Hsi a tung hsi shuo " � � * 5 im . Fu
Ssu-n ien ch 'tl an chi . III : 86-1 57 . Taipei: Ching-l ie n ,
1980.
Hsu Cho -yun
�
q: 1.$ * Hsi Chou shih g§ JWJ 5e . Taipei :
Chien-lien , 1984.
Hu Shih iiij ;ii . 11 Tu Ch 'u Tz'u'" � �� • Hu Shih � ch 1u n
Taipe i, 1961 • iiij ;ij)(ff
Il Yon *-'- � Samguk yusa = �
llt $
(i n Chin ese) .
Taipei : The Ori ental Cultural Service , 1971.
Jao Tsung-yi � * � . Ch 'u tseng- shu shu cheng � ij �
i&1f m . Taipe i, 19 68 .
Lee Nung -hwa * 1-f� ¥ . Chao- hsie n wu shu k I ao JjfJJ m �
m � .
Taipei : The Ori ental Cult ural Service , 1971 .
173
Li Shih-chen * � � . Tu chtieh pen-t s 'ao kang-m u
[II $ * 1/f. � §
Taipe i: Ta-kuang , 1968 .
Li ang Ch ' i- hsiung � � ME • Hsti n Tzu chie n shih tD T
fliJ *-' . Taipei : Mu- to , 1983 .
Ling Shun-sheng � � !I . "Kuo Shang Li Htln yti kuo shou chi
hsiao
� 9j ff1 � � � § � It
. Bulleti n of the In-
stitute of Ethnolo gy . Academia Sinica 15 (1 961): 416- 7.
np 'u-tz 'u chung she chih yen-chiu" rt'f9=J iittz if�
Chung-k ou shang-ku shih lun-wen hsti an-chi 9=J � J: r!f .st!.
�jfij X �� . Taipei : Hua- shih , 19 79 . Pp. 1011-31 .
1ft Ssu-mien 8 ,FfJJ , *lJ • Hsien Ch ' in shi h % � .st!. • Taip ei :
The Co mmercial Press, 19 77 .
Mi Wen-kai and Pei Pu- hsie n J# X !jfj � � � � . Shih
ching hsin shang � yen chiu
��
� Jljz 1t �if �
4 vols . Taip ei : Hstieh-shen g Books tore , 19 64 , 1969 ,
1981 ' 1984.
Peng Yi
�
&Z "Ch 'u tz 'u chiu-ko ti mi ng-yi wen-ti ·�t'f}L
mx 8"1 � � r� fm
19 76) : 10 3- 24 .
• Shu-mu chi -kan . X, 2 (September ,
Shih Chang-j u ;£ ll\l :tal • "Yin tai ti ch ' e" JR f\j H9 .$ . Ta-lu
Tsa-chih * �. � XXX VI , 10 (19 68) : 31 7- 320 .
Sun I- j ang
f*
� jl . Mo Tzu chie n ku §! T 00 ffi5 • Taipei :
Shih-chi eh Bookstore , 19 82.
17 4
Sun Tso - ytin
f-* fF
�
"Chiu ko shan kuei k 1 ao 11
fL fX
UJ Jl-;jf; Tsinghua Hstieh- pao . XI , 4 (19 3 6) , 977-1 005 .
T 1 ai Ching- nung JE � :J.1 • Ch 1 u Tz 1 u t 1 ien � hsi n chie n
� II$
7( rJ1 � �
. Taipei : Yi- wen, 1972 .
Tseng Yung-i 1J 7k �. Yi li ch 1e ma k1a o fi iii $ ,t% -;If;
Taipei : Chung- hua Shu- chti , 1971 .
Tung Ming ii fJ: • Wan hsia ng : Chia- ku wen shih hua chi
�
� : lfi 1f Y:.
�
if � Taip ei : Hsing -tai , 19 7 4.
Tz 1u Hai
II$
rfi
Wang I :±
�
.
[Ci Hai ]. Shangh ai : Hsin- hua, 19 79 .
Ch 1 u tz 1 u chang chti � II$ � 1V • Taipei :
Shih- chie h Bookstore , 1972 .
Wang Yti -tse :± .::&: ff . "Ch 1 u tsu ku ti chi chi chien i lu
hsie n" � �I!& :tfu Ik. jt � f$ � � . Chung-kou
Shang-ku shih lun-wen hsti an-chi , pp. 619- 49 .
Wen I- to Pif - � • Shen- hua ;yJ!_ shi h Iii$ �
�
�
Tai chung: Lan-teng , 1975 .
Wen Chung-i Y:. * - . Ch 1 u wen- hua yen-chiu �
X ft if � .
Bulleti n of the Instit ute of Ethnolog y, Academia
Sini ca, Speci al Issue 12 (19 67) : 1-196.
Yu Tse- ch 1 eng rJfi. � :71\ • Ch 1 u Tz 1 u kai lun
�
1$ mt fnft
Taipei : Li-j en , 1982 .
Ytian Ko 'jt fJiJ • Shan hai ching chiao chu
W rfi
�
�
t±
Taipei : Li-j en , 1982.
175
GLOSSARY
An-yang tJi. �
Aoki Masaru
W *
lE 5e,
Cha-cha- ung � � :1$
chan il',
Chan-kuo ts 1 e
� � �
Chang ri ver �
Changhua, Mound of •
¥
Z If
Chao , state of M!
chao PB
Chao hun fB �
Ch 1 ao- ko � 11\
chen lia ng
� �
Ch1e n �
Ch 1en-fu � �
Cheng$
Cheng wo mao shi h
7fi. ft � ±
Cheng- wu Hsie n � � �
Ch 1 eng-p 1u, battle of
�
�
Chi , ki ng of Hsi a �
Chi , province j{
chi
�
Chi -chie n � til
Chi clan t!j2
Chi famil y *�
Chi Hsien
Chi- lie n
chi
.2.!!
Chi t1 ung
Chi Tzu
Ch1i
*19\t
*�
�rm
��
)tr
�
Chia ng Y tlan � �
Ch 1 iang-ch 1 ia ng
W jjf
Chia ngnan IT. 1¥J
chiao
�
chien
�
Chie n hsi
1m �
Chie n Ti
fm ax
ch 1ie n
-f- Chin
chin ch 1 e
rf1 :$
chin lu
�
Jim
Chin t 1 eng�
}Jl
Ch1in, state of �
Ch1in �
Ch1in Tuei �
�
Ching , the tribe s of
ff U
176
chin g , mou nd *
Ching-ch 1 u
:ffU �
chin g shan
jf( W
ch 1 in g , title g�p
ch 1ing
� flf
�
chi u cheng
� IE
Chiu-i
JL
�
Chiu -chia ng
JL
tl
Chiu -kang
JL �
Chi u ko JL ilf}\
Chou , ki ng of Shang t-i
Chou dynasty
mJ
Chou li
fflJ ff!t
chu
fi!R
Chu-fa n � �
Chu Hsi *:;I
chu meng
*:
00
Ch1u
Ch 1 u-ching
Ch 1 u-chiu
Ch1u ts1i
ch 1u tz1u
ch 1u tu
----
Ch1u
;yJ!
chti tsa ng
� :ffU
�£i:
�Y(
� II$
W&
�"Hi. lll=t
fe �
chuan "
Chuan Hsti � :iJ{
Chuang Tzu#± T
ch 1 un kuan :tf: 11f
chtin
�
Chtin Shih
� �
Chung-sh an 9:t W
Chung-sh an Fu {tp W .;t
Chung Tzu {tp T
Ch1u ng £
Ch 1 ung chung �
{tp
Ch 1 ung-li
£ �
Ch 1ti Ytian
Jffi !w:
Ch1ti Wan-li )ffi � lt!
Duke Chou mJ �
Duke Chuang of Lu
t-m:�
Duke Huan of Ch1i
�m �
Duke Hsi of Lu 1- 1j
�
Duke Yin of Lu 1- 1M
�
Duke Wen of Wei ifi )(
�
Duke Wen of Sung SR )(
�
Emperor Wu of Han� :it ijW
fang tsia ng
1J �
Fang Shu
1J
!:(
fei lung �
1m
17 7
u-ch 'ai
�
�
u-ch ti
m
ill
u-ch tin
�
�
u Ssu- nie n {f. ;ltJf 1f=:
u t'i en m EE
ai wai hsi chin g m ?'!- I§ �
an chiao shih shi h chiu ko
-- --- ---
an dynasty �
an river �
::l- lti � i�
::ln an foJ ffi
)U Chi �==- fm
11=1 'I�
3i
�
3i
�
3i hao
I§ S$
3i a �
3i a-ao � 1Jj(
3i a
jJ!. l' 1J:
3i a tai -fu
l' A �
liang (i mpersonat or ) �§
liang (m usic )
�
liang chu11n
#§ �
1iang fu-,j en
#B�A
hsia ng lu
� �
Hsiang ri ver
#§
Hsia ng-t 'u m ±
hsiao sun
*=
f*
hsiao tsung
E.2. 1J \ * 1s
Hsie h , ancestor of Shang �
Hsie h , sacri fi ce tf
Hsie n
J9X.
hsie n
J9X.
Hsien -ytin 1/1 ai1C
Hsiu-fu f;;f\ �
Hsiu ng-chien ��
hsti
�
Hsti � g:
Hsti Shen � g: ��
hstian min g
1;: �
Hstieh -h siung 1\. ��
Hstin Tzu 115
T
Hu J1e
Hua-ytian ¥ 7G
Huai , the (barbarians ) �
Huai ri ver �
Huai- nan-t zu
tft ffi T
huang li u
Ji w;
Hui -j en
'ff A
17 8
hun
5t
hung
�
i
�
I- 121 ien Tuei
lK Jt.j
�
lt 1oi;y]!
t{�t{ {;W
J a-ch ung '*' *
- �� .:Ju
Kan- ch 1 tlan it *
Kao Yang l§j �
ke 1 u
lljt Jim
keng yin
FJ! ji{
King Chuang of Ch 1 u
�
m: :E
King Ch 1 eng of Chou mJ J1X; :E
King Chao of Chou mJ ag :E
King Hstl an of Chou mJ '§" :E
King Huai of Ch 1u
� � :E
King K 1 ang of Ch 1 u
� it
:E
King Kung of Ch 1u
� #
:E
King Ling of Ch 1u
� if :E
King Mu of Chou mJ fjl
:E
King Wen )( :E
King Wu of Chou mJ JEt :E
Kuan Chung rg {qt
Kuan-ku f1 �
Kuan-she Fu f1
M
3i:.
Kuan Shu 'if�
kuei .*
Kuei -.i en a A
K1u ei �
K 1u n- wu Jt �
K1 un- lun � �
kung
I
kung tzu
� -T
k 1u ng-s ang �
*
Kuo lJm
Kuo- 12o Tuei
� 19 �
Kuo shang
�
�
Kuo vft � §E.
-- cL...::::. 1=11=1
Lee Nung -hwa * �� :¥
lei
m
leiwen
m �
Li , clan �
Li , river tf
King Wu-l ing of Chao � JEt
if :E Li Chia- yu
*
� #i
ko
m
li chtl • J\5
Li hun ir.lllt .;:m
- -- 11! 2.: :Yib
17 9
li -min
�
Ri
Li Nit- hsit * 1J::. �
Li sao
1J1 Ji
Liao ffit
li ng
Ji
li ng-h si u
111 �
li ng-lin g
••
Liu Hsia ngjlj 1fiJ
Lo aft
Lord of the Yello w River
fnJ
1 8
Lord Yitan of Sung * 7G !t
Lu :t
Lu-c hung
Lit hsin g
��
g 7fiJ
Mi , clan of Ch 1u �
Miao ""00"
Ming §lj
Ming-i pi eh-lu
� � JJU if<
Ming-ku ng Tuei
§lj � �
Mo Tzu �
r
.!!!.!!. lU * �
Mu t 1 ie n-tzu chuan
8 "X. r {.$
Namhae
f¥j
:$
nan chin
� tou
nan wu
--
ni
W!
f¥j 4£
f¥js:{-
�
�
Lit-shih ch 1 un- ch 1 iu
g
.fl:j ff tJ( Nit Hsit
1;::
�
luan tao
It J]
1 ung chou
fi �
.$M
rna
.�
rna -fen
jji Jt
ma- p 1 o
M f}J
Mao =§
mao shih
� ±
mei
�
Meng- chu , swamps of jE �
Mi , cit y of �
nit
!!.£
1;:: �
P 1 an Tang fi: •
Pao �
Pao- chtl � �
�rm
Pen-ts 1 ao Chi ng
* 1fi
�
Pen-ts 1 ao kang-mu
* 1fi Jn §
P1e ng �
P 1 eng-tsu � /i![
Pi , battle of �
18 0
pin �
Pin , flute Iii
Po Ch1in 18 *
Po Yung 18 Jf
�
�
�c hiao
r �
P 1 yon gyang zp. 41
Samguk yusa =
� � JJ
sang-l in
*
fit\
Sao ssu mi ng
� r:lj fJ:J
sha
�
Shaman Hsie n 86. f9X.
Shaman P 1 eng 86.
�
Shaman Yang 86. �
Shan hai chin g
!lJ #fj *�
Shan ku ei
!lJ
*
Shang dynasty ffiff
Shang shu
f6j
�
shang tai- fu
J: 7\. �
Shao- hao (}' �
she
ifd:
shen
fil $
shen
� fi($
)jjij
Shen-n ung fil $
:1.1
shen pao
fi($ f*
shen shi h 1if$ ±
sheng , bi rth 4:
sheng , chariot �
sheng lei
� 1fi
Sheng min
4:
tR;
sheng £Q yftan hsi tsung �
shih , im persona tor ?
shih , market place fP
shih , sacri fice ie
shih , scholar ±
Shih ching ��
Shou-meng W
�
Shu JJ
Shuo- wen chi eh-t zu Wt 3t. $ *
Shuo yftan
Wt m
Ssu-f ei !§1m 'f.
� � ifi
)jjij
sun �
ssu-ma 'i=i'1 a=
H.J I�
Sung, state of SK
Sung, of the Shih ching �
ta lu fan yin i chiu7\.
�
�*!-Jlit
18 1
Ta ssu mi ng
*
P] -6lJ
ta tsung .2.2.
*
* 18
Ta Wu * [.!(;
t 1 ai chu :;t
!ifR
T1 ai-i �-
T 1 ai Ssu :;t PPJ,
T 1 ai Wang:;t .:E
Tan
�
�
T1a ng, fo under of Shang �
T1a ng dynasty �
t1a ng, adjec tive �
t1a ng, roofed altar�
Tangun ;t1 �
tao
i§
t 1 ao-t 1 ie h
"¥ �
Ti , barbaria n tribe s fk
ti -fu
lfi
n�
ti tu
�U M.
ti tzu
lfi
T
t 1 ieh
�
t 1 ie n-fu
7( Jff
t 1 ien kuei
7( .7[
t 1 ie n shih
1ijJ �ffi
T 1 ie n-tsu
E8
ff rEI.
T 1 ie n-t sfi n E8
�
T 1 ie n tsfin chi hsi
ffi
�
�:a=
T I ien wen
7( rJJ
ti ng
WJ!.
Ting , surname WJ!.
Ting , star }:E
tsa, sacrifice �
Tsai- lu Deeps $- � Z iJm
Ts1a i, state of �
Tsan-hu .o:"'- +!:1
� 1=11:1
Tsao 1f!1
Tsao- hsing if �
Ts 1 en-yang fit
�
tseng sun
Tseng Tzu
Tso chuan
tso u chia
t su
ffrEI.
tsun
;ft
tsung*
tsung
ffE
jl fffi
Wl7
tc{t
��
Tung huang tai i
* � :;t -
Tung-t 1 ing jfilj &g
18 2
Tzu Chung
T
1�
Tzu Ytl
T 35:
Tzu Ytlan
T 7G
Tz 1u Hai
fi$ ¥ffj
�;J;
Wang Chi
.:E
*
Wang chu chiao .:E
tfj �
Wang I .:E �
Wei, state of 1lj
Wei, King Ling 's name mg
Wen Wang X .:E
Wo tsia ng
ft jj?f
wu , dance 1tft
Wu , sham an B6
Wu , state of �
W
IE
u, surname "ft:.
Wu-chtl {fi �
Wu-hui � 1EJ
Wu Shan B6 !lJ
Wu-ti ng, King of Yin :1ft T
Yan Provi nce yt; �+I
�
�
Yao , Emperor �
yen , sacrifice �
Yen , provin ce �
yin
�
Yin , dynasty �
Ying , capital of Ch'u �
...
iD!.li}
Yu chie h iD!. ch 1 i {& 11- {& J1:
Yu- jung tf ��
Ytl M
zi!.�
zi!. chin �
�
Ytl Chtl
�J3.
yti -,j en IJA
Ytl- mei
��
Ytlan dynasty 7G
ytlan che
� �
Ytlan Mei 'it. fZ
Ytlan
Y}!_ � )Iff
Ytl eh �
ytieh chang
if jji
Ytl eh-j en ko
�
A
11\
Ytl eh li ng
JJ 43- ytl eh tsu tai pao
�
�Jl ft f@
Ytln chung chtln
� 9=t ;;g
Ytl n-meng
�
�
Yung
g
18 3

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

The Nine Songs: A reexamination of shamanism in ancient China

PDF

Post-verbal phenomena in colloquial Persian syntax

PDF

Syntactic reanalysis in early English

PDF

Seeing ghosts: readings on the effectivity of phantasms

PDF

The contemplative landscape: allegories of space in cinema

PDF

Modernization and standardization in Somali press writing

PDF

Racism in the United States: a history of the anti-miscegenation legislation and litigation

PDF

The theater schools of Michel Saint-Denis: a quest for style

PDF

The vulnerable self of the adult child of an alcoholic: a phenomenologically derived theory

PDF

The German church music of Christian Andreas Schulze (1660-1699)

PDF

The writing laboratory in colleges and universities

PDF

The Liber introductorius of Michael Scot

PDF

The district office as an institution of development

PDF

Strategies of meaning: a study of the aesthetic and the musical language of Luciano Berio

PDF

Diana on Roman coins

PDF

The cultural history of Los Angeles, 1850-1967: from rural backwash to world center

PDF

Assertion and modality

PDF

Historiographic study of Plutarch's Tiberius Gracchus

PDF

The role of the military in traditional societies: the impact of military rule on Libya's modernization and political development

PDF

Mental health professional's decision making in child custody evaluation related to divorce: an analogue study

Asset Metadata

Creator Chen, David Tze-yun (author)

Core Title The nine songs: a reexamination of shamanism in ancient China

Contributor Digitized by Interlibrary Loan Department (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Defense Date 12/01/1986

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-261184

Unique identifier UC11293895

Identifier etd-chendavidt-407446.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-261184 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-chendavidt-407446.pdf

Dmrecord 261184

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Chen, David Tze-yun

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA