Chu silk manuscript
Encyclopedia
The Chu Silk Manuscript , also known as the Chu Silk Manuscript from Zidanku in Changsha , is a Chinese astrological and astronomical text. It was discovered in a (ca. 300 BCE) Warring States period
Warring States Period
The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...

 tomb from the southern Chinese state of Chu
Chu (state)
The State of Chu was a Zhou Dynasty vassal state in present-day central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States Period . Its ruling house had the surname Nai , and clan name Yan , later evolved to surname Mi , and clan name Xiong...

.

History

The provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...

 of the Chu Silk Manuscript is uncertain, like many illicit antiquities. Sometime between 1934 and 1942, grave robbers discovered it in a tomb near Zidanku (literally "bullet storehouse"), east of Changsha, Hunan Province. Archeologists later found the original tomb and dated it to around 300 BCE.

In 1946, the art collector Cai Jixiang (蔡季襄) owned the manuscript, and asked John Hadley Cox to transport it to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The philanthropist Arthur M. Sackler
Arthur M. Sackler
Arthur M. Sackler was an American psychiatrist, entrepreneur and philanthropist....

 purchased the ancient manuscript in 1965, and it is preserved in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery joins the Freer Gallery of Art to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Sackler celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2012....

 in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. Papers related to the manuscript can be found at the Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...

 and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

Recent excavations of Chu-period tombs have discovered historically comparable manuscripts written on fragile bamboo slips
Bamboo and wooden slips (writing material)
Bamboo and wooden slips were one of the main media for literacy in early China. The long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo typically carry a single column of brush-written text each, with space for several tens of Chinese characters. For longer texts, many slips may be bound together in sequence...

 and silk – the Chinese word zhubo (竹帛 literally "bamboo and silk") means "bamboo slips and silk (for writing); ancient books". The Chu Silk Manuscript was roughly contemporaneous with the (ca. 305 BCE) Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and (ca. 300 BCE) Guodian Chu Slips
Guodian Chu Slips
The Guodian Chu Slips were unearthed in 1993 in Tomb no. 1 of the Guodian tombs in Jingmen, Hubei. The archeological team suggested the tomb should be dated to the latter half of the Warring States period...

, and it preceded the (168 BCE) Mawangdui Silk Texts
Mawangdui Silk Texts
The Mawangdui Silk Texts are texts of Chinese philosophical and medical works written on silk and found at Mawangdui in China in 1973. They include some of the earliest attested manuscripts of existing texts such as the I Ching, two copies of the Tao Te Ching, one similar copy of Strategies of the...

. Its subject matter predates the (ca. 168 BCE) Han Dynasty silk Divination by Astrological and Meteorological Phenomena.

Content

The Chu Silk Manuscript is 47 cm long and 38 cm wide, with worn edges and folds. Exposure to light has made some portions dark and unreadable, but infrared photography
Infrared photography
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about...

 helped to decipher some illegible portions.

This silken document contains 926 ancient characters in three sections, each of which involves some aspect of the lunisolar
Lunisolar calendar
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year. If the solar year is defined as a tropical year then a lunisolar calendar will give an indication of the season; if it is taken as a sidereal year then the calendar will...

 Chinese calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

. Li and Cook (1999) call them the "Year (Inner Long Text)", "Seasons (Inner Short Text)", and "Months (Surrounding Text)".

The Inner Long and Short Text are alternate blocks, respectively with thirteen lines of text upright and with eight lines inverted (cf. Greek Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...

). Jao Tsung-I (Lawton 1991:178) proposes the former section is written right side up because it discusses the creation myths of the Chu people, and the latter is upside down because it describes events when heaven is in disarray.

The Surrounding Text in the four margins pictures a color-symbolic tree in each corner plus twelve masked zoomorphic figures with short descriptions. Scholars associate the twelve pictures with the Chu gods for the months and the four trees with the mythic pillars holding up the heavens. The Inner Short Text describes Gong Gong
Gong Gong
Gong Gong is a Chinese water god or sea monster, said to resemble a serpent or dragon. He is responsible for the great floods together with his associate, Xiang Yao , who had nine heads and the body of a snake....

 knocking down one heavenly pillar and causing the earth to tilt. Although these twelve figures have no certain interpretation, Loewe (1978:105) reasons, "it seems likely that they may represent twelve guardian gods or holy spirits, severally invested with powers of action for each of the twelve months. Alternatively they may represent twelve shamans or intermediaries, wearing masks and capable of communicating with such deities." Li Xueqin (1987) identified these twelve gods with the ancient names for the months given in the Erya
Erya
The Erya is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary or Chinese encyclopedia. Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from" the 3rd century BC....

(8/15, Chu 陬, Ru 如, Bing 寎, ...). The manuscript's sides represent the four directions and seasons. In traditional Chinese terms, the Four Symbols
Four Symbols (Chinese constellation)
The Four Symbols are four mythological creatures in the Chinese constellations. They are:*Azure Dragon of the East *Vermilion Bird of the South *White Tiger of the West *Black Tortoise of the North...

 are the Azure Dragon of the East (青龍), Vermillion Bird of the South (朱雀), White Tiger of the West
White Tiger (Chinese constellation)
The White Tiger is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the White Tiger of the West , and is known as Baihu in Chinese, Byakko in Japanese, Baekho in Korean and Bạch Hổ in Vietnamese...

 (白虎), and Black Tortoise of the North (玄武). Each direction is divided into seven sectors, constituting the Twenty-eight mansions
Twenty-eight mansions
The Twenty-eight Mansions , ', ' or ' are part of the Chinese constellations system. They can be considered as the equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in the Western astronomy, though the Twenty-eight Mansions reflect the movement of the Moon in a lunar month rather than the Sun in a solar year...

 (二十八宿) of the lunar month
Lunar month
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening...

.

The Chu Silk Manuscript concerns Chinese astronomy
Chinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...

 and Chinese astrology
Chinese astrology
Chinese astrology is based on the traditional astronomy and calendars. The development of Chinese astrology is tied to that of astronomy, which came to flourish during the Han Dynasty ....

, describes the creation myths of Fuxi and Nuwa
Nuwa
Nuwa or NUWA may refer to:*Nüwa, a Chinese creator goddess.*150 Nuwa, an asteroid.*National Workers' Union of Afghanistan.*Nuwa , Marvel Comics character....

, and reveals ancient religious perspectives and cosmogony
Cosmogony
Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek κοσμογονία , from κόσμος "cosmos, the world", and the root of γίνομαι / γέγονα "to be born, come about"...

. Li and Cook (1999:172) conclude that, "Generally, the writer of the manuscript was concerned that the calendar be used with proper respect and knowledge. Otherwise, the text threatens, cosmic collapse and evil catastrophic events would occur." Li and Cook identify the design with the shitu (式圖 "cosmic model diagram").
The Chu Silk Manuscript consists of both illustrations and texts; it is designed to resemble a divination board (shi; also sometimes called a diviner's board or cosmograph), which is itself a model of the cosmos. This type of instrument, of which several have been found in Han tombs, consists of a round board symbolizing heaven that can rotate on a pivot on top of a square board representing the earth. (1999:172)

This shi (式, literally "model; standard; form; pattern") or shipan (式盤) was the precursor for the luopan
Luopan
Luopan is a Chinese magnetic compass, also known as a Feng Shui compass. It is used by a Feng Shui consultant to determine the precise direction of a structure or other item. Since the invention of the compass for use in Feng Shui, traditional feng shui has required its use.-Form and Function:Like...

(羅盤) "Fengshui compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...

".

Translations

Interpreting the Chu Silk Manuscript's brush-written Chinese characters is especially difficult. Some of these ancient logographs are illegible and some are missing in lacuna
Lacuna (manuscripts)
A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...

. Others are what Barnard (1981:181) calls "descendantless graphs" unidentified with standard characters, which "may reflect something of the Ch'u (written) "dialect" rather than more general characteristics of pre-Han character structures."

Barnard (1973) provided the first English translation of the manuscript, followed by Li and Cook (1999). To illustrate the subject matter, the translated beginning of each section is quoted below. Note that the ellipsis "[…]" marks obliterated or untranslatable characters.

"Year (Inner Long Text)" has three subsections; warning about unnatural events if the months are improperly calibrated, stressing the importance of a proper calendar for an auspicious year from the gods, and cautioning people to respectfully sacrifice to the gods.
If […] and the length of the lunar months becomes too long or too short, then they will not fit the proper degree and spring, summer, autumn, and winter will [not] be […] regular; the sun, moon, and planets will erratically overstep their paths. When (the months) are too long, too short, contrary, or chaotic, (the growth of) the grasses and trees have no regularity. This is [called] yao, "demonic" (influences or omens). When heaven and earth create calamities, the Heaven's Cudgel (Tianpou) star creates (sweeping) destruction, sending (the destruction) down through all four regions (of the earth). Mountains collapse, springs gush forth geysers. This is called "contravention." If you contravene the years (and) the months, then upon entering the seventh or eighth day of the month there will be fog, frost, and clouds of dust, and you will not be able to function according (to heaven's plan). (tr. Li and Cook 1999:174)


"Seasons (Inner Short Text)" also has three subsections; describing how the gods separated heaven and earth and determined the four seasons, Yandi and Zhu Rong supported the heavens with five pillars of different colors, and Gong Gong
Gong Gong
Gong Gong is a Chinese water god or sea monster, said to resemble a serpent or dragon. He is responsible for the great floods together with his associate, Xiang Yao , who had nine heads and the body of a snake....

 divided time into periods, days, months, and years.
Long, long ago, Bao Xi of […] came from […] and lived in […]. His […] was […] and […] woman. It was confusing and dark, without […], […] water […] wind and rain were thus obstructed. He then married Zuwei […]'s granddaughter, named Nü Tian. She gave birth to four [… (children)] who then helped put things in motion making the transformations arrive according (to Heaven's plan). Relinquishing (this) duty, they then rested and acted (in turn) controlling the sidewalls (of the calendrical plan); they helped calculate time by steps. The separated (heaven) above and (earth) below. Since the mountains were out of order, they then named the mountains, rivers, and four seas. They arranged (themselves) by […] hot and cold qi. In order to cross mountains, rivers and streams (of various types) when there was as yet no sun or moon (for a guide), when the people traveled across mountains and rivers, the four gods stepped in succession to indicate the year; these are the four seasons. (tr. Li and Cook 1999:174)

This "stepped" refers to ritual Yubu (禹步 "Steps of Yu
Yu the Great
Yu the Great , was a legendary ruler of Ancient China famed for his introduction of flood control, inaugurating dynastic rule in China by founding the Xia Dynasty, and for his upright moral character....

", later known as bugang 步罡 "walking the guideline", Andersen 1989). Yu was the legendary founder of the Xia Dynasty
Xia Dynasty
The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...

 who controlled the Great Flood's waters and regulated the four seasons.

"Months (Surrounding Text)" in the margins has twelve subsections that picture the monthly gods and list their calendrical rules.
[The first month is called] Qu. (During this month) Yi will come. Do not […] kill (living beings). Renzi and bingzi are inauspicious (days). If you make […] and attack to the north, the general will come to evil, […]. [The month's complete title is] Quyuxia, "Pick from Below".

[The second month is called] Ru. (During this month) you can send out an army and build a city, but you cannot marry off a daughter or take in slaves. Don't regret if you cannot accomplish both. [The month's complete title is] Ruciwu, "Such is Military."

[The third month is called Bing.] (During this month) […] marry, raise domestic animals, […]. [The month's complete title is] Bingsichun, "Bing Controls Spring." (tr. Li and Cook 1999:175)

In this context, "Yi" (夷) refers to Dongyi
Dongyi
Dongyi was a collective term for people in eastern China and in lands located to the east of ancient China. People referred to as Dongyi vary across the ages.The early Dongyi culture was one of earliest neolithic cultures in China....

 "eastern barbarians", while renzi (壬子) and bingzi (丙子) are names in the sexagenary cycle
Sexagenary cycle
The Chinese sexagenary cycle , also known as the Stems-and-Branches , is a cycle of sixty terms used for recording days or years. It appears, as a means of recording days, in the first Chinese written texts, the Shang dynasty oracle bones from the late second millennium BC. Its use to record years...

 based on ten Heavenly Stems
Heavenly Stems
The ten Celestial or Heavenly Stems are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, ca. 1250 BC, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family members, who were offered sacrifices on the corresponding day...

 and twelve Earthly Branches
Earthly Branches
The Earthly Branches provide one Chinese system for reckoning time.This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of Suìxīng . Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years...

 (see the Chinese calendar correspondence table
Chinese calendar correspondence table
This table shows the stem/branch year names, correspondences to the Western calendar, and other related information for the current, 79th sexagenary cycle of the Chinese calendar ....

).

Textual genre

Several Chinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts, or Chinese canonical texts, today often refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Neo-Confucian titles of Four Books and Five Classics , a selection of short books and chapters from the voluminous collection called the Thirteen Classics. All of these pre-Qin texts...

 are comparable with the Chu Silk Manuscript. For instance, Major (1999:125) says it "anticipates later ritual and astrological calendars, such as the "Yueling" [月令 "Monthly Commands"] of the Lüshi chunqiu, in emphasizing the importance of performing certain actions and refraining from others in each month of the year in order to ensure safety and good fortune for the community as a whole."

In addition, Jao (1985, Lawton 1991:176) compares the manuscript with both the Tianguan shu (天官書 "Essay on Astronomy") in the Shiji (史記 "Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian
The Records of the Grand Historian, also known in English by the Chinese name Shiji , written from 109 BC to 91 BC, was the Magnum opus of Sima Qian, in which he recounted Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time...

") and the bamboo Rishu (日書 "Almanacs") from the Chu burials at Yunmeng and the Qin burials at Tianshui
Tianshui
Tianshui is the second largest city in Gansu province in northwest China. Its population is approximately 3,500,000.Tianshui lies along the route of the ancient Northern Silk Road at the Wei River, through which much of trade occurred between China and the west...

.

Within traditional terms for Chinese schools of thought, Li Ling
Li Ling
Li Ling may refer to:*Li Ling , Chinese general in the Han Dynasty*Li Ling , Chinese shot putter*Li Ling , Chinese pole vaulter*Li Ling , Chinese Sinologist...

 (1985, Lawton 1991:179) classifies the manuscript as the oldest example of shushu (數術 "numerals and skills"). "Shushu not only includes astronomy and the calendrical and mathematical sciences, but also the various related areas in divination (based on deduction) and physiognomy (based on observation)." Shushu contrasted with fangji (方技 "prescriptions and techniques"), which included Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...

, neidan
Neidan
Neidan, or internal alchemy, spiritual alchemy is a concept in Taoist Chinese alchemy. It is a series of physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines intended to prolong the life of the body and create an immortal spiritual body that would survive after death.In Neidan the human body becomes a...

, Taoist yoga
Taoist yoga
Taoist Yoga is the title of a 1999 book about Tao Yin, meditation techniques in Taoism.Traditionally and historically speaking, Daoyin practices are stretching exercises, and static postures, usually combined with breath-work...

, etc., and both specialties were associated with fangshi
Fangshi
Fangshi was a category of Chinese technical specialists that flourished from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE. English translations of fangshi encompass alchemist, astrologer, diviner, exorcist, geomancer, doctor, magician, mountebank, monk, mystic, necromancer, occultist,...

"diviners; magicians". "Shushu is primarily related to the universal order (hence, the cosmos), while fangji is primarily related to the human order (hence, the human body)." Li concludes the Chu Silk Manuscript's cosmic model was based on liuren (六壬) or Daliuren
Da Liu Ren
Da Liu Ren is a form of Chinese calendrical astrology dating from the later Warring States period.Along with the divination methods Qi Men Dun Jia 奇门遁甲 and Taiyi 太乙—collectively known as the "Three Styles" —Da Liu Ren is considered in China to be one of the highest forms of Chinese metaphysics.It...

(大六壬) calendrical astrology.

External links

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