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An Attempt to Understand the Taiyi Shengshui (1) |
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Carine
Defoort, Leuven
Paper (1) The Reconstruction of a Text "The Grand One generates water" is a short text recently discovered in Jingmen, close to the Warring States' capital of Chu. Although it was only preserved as a loose collection of bambooslips mixed with many others, the Wen Wu editors reconstructed it into an independent text and gave it a title to go with. This reconstruction consisted of different steps. The first was to distinguish the various texts of the Guodian find; the second to determine the order of the slips of each text. The editors first set apart a group of slips from all others on the basis of material characteristics such as size (26.5 cm) and shape (flat top), the distance between the bindings of the slips (10.8 cm), and the calligraphy. This group was further divided into two: the Laozi, bing and Taiyi sheng shui, the former containing passages reminiscent of the received Laozi text. Thus, the Laozi, bing and the Taiyi sheng shui could have belonged to one bundle and were described as one text in the first publications about this find. But the Wen Wu editors decided to present them separately because all the excavated Laozi material of the Guodian find can be found in the received Laozi, so that the inclusion of the Taiyi sheng shui would take exception to that fact. There are, moreover, differences between Taiyi sheng shui and the Laozi material, to which we turn later. Once that a set of 14 slips was set apart from the rest, a second major step in the reconstruction was to determine the order of the slips on the basis of grammar and content. The Wen Wu editors have reconstructed Taiyi sheng shui into three parts. The second part consists of only one dammaged bamboeslip, namely slip 9: "Heaven's way values the weak, slices off «d completion to augment generation. It punishes the strong, lays blame on...." Its length is difficult to determine because of the corruption of the slip, and therefore the slip may have belonged elsewhere, perhaps in Laozi, bing. Arguments not to move it are, first, that it would be the only line foreign to the received Laozi, and second, that it has connections with the preceding and following passages of Taiyi sheng shui. The link with the former lies in 'generation [ ]' and 'completion [ ].' If we follow Qiu Xiqui's reading of [ ] (instead of [ ]), line 9 seems to express a preferrence for 'generation' at the expence of 'completion'. But I have not been able to read the first passage (see below) in this light. The connection with the following passage may be the 'strong [ ]:' in the last line strength comes about below as a counterpart of "not enough" high in the sky (see further). Setting aside this one line, we have two major parts consisting of relatively coherent passages: the former (slip 1-8) is some sort of cosmological sequencing, longer than and different from what we have in the Laozi, but similar to passages in other texts. The latter (slip 10-14) is a more difficult passage. It makes the link to a more concrete level, talking about naming, success in affairs, not getting harmed, the position of the sage, etc... What both passages seem to share is the idea that full order in movement--whether cosmological or more practical--is based on a quiet and vacuous center, an invisible powerful source of continuous and visible order. In cosmology, the center is unique and hides in water, while everything engendered by it is ordered in sets of two (yinyang, cold-heat, damp-dry) or four (the seasons) and results in a complete year. In human affairs, order depends on names, which themselves rely on the unnameable. Clusters of Concepts Although scholars have raised suspicion about the attribution of clearly divided schools (jia) to the Zhou dynasty, and about the existence of a Daoist school or lineage (daojia) at the time of these discovered texts (late -4 or very early -3 century) , there is nevertheless a general consensus that the three Laozi bundles and Taiyi sheng shui could be grouped together as what we recognize as Daoist. The other texts of the find are generally associated with Confucianism--or perhaps with one particular branch of it, namely the lost Zisizi. Let us only say that the Taiyi sheng shui contains a high concentration of ideas, values or terms usually associated with Daoist texts, and a relatively low presence of Confucian or other topics and terms. This is the first passage of Taiyi sheng shui, presented on the basis of the Wen Wu reconstruction and suggestions by other scholars. For the original text, I refer to the Wen Wu edition. ..... (Taiyi sheng shui, slips 1-8; Wen Wu, pp. 125-126) Although the occurrence of common terminology with the Laozi as opposed to other texts is inevitably a matter of degree, some terms are rather striking in their presence and others their absence. The terms from this passage that remind one most strikingly of the Laozi are 'water', 'returning', 'mother' and 'One'; more common are terms such as 'great', 'heaven' and 'earth' (or 'heaven-and-earth') and 'generate'. But this passage also contains characteristics which are remarkably absent from the Laozi: 'Dayi' or 'Taiyi', 'spirit-and-illumination (shenming)' and the long cosmological sequence through yinyang, four seasons, cold-heat and damp-dry. Before interpreting this information, let us take a look at the second and more difficult passage. (Taiyi sheng shui, slips 10-14; Wen Wu, pp. 125-126) Especially the first part of this passage reminds one of some concerns expressed in the Laozi: 'calling (wei)' and 'names (ming)', the 'person (shen)' to live 'long (chang)' without getting hurt and, much less exclusively, the 'sage (shengren)' having 'success (gong)' in 'affairs (shi)'. Taiyi sheng shui seems to accept more than the Laozi the inevitable reliance on words (ming and zi) in practical affairs. Although the relation between 'appalation (zi)' and 'name (ming)' is not totally clear to me, it seems that (as in Laozi, 25) the former is an 'appelation' that one can stick to something; but a 'name' is only reluctantly and vaguely given: in Laozi, 25 it is 'great' (da), here 'Pure dusk.' I depart here from the Wen Wu reading, and following Don Harper's suggestion to remain closer to the original text when reading [ ] ather than the Wen Wu emendations: qing wen [ ]. The passage ends with a remark that reminds one of the Huainanzi, 3 (tianwen) on the tilting down of the celestial dome which caused the north-western corner of the sky to fall down (making the earth below it high) and the south-eastern corner of the earth fall down (making the sky above it high). As a result, rivers flow from both high spots: the Milky Way from southeast to northwest in the sky and the Yellow river from northwest to southeast on earth: two major rivers originating from Taiyi holding everything together. The common terminology and concerns identified in the Laozi and Taiyi sheng shui are not meant here to prove that the newly discovered text is Daoist. A comparison with other texts or with Sima Tan's description of the 'Daoists' in Shiji, 130 would have brought up another selection of terms. Remark that the 'way (dao)' is mentioned only once, namely in the second passage, the 'way of heaven (tiandao)' only in the damaged slip between the two passages, and that the first passage concludes with a remark on the 'gentleman (junzi)'. The terms or topics in the two major passages that were identified as absent from the Laozi--most remarkably Taiyi, shenming, and the long cosmological list--are reminiscent of later texts (-3 and -2 cent. BC), including Sima Tan's description of daojia, the Huainanzi, some late chapters of the Zhuangzi, the Heguanzi, and Lüshi chunqiu etc... This suggests that Taiyi sheng shui, as opposed to what some scholars have suggested, postdates the Laozi.
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