Divination Manuals as Technology and the Standardization of Efficacy in Early China by Anna ...

158 Pages·2014·1.87 MB·English

Divining Bureaucracy:
Divination Manuals as Technology and the Standardization of Efficacy in
Early China

by
Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Asian Languages and Cultures)
in the University of Michigan
2014

Doctoral Committee:
Associate Professor Miranda D. Brown, Chair
Assistant Professor Benjamin Brose
Associate Professor Christian de Pee
Associate Professor Guolong Lai, University of Florida
Professor Donald S. Lopez Jr.
© Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer 2014
DEDICATION

For Jayme
For Elizabeth
For Ima and Abba

ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As spring slowly finds its way to Philadelphia, I find myself at the end of my
graduate career. The past seven years have been transformative in many ways, and I
am humbled and grateful to the people whose support and encouragement brought me
to this point.
I wish to thank my advisor, Miranda Brown, for her endless support and
advice at the University of Michigan and beyond. It is she who inspired me to expand
my work into early medical texts, and it is she who trained me. I am also profoundly
grateful to Christian de Pee and his support. He and I first met in 2003, when I was a
senior at Brooklyn College, and he inspired me to continue my education over the
next eleven years.
There are a number of excellent scholars in the Asian Languages and Cultures
department at the University of Michigan to whom I owe gratitude: Donald Lopez,
Benjamin Brose, Shuen-fu Lin, Bill Baxter, Deirdre de la Cruz, David Rolston, and
Varuni Bhatia, thank you.
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support for research, dissertation
writing, and language training in Taipei, Beijing, and Ann Arbor: The Department of
Asian Languages and Cultures, the Center for Chinese Studies, and Rackham
Graduate School at the University of Michigan provided the majority of my funding.
A generous Fulbright IIE grant provided me with the opportunity to spend a year at
Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.
I owe many scholars outside of the University of Michigan my sincere
appreciation: Guolong Lai at the University of Florida, Luo Xinhui at Beijing Normal
University, Andrew Meyer at Brooklyn College, and Ethan Harkness at New York
University.
In no particular order, thank you to my friends and colleagues all over the
world, whose kindness, patience, and encouragement pushed me forward. Erika
Kuever, Kate Monaghan, Brigid Vance, Annah Bender, John Whitefoot, Katie
Whitefoot, Candice Haddad, Jarod Kelly, Joseph Leach, Martino Dibeltulo, Joel
Tannenbaum, Heidi Saman, Juliette Genevaz, Menghsin Cindy Horng, Jessica
Robbins-Ruszkowski, Cat Cassel, Cameron Moore, Meredith Schweig, Brian Vivier,
and Molly Des Jardin. Thank you.
To my parents Sara Reguer and Raphael Fodde: your advice, support, and love
provided me with the emotional sustenance necessary to feed my intellect. To my
sister, Elizabeth, your constant encouragement and love is always invaluable. Thank
you.
Finally, thank you Jayme Guokas, a true partner in every sense of the word,
for your love and support.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
LIST OF FIGURES vi
LIST OF APPENDICES vii
CHAPTERS
I. Introduction 1
Introduction
Definitions and Further Discussion 6
Bureaucracy and the State in Early China 14
Divination: Historical Roots in Ancient China 19
Excavated Materials: A Brief Overview 22
Previous Interpretations of Divination 25
Medicine, Illness, and Healing in early China 26
Chapter Plan and Organization 29

II. Dream Divination as Technique in Early China and Connections to Early
Chinese Medicine 35
Introduction 35
Sources: Transmitted and Excavated 37
Dreams in a “Religious” or “Occult” Framework 44
Dream Divination as Technology: a Comparative Analysis with the Canon of
the Yellow Emperor 46
Conclusions 56
III. The Yinwan Manuals: An Example of Technological Manuals in the Han 58
Introduction 58
The Yinwan Manuals and Daybooks 61
The Yinwan Manuals 65
Comparisons to the Dream Divination Book 78
Conclusions 83
IV. Early Medical Manuals and Demonic Illness Etiology: A Comparison
between Shuihudi’s Demonic Accusations and Dunhuang’s Book on the
Occurrence of Illness (P. 2856 R° columns 23-81) 86
Introduction 86
Background and Context for the Dunhuang Mogao Caves 88
iv
Secondary Scholarship on P. 2856 R° 89
Demons and Illness 91
Talismans and Healing 94
Shuihudi’s Demonic Accusations (Jie) Text and the Quest for Health 104
The Book on Occurrence of Illness (2856 R°) and Methods of Healing 111
Comparisons and Conclusions 116
V. Conclusions 119
APPENDICES 123
BIBLIOGRAPHY 139

v
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure
1 Tortoise and Rain divination, Yinwan Tomb 6 69
2 Liubo Board divination, Yinwan Tomb 6 72
3 Reconstructed drawing of the TLV design and sexagenary cycle from the
liubo divination board 74
4 Medical Talisman, zi day 100
5 Medical Talisman, chou day 100
6 Talisman and Text from P. 2856 R°, Dunhuang 103

vi
LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix I: Yuelu Academy Dream Divination Book 123
Appendix II: Yinwan Divination Manuals 128
1. Supernatural Tortoise Divination 128
2. Rain Divination 129
3. Bo Pattern Divination 129
4. Acceptable Times for Punishment and Virtue 131
5. Auspcious/Inauspcious Travel Path 133

Appendix III: P. 2856 R° columns 23-81 135

vii
Chapter I: Introduction
Introduction:
For upper and lower echelons of society in early China, divination held an
important place as a means for advising one’s present and future. Divination manuals
discovered in archaeological digs of the 20th century and in recent years provide us
with a glimpse into the ways in which early Chinese thinkers divined and viewed the
divination process. The authors of divination manuals dating to early China (c. 220
B.C.E.-c. 400 C.E.) treated divination as a technology to gain access to hidden
empirical knowledge. By transcribing this knowledge in cosmological language and
through the use of diagrams, the authors of these manuals attempted to standardize
knowledge for capable readers. The manuals thereby mark a crucial departure from
ancient China (c. 1600-c. 300 B.C.E.), when divination authority was invested in
privileged individuals, whose skills were monopolized by the wealthy and powerful.
The standardization of divinatory techniques and hidden knowledge in these manuals
fits the context of bureaucratic expertise and the expanding scope of influence of
written culture in the early imperial period. Using an historical approach, I argue that
the knowledge recorded in divination manuals points to a view of divination as a
perfectible technique for the discovery of practical knowledge. I carefully
differentiate such information from the imagined perspective of the manual authors
and the manual users.
When considering the historical and cultural specifics of the Chinese context,
the term “divination” has a number of definitions, typically either involving deities
1
and other-worldly powers, or excluding such powers and focusing instead on
humanity’s relationship with the cosmos. Divination was used throughout the ancient
world as a means for understanding one’s place in the cosmos and attempting to
change one’s future. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, divination
is the practice of obtaining information about things in the future ordinarily removed
from regular perception by consulting informants other than humans.1 Scholars of
divination in China amend this definition by differentiating between “prognostication”
and “divination” as the former is concerned only with the future, while “divination” is
also concerned with the past and present.2 Lisa Raphals’ definition of divination as
gleaned from material in the History of the Han (Hanshu 漢書, dating to the first
century C.E.) is very explicit:
[Divination] may, but need not, involve interaction with a god or other extra-
human contact. Divine contact may be indirect, mediated by a system of signs
requiring interpretation, for example, when questions are put to signs present
in nature, but perceptible only to those with appropriate gifts. Or divination
may rely entirely on a hermeneutic system of signs with no divine agent
implied.3
Raphals recognizes that what is termed “divination” may or may not include contact
with deities and also comprises of multiple methods and practices.
In discussing divination as a perfectible technique, I refer to “the practical
abilities that allow a person to effectively perform easily and efficiently a given

1 James Hastings ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume IV:
Confirmation—Drama (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955), 775.
2 See Lisa Raphals, “Divination in the Han Shu Bibilographic Treatise,” Early China
32 (2008-2009): 47-48. The Chinese terms for “divination” also vary, sometimes
based on the method used (such as 龜卜guibu or 龜筮 guishi for divination by means
of a tortoise). The Chinese term zhan 占 means “to practice divination” and is usually
paired with bu 卜 (“to foretell,” “to predict”), creating a verb-object.
3 Ibid.
2