Preface

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THOUGHT
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CHINESE THOUGHT
AN
EXPOSITION OF THE MAIN CHARACTER- ISTIC FEATURES OF THE CHINESE WORLD-CONCEPTION
DR. PAUL CARUS
BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE AUTHOR’S ESSAY “CHINESE PHILOSOPHY”
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY LONDON AGENTS
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. 1907
Copyright by
The Open Court Publishing Co 1907.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chinese Script i
The Communication of Thought, 2. — Stock Phrases and Staple Thoughts, 12.
Chinese Occultism 25
The Yih System, 25. — The Tablet of Destiny, 33. — Divination, 34. — Urim and Thummim, 36. — P‘an-Ku, 40. — The Five Elements, 41. — Systems of Enumeration, 50. — Feng-Shui, 55. — Lo-Pan, 5S. — The Mariner’s Compass a Chinese Invention, 64. — The Personification of Stars, 66.— Prehistoric Connections, 81.
Zodiacs of Different Nations 84
Primitive Interrelation of Mankind, 84. — Independent Parallels, 84-86. — Prehistoric Connections, 86-88. — Astrology and Kepler, 88-90. — Spread of the Babylonian Calendar, 90. — Greek and Roman Calendars, 91. — The Common Origin of All Zodiacs, 94. — Sagit- tarius and Asur, 96-97. — Sagittarius, Scorpio and Mithras, 97-98. — ■ Ahura and Asur, 99-100. — Constellations Older Than the Twelve Mansions, 100-103. — Changes in Names and Pictorial Representa- tions, 103-107. — Christ, the Scarab of God, 107. — The Chinese Zodiac, 108. — The Twelve Mansions in China, 110-112. — The Twelve
Double Hours, m-112.
A Throneless King and His Empire 113
Confucius, 1 13. — Filial Piety, 122.
Tlie Chinese Problem 136
Chinese Characteristics, 136. — Rev. R. Morrison’s Views, 140. — - Glimpses of Chinese History, 149. — China’s National Novel, 154. — Social Conditions, 164. — The Three Recognised Religions, 166. — - Christian Missions, 169. — Western Insolence, 175. — The Tai Ping Rebellion, 178. — The Yellow Peril, 183.
Conclusion,
187
CHINESE SCRIPT.
COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT.
T N China the most ancient mode of recording thought was accom- plished by chieh sheng (|* \) or “knotted cords,” which is
alluded to by Lao-Tze in his Tao Teh King , allilS,1 (written in the sixth century before Christ) as the ancient and venerable, though awkward, mode of writing, and also by Confucius in the third appendix to the Yih King.2
All detailed knowledge of the use of knotted cords in China has been entirely lost, but we can easily understand that it was a mnemo-technic method of remembering data of various kinds and communicating ideas. The same practice prevailed in ancient Peru as well as among the islanders of Oceania, and seems to have been common all over the globe among the peoples of a primitive civili- sation.
In South America the knotted cords are called “quippu” and some that are still preserved in ethnological collections were used to indicate the tribute to be paid to the Incas by the several tribes. They consist of woolen threads, the different colors of which repre- sent different kinds of produce : corn, wheat, fruits, furs, etc., while the number of knots register the amount or measure.3
'See Lao-Tze’s Tao Teh King, Chapter 80.
2 Section 23. See James Legge’s translation in Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XVI, p. 385.
3 What can be done with knotted strings is well illustrated by the fact that a string alphabet has been invented for the use of the blind in which the letters are indicated by form or arrangement. The knots are easily made
2
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Herodotus informs us that King Darius when fighting the Scythians gave his orders to the Ionians in the form of a leathern thong with sixty knots in it, thereby indicating the number of days in which they should expect his return. We thus see that the Per- sians employed the same mnemo-technic means that have been dis- covered in several South Sea islands as well as in America, and we may assume that the ancient Chinese knotted cords ( chieh sheng) also were in principle the same.
Knotted cords were replaced by notched bamboo sticks, and the incised characters may in olden times have been as primitive as are mnemotechnic communications of the American Indians, such as prayer-sticks and such other pictorial writings as are still extant.
* * *
The invention of writing in the proper sense of the word is credited to Ts'ang Hieh (5g£pt), also called Shih ‘Huang ( tjj ji), the “Record Sovereign” because he is the protector and patron saint of history and archival documents. He is said to have lived in the twenty-eighth century B. C., and having ascended a mountain overlooking the river Loh, he saw a divine tortoise rising from the water. It exhibited on its back mysterious tracings of letters which “lay bare the permutations of nature to devise a system of written records,”0 — a report which imputes that he saw the characters of the five elements on the tortoise’s back.
It is not impossible that Chinese writing has been introduced from ancient Mesopotamia, a theory vigorously advocated by M. Terrien de Lacouperie, rejected by many, but, after all, sufficiently probable to deserve serious consideration, for we cannot deny that many Chinese symbols exhibit a remarkable similarity to the ideo- grams of both ancient Babylonia and ancient Egypt, and remember- ing the fact that Chinese bottles have been discovered in Egyptian tombs and also in Asia minor, we cannot help granting that in prehistoric days there must have been more trade, and more travel, and a greater exchange of thought than is generally assumed.
and sufficiently different to be easily deciphered. The Standard Dictionary, II, p. 1780, contains an illustration of the string alphabet.
0 Mayers’s Chinese Readers Manual, p. 228, I, No. 756.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
3
We here reproduce from Garrick Mallery’s work on Picture Writing of the American Indians / a table of symbols which shows the cuneiform signs in three forms ; pictorial, hieratic, and cursive, the Chinese and the Egyptian in parallel columns.
A Comparison of the Cuneiform, Chinese, and Egyptian Systems of Writing. The words omitted in the Chinese column of Mr. Mallery’s
7 Ann. Rep. of the B. of Ethn., 1888-9, p. 675. Mr. Mallery does not state the source from which it is taken. It may be from W. St. Chad, Bos- cawen, or M. T. Lacouperie.
4
CHINESE THOUGHT.
table (God, ear, home) are not less remarkable instances than the others.
The word “God” is more similar than it appears if we were to judge merely from its external shape. In cuneiform writing as well as in Egyptian it is a star, and the Chinese word skill (fj^) shows a horizontal dash and underneath three perpendicular wave lines. This seems very different from the Babylonian and Egyptian conceptions, but the Chinese character is explained to mean “light from the sky” or “celestial manifestation,” the dash on top meaning “the heavens,” and the three vertical lines depict the emanations in the form of rays.
The character for “ear,” in its present form ^ (’rh), might very well have originated from the Babylonian. The same is true of the Chinese character that denotes “field,” or “farm land,” which may very well be used in the sense of “homestead.” The character t'ien (ffl) is in principle the same as the pictorial Babylonian and the hieroglyphic Egyptian.
Further, we have to add that the Chinese word meaning “corpse” is explained as “body lying” and thus resembles the Egyptian word for “mummy” which in different senses is repre- sented either as a standing or a lying mummy.
We have to correct a mistake in Mr. Mallery’s table; the word “half” in Chinese is not a cross, but either half a tree or the ideo- gram “cow” combined with the character “division.” A cross means “completion” and the complete number of our fingers, viz. “ten.”
Whether or not the theory of Lacouperie be tenable, one thing is sure, that all three systems of writing, the Babylonian, the Egyp- tian, and the Chinese, have begun with pictorial representations of the objects which, according to circumstances, were conventionalised in different ways.
The writing material always influences the character of a script. Thus, after the invention of brush and paper, the method of writing down from top to bottom was naturally retained, but the script acquired that peculiar picturesque character of brush dashes which it still possesses.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
5
The hair brush is called mao-pi, or simply pi (bamboo pencil),* and tradition states that General Meng T‘ien was the inventor of writing with a brush, — a statement which is not impossible but
tortoise, chariot, child. elephant, deer.
vase, hill, eye
kwei, chi, tsz', clang, luh, hu, shan, muh.
PICTORIAL WRITING CONVENTIONALISED.!
strange, for he was the most faithful servant of Shih Hwang Ti, the great hater of ancient literature, who on capital punishment ordered all the ancient books burned. Shih Hwang was a warlike emperor who ruled from 259 until 210 B. C., and for the first time (in 222 B. C.) united the entire Chinese empire under one scepter. He is the same who erected the great wall, so expensive and at the same time so useless, and General Meng T'ien was in command of the laborers. When the Emperor died, General Meng T‘ien is said to have committed suicide.* * * 8
We here reproduce a list of ornamental Chinese characters which are commonly, and without doubt rightly, assumed to repre- sent the most ancient forms of Chinese writing with a brush.
o
(3
Boundary (Q)
To revolve ( [n] )
0
To wrap (•&)
Mountain ( jjj )
* The character pi consists of the radical “bamboo” and the word
“brush” or “stylus.”
t Reproduced from Williams’s Middle Kingdom.
8 See Mayers, loc. cit., Nos. 597 and 497.
6
CHINESE THOUGHT.
).)\
Water (7JO
River (J|| )
Rain
Rain (later^ character)
Earth (±)
Elephant, Idea(^)
m
Bird (^)
Island (jJ'1‘1 )
Wings (^)
Grass
Grass
> ikli TV
$
Boy, Child (^p)
O
Q Constellation (J? ) ^ Star (|!)
$ Thread
€3
©
Wheel, Carriage ($)
Field (g)
ft
ft
itt
Thread
(another
form)
Wheat (^S.)
Tree (>fc)
Wood ($;)
Forest ($g)
Boundary (jf)
R
One-half (half
a tree) ( )
CD Ps.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
7
Fruit (^)
Sun ( g)
Moon )
Bright (Sun and Moon)
Bright (Moon shining in window)
Evening (A?)
Many (0)
Ear (5)
Heart (jfy)
Flesh (^j)
Mouth (tJ)
Teeth
^ Teeth ]AAI (later
yNDj form)
+
1
T
n
Muscle ( -ft)
Infant, Feeble (g)
Weak (infant
muscle) (£jfj)
Male (muscle working in field) )
Complete, ten (-f-) Middle (cjj)
Above C±)
Below (T)
Gate (H)
Between ([§))
Divide, (y\J Eight
To cut (^-)
8
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Crooked (ig)
| Humaneness (£)
Hatred (Crookedness ^ of heart) (jg)
5?
Cow (/£)
(f
Compare
Compare
it
Invert, change ( ^ )
Half (Cow divided) (d?)
Y Horns* ^ Conversion (ft )
=6
Sheep (^.)
Justice (my sheep) (||)
Beauty (large
sheep) (J|)
Looking backward,
To flee before enemy (North) ( ^[- )
Manyf
Multitude )
Man(x)
Most of the symbols of the list explain themselves. A “bound- ary” is a simple line of enclosure. “Revolve” is a curve. The mean- ing of the signs “to wrap,” “mountain,” “water,” “river,” “rain,” “horns,” “grass,” “child,” “constellation” or “star,” “thread,” “wheat,” “tree,” “fruit,” “sun,” “moon,” is obvious enough. The symbols “elephant,” “bird,” “heart” require more imagination ; but
* This character does not exist in modern Chinese, t Not used in modern Chinese.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
9
the original picture is still recognisable in them. The word “flesh” is meant as a slice of meat. “Mouth,” “teeth,” “eye,” are also in- tended to depict the objects. The word “muscle” represents the upper arm, and in connection with the word “weak” which origi- nally means also “infant,” it denotes “lack of strength.” A char- acter consisting of two lines, representing two pieces cut off, means “to divide.” Later the character “knife,” as the instrument by which the division is to be made, was added. Crooked roads mean “crooked” or “evil,” and in combination with the word “heart” we have the word “hatred.” In the symbol “cow” the horns form the most prominent part, the body being reduced to a mere cross. The symbol “cow” combined with the symbol “division” means “half.” The picture of a sheep shows the symbol “horns” on the top while the rest is scarcely recognisable. The symbol “sheep” in combi- nation with the symbol “mine” represents the character “justice,” because the ancient Chinese were shepherds, and their main quarrels in courts of justice were disputes about the ownership of sheep; and their idea of beauty was expressed by “a sheep” that is “great.” The symbol “middle” is easily understood and so are the symbols “below” and “above.” The character “gate” is a picture of a double doorway, and the character “between” shows a mark between the two posts of the gate. The character “sun” or “moon” and a picture of a “window” means “bright,” for if the moon shines into the window it denotes “brightness,” and “sun and moon” in their combination mean the same, viz., the best light there is in the world. The ideogram “moon,” if written in a special way, is read “evening,” and if “moon” is repeated it means “many evenings,” or simply “many.” The earth is represented by a horizontal line on which a cross stands, implying that the soil of the earth is stable; it is the place on which to take a stand. Two trees mean “wood,” three trees “forest.” If the tree is cut in two, it originally denotes “one-half,” later on it acquired the meaning “part or par- cel,” and finally “piece.”
The outline map of a field means “field” or “farm,” and lines limiting two fields mean “frontier” or “boundary.”
If the character “man,” of which only the legs are left, has the
IO
CHINESE THOUGHT.
symbol “two” attached to it, it means the relation which obtains between two or several people, viz., “humanity,” “humaneness,” or “kindness.” One man or two men turned the other way means “to compare.” A man upside down means “to invert,” “to change.” One man in his normal position, and the other upside down ac- quires the sense of “transformation” or “conversion.” One man in a normal position and another man looking the other way means “north,” for the Chinese determine directions by looking south ; hence, to look backward means “north.” The symbol consisting of three men means “many.” To this symbol is frequently attached the character “eye,” and thereby it acquires the meaning “many as a unit,” i. e., “a multitude.”
A pretty instance of Chinese word formation is the word shu (!?), which means “book” or “treatise,” and is composed of the characters “brush” and “speak,” the idea being that it is a thing in which “the brush speaks.”
There are several styles of Chinese script (shu'), and we here reproduce from Professor Williams’s Middle Kingdom (Vol. II, p. 594) a table which shows at a glance their similarities and dif- ferences. The most old-fashioned style is called “the seal script,” or, after the name of the inventor, Chuen Shu. The second is the official style, or Lieh Shu, used for engrossing documents and com- monly considered the most elegant form of writing. The third is called the pattern or normal style ( Kiai Shu) ; because it preserves most clearly the essential character of Chinese writing. The fourth is a shorthand and demotic style called cursive script or Hing10 Shu, much used in practical life. It is the most difficult for foreigners to read, as many lines are run together, thus obliterating the distinct- ness of the original character. The fifth style is called the grass script or Tsao Shu. It is almost an approach to the easy hand of the Japanese, and its name may be translated “fancy style.” Under the Sung dynasty a new style was adopted which is practically the same as the normal style, only showing more regularity, and it is
10Hing means “to walk,” “to run”; and as a noun the same character means “element.”
CHINESE SCRIPT.
II
Sung Fancy Cursive Normal Official Seal
style style style style style style
Writing has
six
styles, viz., seal,
viz., official,
viz., normal, viz.,
running or cursive,
viz.,
grass or
fancy
viz.,
Sung.
SIX DIFFERENT STYLES OF CHINESE WRITING.
(Reproduced from Williams’s Middle Kingdom.)
4 3 a _l
m
it
r
1
M
¥
Pi
JU
V *
* V
5?
«
#
ft
ft
j?
&
B
S
££
%
1-
fl
H
S
II
U
*4
iff
B
HI
Q
ft
lls
Vi
B

Hi
BJ
B
If
1
tor
3T
i C
B
HI
El
B
?
£
a
&
n
ft
B

&
EJ
0
ih
¥
w
&
J3fl
12
CHINESE THOUGHT.
commonly called Sung Shu which has become the pattern of modern Chinese print.
The writing of Chinese requires eight different kinds of dashes, and the word yung (jjt ), “eternal,” contains all of them. This significant character accordingly has become the typical word with which Chinese scholars start their calligraphic lessons.
ty
Spike Curve
T.
The little mark like a fat upward comma is called dot. Among the lines we have a horizontal and a perpendicular. Further there is a hook, which latter is added to the perpendicular by joining to its lower end a dot line. A dash is a short horizontal line. A taper- ing line downward is called a szveep, upward a spike, and a smaller sweep in the shape of a big downward comma, stroke. A crooked line is called a curve.
STOCK PHRASES AND STAPLE THOUGHTS.
The Chinese are in the habit of propounding their favorite notions and beliefs in enumerations. They are so accustomed to the mathematical conception of Yang and Yin that they would agree with Pythagoras who finds in number the explanation of the world.
The Chinese speak of the Hang i, i. e., the two primary forms representing the positive and negative principles. Further they speak of the two great luminaries, sun and moon ; the two divinities presiding over war and peace, the two emperors of antiquity, the two first dynasties, viz., the Hsia and Yin ; and the two venerable men that hailed the advent of the Chow dynasty, etc.
The number “three” plays an important part in Chinese enume- rations. There are three systems of religion authorised by the government: Confucianism, or the system of the Literati (fH ) ; Bud-
T 7 '1 %
/
Dot Hori- Perpen- Hook Dash Sweep zontal dicular
THE ELEMENTS OF CHINESE SCRIP'
CHINESE SCRIPT.
13
dhism, or the system of Sliakya Muni (g|) ; Taoism or the system of Lao Tze There are three kinds of heavenly light: of the
sun, the moon, and the stars. In Chinese ethics there are three forms of obedience: of a subject toward his sovereign, of the son toward his father, of a wife toward her husband. There are three mental qualities (ft) of a student: application (|g), memory (f£), understanding (j§). There are the three gems worshipped by Buddhists, the Buddha, the Dhaima, and the Sangha. There are
THE THREE GEMS OF BUDDHISM.
three pure ones or precious ones worshipped in the Taoist temples, probably in imitation of the Buddhist trinity. There are three cere- monial rituals ; one in worshipping heavenly spirits, another in wor- shipping spirits of the earth, and the third one in worshipping the spirits of ancestors. There are three sacrificial animals: the ox, the goat, the pig. There are three holy men: Yao, Shun, and Yii. There are three auspicious constellations: the constellation of hap- piness, the constellation of emolument, and the constellation of
14
CHINESE THOUGHT.
longevity. There are three kinds of abundance that is desirable: abundance of good fortune, abundance of years, abundance of sons There are three powers (= /f) of nature: heaven (A), earth (i&), man (A)- There are three regions of existence, the heavens, the earth and the waters. There are three degrees of kinship. Fur- ther there are three penal sentences : the death penalty, corporeal punishment, and imprisonment. There are three tribunals of jus- tice: the board of punishments, the court of judicature or appellate court, and the censorate or supreme court. There are three forms of taxation : land taxation, a service of twenty days labor each year, and tithes of the produce. There are three great rivers: the Yellow River, the Loh, and the I. There are three great river defiles: Kwang Tung, the Valley of the Yang Tse Kiang, and the defiles of the Si Ling on the Yellow River. There are three primordial sovereigns: Fuh Hi, Shen Nung, and Hwang Ti. In addition there are innumerable sets of three in the literature of the Confu- cianists, the Buddhists, the Taoists, and also in history.
The number “four” is not less frequent. We have four quad- rants and four divisions of the heavens ; the East is the division of the azure dragon, the North of the somber warrior, the South of the vermillion bird, and the West of the white tiger. There are four supernatural creatures considered as endowed with spirituality : lin ((!$) or unicorn, feng (K) or phoenix, kwei (aj!) or tortoise, and lung (|| ) or dragon. The scholar possesses four treasures (§2 ) : ink ( Jj|), paper ( $£), brush ), and ink slab (.si).11 There are four figures which originate by combining the two primordial essences in groups of two, the great yang, the small yang, the great yin and the small yin. There are four cardinal points and four members of the human frame.
Instances of the number “five” are above all the five blessings ( 2 jjijj ) : longevity (H), riches ( % ) , peacefulness ( ) and seren- ity (^), the love of virtue j§), and a happy consummation
of life ££ There are five eternal ideals ( $') :. humaneness
11 The Chinese have no ink stand but use a slab upon which they rub their ink, taking it as does a painter from a palette.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
15
(■£)> uprightness (H), propriety ( jjjg ) , insight (!?), and faith- fulness (ftf). There are five elements (3£ fj) : water, fire, wood, metal, earth. There are five cardinal relations among mankind: between sovereign and subject E), between father and son ( , between elder brother and younger brother ( Jj* ) , be- tween husband and wife f§ ), between friend and friend (jp] ;£). There are five genii : of spring, of summer, of mid-year, of autumn, and of winter. There are five beasts used for offerings : the ox, the goat, the pig, the dog, the fowl. There are five colors : black, red, azure, white, yellow. There are five classes of spiritual beings:
ghosts or disembodied human spirits, spiritual men, immortalised beings living in this world, deified spirits who have departed from the material world and live in the islands of the blest, and the celes- tial gods who enjoy perpetual life in heaven, There are five planets: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. Further the Buddhists enumerate five attributes of existence : form, perception, conscious- ness, action, and knowledge. There are five degrees of feudal rank, five tastes, five notes of harmony in music, five sacred mountains, five kinds of charioteering, five colors of clouds, five ancient em- perors, five imperial courts, five kinds of mourning, etc., etc.
THE FIVE IDEALS.
THE FIVE BLESSINGS.
i6
CHINESE THOUGHT.
THE FIVE BATS. (After a Tibetan picture.)
* The deity Wen Ch'ang points upward, indicating that all blessings come from heaven.
CHINESE SCRIPT.
17
The characters which stand for the five blessings, and also the five eternal ideals, are naturally the most popular symbols all over China. They are used for congratulations and are inscribed upon wall pendants as ornaments. Among them the characters “longev- ity” and “blessing” are most used of all. They appear upon the decanters of convivial meetings ; they are written on the bottom of tea cups ; they are wrought into artistic forms of furniture ; they
CHINESE SAUCER WITH PHOENIX AND DRAGON.
The centre contains the character fu “blessing.”
are used for buckles, on pins, on dresses, and as ornaments of every description.
Blessing is called fu in Chinese, which is an exact homophone of fu meaning “bat,” and so the five blessings, wu fu, are frequently represented by five bats.
The word “longevity” is commonly transcribed by sheu,* and
* The diphthong eu in sheu is to be pronounced separately and in conti- nental pronunciation, as English ay and with following u. Giles transcribes
i8
CHINESE THOUGHT.
means “old age, years, a long and prosperous life, birthday, to en- dure, forever,” etc., and is also euphemistically used for “death.”
I he popularity of the word exceeds every other perhaps in any language, and the character is conspicuous in China everywhere and in innumerable variations.
As an instance of this tend- ency we reproduce the adjoined illustration, which is a photo- graph of the upper part of one of three tablets containing speci- mens of ornamental characters meaning sheu, “long life-” The characters are over two inches in height, and are made of mother of pearl, in high relief, on a red background. On the three tablets there are altogether 180 different characters. The tab- lets belonged to the leader of the T‘ai Ping, the Christian Chinese sect who rebelled against the present Manchu dynasty and were subdued with the assist- ance of General Gordon. They passed into the hands of Julius Saur, who was at that time a resident of Shanghai, when he went to Nanking, in company with Captain Fishborn, to treat for peace.
The meaning of the symbol “longevity” is not limited to the secular meaning of long life in this world, but is endowed with religious signification verging on the idea of immortality among Western peoples.
the word shou. The character consists of radical 33 (pronounced see, i. e., “scholar”) and eleven additional strokes made up of the words “old,” “to speak” and “word.”
CHINESE SCRIPT.
l9
The star of longevity is Canopus, which is a of Argo.
Ancient traditions tell us that Si Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West, who lives in the Kwun Lun Mountains, possesses a peach-tree bearing fruit but once in three thousand years. From the
THE LONGEVITY SYMBOL IN DIFFERENT STYLES.
peaches of this tree the elixir of life can be distilled, and this is the reason why the peach symbolises longevity. Other symbols of longevity are the pine-tree, the crane, and the tortoise.*
* For special reference see De Groot’s Religious Systems of China, pp. 56-57-
20
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Of enumerations in sets of six we will only mention the six accomplishments: intelligence, humanity, holiness, sincerity, mod- eration (keeping the middle path), and benignity; further the six forms of writing: the seal character, the ancient official style, the normal style, the cursive style, the grass style, and the printer’s style.
There are fewer enumerations of seven than might be ex- pected. We mention the seven sages in the bamboo grove, the seven precious things (Sapta Ratna) of the Buddhists, the seven primary
THE CHARACTER ^ ON CUFF BUTTON. LONGEVITY PIN.
notes of music, the seven stars of Ursa Major commonly called “the dipper,” the seven apertures of the head : ears, eves, nostrils, and mouth; the seven luminaries: sun, moon, and the five planets; the seven emotions: joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hatred-, desire.
The most important set of eight is the eight kzva or trigrams. The figure “nine” is represented as the nine heavens, situated, one in the center, and the eight remaining ones in the eight divi- sions of the compass. There are further nine degrees of official
CHINESE SCRIPT.
21
rank, and nine divisions of the Great Plan, an ancient Chinese state document.
There are ten canonical books : the Book of Changes, the Book of Plistory, the Book of Odes, the Record of Rites, the Ritual of the
22
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Chow Dynasty, the Decorum Ritual, the Annals of Confucius, the Three Commentaries, the Conversations of Confucius ( Lun Yu), and the Book of Filial Piety. There are ten commandments and ten heinous offences.
Of twelve we have the twelve animals of the duodenary cycle called rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey, cock, dog, and pig. They preside, each one over a special hour of the day and the night and are supposed to exercise an influence peculiar to the character of the several animals. There are further
BUCKLE WITH CHARACTERS “LONGEVITY” AND “BLESSING.”
twelve months, corresponding to the twelve divisions of the ecliptic, and the Buddhists speak of the twelve Nidanas or links in the chain of causation.
The figure “twenty-eight” is important as the number of days of a lunar month. Accordingly, the heavens are divided into twenty- eight constellations or stellar mansions, and it is noteworthy that four days in the twenty-eight, corresponding to the Christian Sun- day, have been signified as resting-days and are denoted by the character mi ( tg Q ) which has been traced to the Persian Mithra
CHINESE SCRIPT.
23
and proves that, in remote antiquity, Mithraism must have exercised an influence upon Chinese habits.12
CRANE AND TORTOISE.* *
Symbols of long life. (Bronze candlestick.)
These enumerations are not accidental and indifferent notions, but form the staple thoughts of Chinese ethics. They have become
12 See Mr. A. Wylie’s article on the subject in the Chinese Recorder, Foo Chow, June and July numbers, 1871.
* The tortoise drags along the moss that has grown on its back.
24
CHINESE THOUGHT.
fundamental principles of Chinese morality and constitute the back- bone of the convictions of every half-way educated inhabitant of China. Whatever their station in life may be, all Chinese people know these ideas, they bear them in mind and allow their lives to be determined by the conception of the five eternal ideals, the five virtues, the five blessings, etc. They recognise in nature the funda-
THE LONGEVITY GARMENT.*
mental contrast of Yang and Yin as having originated from the great origin and believe that the moral world of social conditions is governed by the same law. Their highest ambition is to fulfil all the demands of hsicio, i. e., “filial piety.” Scholarship is highly respected, and even the lower classes are punctilious in the obser- vance of all rules of propriety.
* Reproduced from Professor De Groot’s Religious Systems of China, page 60.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
T3ELIEF in mysterious agencies characterises a certain period -LJ in the religious development of every nation. Even the Jews, distinguished among the Semites by their soberness, consulted Yah- veh through the Urim and Thummim, an oracle the nature of which is no longer definitely known. Kindred institutions among most nations are based upon primitive animism, or a belief in spirits, but in China we have a very peculiar mixture of logical clearness with fanciful superstitions. Chinese occultism is based upon a rational, nay a philosophical, or even mathematical, conception of existence. An original rationalism has here engendered a most luxurious growth of mysticism, and so the influence of occultism upon the people of the Middle Kingdom has been prolonged beyond measure.
THE YIH SYSTEM.
Among the ancient traditions of China there is a unique system of symbols called the yih (J^ ), i. e., “permutations” or “changes,”
THE TWO PRIMARY FORMS* (LIANG i).
THE YANG
THE YIH
Old form
o
•
—
* It is difficult to translate the term Liang I. One might call the two I “elements,” if that word were not used in another sense. The two / are commonly referred to as “Elementary Forms” or “Primary Forms.” De Groot speaks of them as “Regulators.”
26
CHINESE THOUGHT.
which consists of all possible combinations of two elements, called Hang i (pj^ $g), i- e-> the two elementary forms, which are the nega- tive principle, yin (1^), and the positive principle, yang (m). The four possible configurations of yang and yin in groups of two are called ssu shiang (0 §.), i. e., “the four [secondary] figures”; all further combinations of the elementary forms into groups of three or more are called kzva (^). In English, groups of three elementary forms are commonly called trigrams, and groups of six, hexagrams.
The book in which the permutations of yang and yin are re- corded, was raised in ancient times to the dignity of a canonical writing, a class of literature briefly called king in Chinese. Hence the book is known under the title of Yih King.
The Yih King is one of the most ancient, most curious, and most mysterious documents in the world. It is more mysterious than the pyramids of Egypt, more ancient than the Vedas of India, more curious than the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylon.
In the earliest writings, the yang is generally represented as a white disk and the yin as a black one ; but later on the former is replaced by one long dash denoting strength, the latter by two short dashes considered as a broken line to represent weakness. Disks are still used for diagrams, as in the Map of Ho and the Table of Lob, but the later method was usually employed, even before Con- fucius, for picturing kwa combinations.
The trigrams are endowed with symbolical meaning according to the way in which yin and yang lines are combined. They apply to all possible relations of life and so their significance varies.
Since olden times, the yih system has been considered a phil- osophical and religious panacea ; it is believed to solve all problems, to answer all questions, to heal all ills. He who understands the yih is supposed to possess the key to the riddle of the universe.
The yih is capable of representing all combinations of existence. The elements of the yih, yang the positive principle and yin the negative principle, stand for the elements of being. Yang means “bright,” and yin, “dark.” Yang is the principle of heaven; yin, the principle of the earth. Yang is the sun, yin is the moon. Yang is masculine and active ; yin is feminine and passive. The
THE FOUR FIGURES ( SSU SHIANG).
CHINESE OCCULTISM
27
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1 Unity in multiplicity, i. e., the Yang dominating over the Yin.
2 Multiplicity in unity, i. e., the Yin dominating over the Yang.
3 While the Yin major denotes dominion in the concrete world of material existence, the Yang major symbolises the superhuman and supernatural, the divine, the extraordinary, such as would be a genius on a throne, 'a great man in the highest sense of the word.
28
CHINESE THOUGHT.
former is motion ; the latter is rest. Yang is strong, rigid, lordlike ; yin is mild, pliable, submissive, wifelike. The struggle between, and the different mixture of, these two elementary contrasts, con- dition all the differences that prevail, the state of the elements, the nature of things, and also the character of the various personalities as well as the destinies of human beings.
The Yih King (Jg $?) is very old, for we find it mentioned as early as the year 1122 B. C., in the official records of the Chou dynasty, where we read that three different recensions of the work
THE EIGHT KWA FIGURES AND THE BINARY SYSTEM.
NAME
TRANSCRIP-
TION
MEANINGS OF THE CHINESE WORD*
KWA
BINARY
SYSTEM
ARABIC
NUMERALS
*
ch'ien
tui
li
to come out; to rise, sunrise; vig-
111
110
101
7
6
5
orous; (present meaning:) dry. to weigfh; to barter; permeable, to separate.
R
chan
sun
to quake; to thunder, peaceful; a stand or pedestal.
Ml III III III
100
Oil
4
3
t*
k'an
a pit; to dig a pit.
~ ~
010
2
R
kan
a limit; to stop; perverse.
— ~
001
1
Jrfjj
kw'un
earth; to nourish; yielding.
000
0
'A native student of the Yih system does not connect the usual meaning of the word with the names of the eight Kwas, and we insert here a translation of the character only for the sake of completeness.
were extant, the Lien Shan, the Kwei Ts‘ang and the Yih of Chon,1 of which, however, the last one alone has been preserved.
This Yih of Chou, our present Yih King, exhibits two arrange- ments of the kwa figures, of which one is attributed to their origi-
1 Lien Shan means “mountain range’’ and by some is supposed to be a nom de plume of Shen Nung (i. e. “divine husbandman”), the mythical ruler of ancient China (2737-2697 B. C.), successor to Fuh-Hi. Others identify Lien Shan with Fuh-Hi. Kwei Ts’ang means “reverted hoard” and mav have been simply an inversion of the Lien Shan arrangement. Its invention is assigned to the reign of Hwang Ti, “the Yellow Emperor,” the third of the three rulers, (2697-2597 B. C), a kind of a Chinese Numa Pompilius. The Chou redaction of the Yih, which is the latest one, is named after the Chou dynasty.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
29
nator, the legendary Fuh-Hi,2 the other to Wen Wang.3 Fuh-Hi is also called Feng,4 “wind,” and Tai Ho,5 “the great celestial,” and he lived, according to Chinese records, from 2852 to 2738 B. C.
It speaks well for the mathematical genius of the ancient found- ers of Chinese civilisation that the original order of the yih, attributed to Fuh-Hi, corresponds closely to Leibnitz’ Binary System of arith- metic. If we let the yin represent o and the yang, 1, it appears that the eight trigrams signify the first eight figures from 0-7, arranged in their proper arithmetical order, and read from below upward. Leibnitz knew the yih and speaks of it in terms of high
appreciation. Indeed it is not impossible that it suggested to him his idea of a binary system.
While Fuh-Hi’s system exhibits a mathematical order, Wen Wang’s is based upon considerations of occultism. It stands to reason that Fuh-Hi (by which name we understand that school, or founder of a school, that invented the yih) may not have grasped the full significance of his symbols in the line of abstract thought and especially in mathematics, but we must grant that he was a
FUH-HI.
33C 3£ 4M,
H
30
CHINESE THOUGHT.
mathematical genius, if not in fact, certainly potentially. As to further details our information is limited to legends.
The case is different with Wen Wang, for his life is inscribed on the pages of Chinese history and his character is well known.
The personal name of Wen Wang (i. e., the “scholar-king”) is Hsi-Peh, which means “Western Chief.” He was the Duke of Chou, one of the great vassals of the empire, and lived from 1231 to 1135 B. C. In his time the emperor was Chou-Sin, a degenerate debauche and a tyrant, the last of the Yin dynasty, who oppressed the people by reckless imposition and provoked a just rebellion. Wen Wang offended him and was long kept in prison, but his son
THE TRIGRAMS AS FAMILY RELATIONS.
Eldest
Second
Youngest
Eldest
Second
Youngest
Son
Son
Son
Daughter
Daughter
Daughter
mmm
Fa, surnamed Wu Wang, being forced into a conflict with Chou- Sin, overthrew the imperial forces. The tyrant died in the flames of his palace which had been ignited by his own hands. Wu Wang0 assumed the government and became the founder of the Chou dy- nasty which reigned from 1122 until 225 B. C.
Wen Wang was a man of earnest moral intentions, but with a hankering after occultism. During his imprisonment he occupied himself in his enforced leisure with the symbols of the yih, and found much comfort in the divinations which he believed to dis- cover in them. When he saw better days he considered that the
'Wu Wang was born 1169 B. C. ; he became emperor in 1122 B. C. an died 1 1 16 B. C.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
31
prophecies were fulfilled, and his faith in their occult meaning be- came more and more firmly established.7
The eight permutations of the trigrams apparently form the oldest part of the Yih King. They have been an object of contem- plation since time immemorial and their significance is set forth in various ways. The' trigrams consisting of three yang lines are called the unalloyed yang, and of three yin lines, the unalloyed yin. In the mixed groups the place of honor is at the bottom, and if they are conceived as family relations, the unalloyed yang represents
N.
S.
ARRANGEMENT OF TRIGRAMS ACCORDING TO FUH-HI.
the father and the unalloyed yin, the mother. The three sons are represented by the trigrams containing only one yang; the eldest son having yang in the lowest place, the second in the middle, and the third on top. The corresponding trigrams with only one yin line represent in the same way the three daughters.
The trigrams are also arranged both by Fuh-Hi and Wen Wang in the form of a mariner’s compass. In the system of Fuh-Hi the
7 Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 177.
32
CHINESE THOUGHT.
unalloyed yin stands at the north, the unalloyed yang at the south. The others are so arranged that those which correspond to I, 2, 3, of Leibnitz’ Binary System proceed from north through west to south in regular order, while 4, 5, 6, start from south taking the corresponding places in the east. In this mathematical arrange- ment we always have the opposed configurations in opposite quarters, so as to have for each place in every opposite kwa a yang line cor- respond with a yin line and vice versa; while if they are expressed
N.
S.
ARRANGEMENT OF TRIGRAMS ACCORDING TO WEN WANG.
in numbers of the binary system, their sums are always equal to seven.
Wen Wang rearranged the trigrams and abandoned entirely the mathematical order attributed to Fuh-Hi. The following quo- tation from the Yih King evinces the occultism which influenced his thoughts :
“All things endowed with life have their origin in chan, as chan corre- sponds to the east. They are in harmonious existence in siuen because siucn corresponds to the southeast. Li is brightness and renders all things visible
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
33
to one another, being the kwa which represents the south. Kw‘un is the earth from which all things endowed with life receive food. Tui corresponds to mid-autumn. Ch'ien is the kwa of the northwest. K‘an is water, the kwa of of the exact north representing distress, and unto it everything endowed with life reverts. Kan is the kwa of the northeast where living things both rise and terminate.”
Since this new arrangement is absolutely dependent on occult considerations, the grouping must appear quite arbitrary from the standpoint of pure mathematics. It is natural that with the growth of mysticism this arbitrariness increases and the original system is lost sight of.
The yin and yang elements are supposed to be the product of a differentiation from the t‘ai chill, “the grand limit,” i. e., the ab- solute or ultimate reality of all existence, which, containing both yang and yin in potential efficiency, existed in the beginning. The grand limit evolved the pure yang as ether or air, which precipi- tated the Milky Way, shaping the visible heaven or firmament ; while the yin coagulated and sank down to form the earth. But the earth contained enough of the yang to produce heat and life. Some unalloyed yang particles rose to form the sun, while correspondingly other unalloyed yin particles produced the moon, the two great lumi- naries, which in their turn begot the fixed stars.
THE TABLET OF DESTINY.
At the beginning of Chinese history stands a tablet which in some mysterious way is supposed to be connected with an explana- tion of the universe. It has been reconstructed by later Chinese thinkers and is pictured in the hands of Fuh-Hi as an arrangement of the kwa figures preserved in the Yili King. Considering the several traces of Babylonian traditions in ancient Chinese literature and folklore, would it not be justifiable to identify the tablet of Fuh-Hi with the ancient Babylonian “Tablet of Destiny” mentioned in the Enmeduranki Text, a copy of which was discovered in the archives of Asurbanipal20 and was said to contain the “Mystery of Heaven and Earth?”
“K2486 and K4364; cf. Zimmern, KAT3 533.
34
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Enmeduranki, king of Sippar, is the seventh of the aboriginal kings, and he declares that he received the divine tablet “from Anu, [Bel, and Ea].”21
Chinese sages have their own interpretation of the phrase “the mystery of heaven and earth.” They would at once associate the words “heaven” and “earth” with the two opposing principles yang and yin, and the question is whether among the ancient Sumerians there was not a similar tendency prevalent. It seems to be not im- possible that the Chinese tablet in the hands of Fuh-Hi is the same as the “Tablet of Destiny” of the Sumerians, and when some Assy- riologist has informed himself of the primitive Chinese conception of this mysterious tablet, he may be able to throw some additional light on the subject.
DIVINATION.
An explanation of the universe which derives all distinctions between things, conditions, relations, etc., from differences of mix- ture, must have appeared very plausible to the ancient sages of China, and we appreciate their acumen when we consider that even to-day advanced Western scientists of reputation attempt to explain the universe as a congeries of force-centers, acting either by attrac- tion or repulsion in analogy to positive and negative electricity. On the ground of this fact the educated Chinese insist with more than a mere semblance of truth, that the underlying idea of the Chinese world-conception is fully borne out and justified by the results of Western science.
While it is obvious that the leading idea of the yih is quite scientific, we observe that as soon as the Chinese thinkers tried to apply it a priori without a proper investigation of cause and effect, they abandoned more and more the abstract (and we may say, the purely mathematical) conception of the yang and yin, fell victims to occultism, and used the yih for divination purposes. When we compare the vagaries of the occultism of the yih with the accom-
21 Anu, Bel, and Ea are the Sumerian trinity. The words Bel and Ea are illegible on the tablet and have been restored by an unequivocal emendation. A doubtful word of the tablet has been translated by “omen” which pre- supposes that the translator regards the tablet as a means of divination.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
35
plishments of Western science, we may feel very wise and superior, but we should not forget that it was the same fallacious argument of wrong analogy which produced in China the many superstitious practices of the yih, and in the history of our civilisation, astrology, alchemy, and magic. These pseudo-sciences were taken seriously in the world of thought throughout the Middle Ages and began to be abolished only after the Reformation with the rise of genuine astronomy, genuine chemistry, and genuine nature science. If the
A DIVINATION OUTFIT.
Chinese are wrong we must remember that there was a time when we made the same mistake.
The Chinese outfit for divination consists of fifty stalks called “divining-sticks” and six small oblong blocks to represent the hexa- grams. These blocks are not unlike children’s building-blocks, but they bear on two adjoining sides incisions dividing the oblong faces into equal sections, so as to give the surface the appearance of a yin figure. The sticks are made of stalks of the milfoil plant ( ptar - mica sibirica) which is cultivated on the tomb of Confucius and re- garded as sacred.
36
CHINESE THOUGHT.
Pious people consult the oracle on all important occasions. They are first careful to make themselves clean, and then assume a calm and reverential attitude of mind. The diviner then takes out one stick and places it in a holder on the center of the table. This single stalk is called “the grand limit” ( t‘ai chih), the ultimate cause of existence. He next lifts the forty-nine remaining sticks above his forehead with his right hand, and divides them at random into two parts, at the same time holding his breath and concentrating his thoughts on the question to be answered. The sticks in the right hand are then placed on the table, and one is taken out from them and placed between the fourth and fifth fingers of the left hand. The three groups are now called heaven, earth and man. The left- hand group is then counted with the right hand in cycles of eight, and the number of the last group yields the lower trigram of the answer, called the inner complement. This number is counted after the oldest order of the eight trigrams, viz., that of Fuh-Hi corre- sponding to the inverted binary arrangement. The upper trigram, called the outer complement, is determined in the same way.
After the hexagram is determined, one special line is selected by the aid of the divining-sticks in the same way as before, except that instead of counting in cycles of eight, the diviner now counts in cycles of six. Having thus established the hexagram and a special line in it, he next consults the Yih King which contains a definite meaning for each hexagram as a whole, and also for each single line ; and this meaning is made the basis of the divine answer.
It is obvious that this complicated process presupposes a sim- pler one which, however, must have been in use in pre-historic times, for as far as Chinese history dates back the divining stalks and the kwa system are referred to in the oldest documents.
URIM AND THUMMIM.
The Chinese method of divination may help us to understand the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrews which are so ancient that details of their method are practically forgotten.
We notice first that the Urim and Thummim are two sets of symbols apparently forming a contrast similar to that of yin and
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
37
yang. It is not probable that they were a set of twelve gems repre- senting the twelve tribes of Israel. Secondly, like the yin and yang, the two sets must have been a plurality of elements and not only two symbols as is sometimes assumed ; and thirdly, they served the purpose of divination, for they are referred to in connection with the ephod which must have had something to do with the determin- ing oracle.
The Urim and Thummim* are translated in the Septuagintf by “manifestation and truth,” or, as it has been rendered in Eng- lish, “light and perfection.” It appears that the vowel in the first word is wrong, and we ought to read Orim, which is the plural form of Or, “light,” and might be translated by “the shining things.” If Thummim is to be derived from the root THAMAM, its vocali- sation ought to be thamim (not thummim ) and would mean “the completed things.”
We cannot doubt that the Urim and Thummim form a con- trast, and if the Urim represent “light” or yang, the Thummim would represent “darkness” or yin, the former being compared to the rise of the sun, the latter to the consummation of the day.
Sometimes the answer of the Urim and Thummim is between two alternatives (as in I Sam. xiv. 36 ff), some times a definite reply is given which would presuppose a more or less complicated system similar to the answers recorded in the Yih King. In the history of Saul (1 Sam. x. 22) the answer comes out, “Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff,” and in the time of the Judges (Judges xx. 28) the question is asked about the advisability of a raid against the tribe of Benjamin, and the oracle declares, “Go up; for to-morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.” On other occa- sions the oracle does not answer at all,$ and its silence is interpreted as due to the wrath of God.
The answer received by consulting the Urim and Thummim was regarded as the decision of God, and was actually called the voice of God. This view seems to have led in later times, when the process of divination was no longer understood, to the assump-
* C'Tjnn'l D'TNn f SfjXuaii; na'i akijdeia.
t See Sam. xiv. 3 7 and xxviii. 6.
3«
CHINESE THOUGHT.
tion that Yahveh’s voice could be heard in the Holy of Holies, a misinterpretation which is plainly recognisable in the story of the high priest Eleazar (Num. vii. 89).
The Urim and Thummim are frequently mentioned in close con- nection with the ephod which has been the subject of much dis- cussion. It is commonly assumed that the word is used in two senses, first as an article of apparel and secondly as a receptacle for Urim and Thummim. Unless we can find an interpretation which shows a connection between the two, we can be sure not to have rightly understood the original significance of this mysterious article. The description of the ephod in Exodus ii. 28, (an unques- tionably postexilic passage) is irreconcilable with the appearance, use or function which this curious object must have possessed ac- cording to our historical sources, and the latter alone can be re- garded as reliable. After considering all the passages in which the ephod is mentioned we have come to the conclusion that it was a pouch worn by the diviner who hung it around his loins using the string as a girdle.
The original meaning of ephod is “girdle” and the verb aphad means “to put on, to gird.” David, a strong believer in the Urim and Thummim, danced before the Lord “girded with an ephod,” and we must assume that according to the primitive fashion the diviner was otherwise naked. Hence he incurred the contempt of his wife Michal whose piety did not go so far as the king’s in wor- shiping Yahveh in this antiquated manner.
The main significance of the ephod in connection with the Urim and Thummim was to serve as a receptacle for the lots, and so it may very well have become customary to make it of a more costly and enduring material in the form of a vase. This will explain those passages in which the ephod is spoken of as being made of gold and standing on the altar, as where we are informed that the sword of Goliath had been deposited as a trophy wrapped in a mantle “behind the ephod.”
There are other passages in which “ephod” seems to be iden- tical with an idol, but if our interpretation be accepted there is no
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
39
difficulty in this, for the receptacle of the Urim and Thummim may very well have come to be regarded as an object of worship.
It is difficult to say whether the ephod is identical with the khoshen , the breastplate of the high priest, which in later postexilic usage was ornamented with twelve precious stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel. It is sure, however, that the Urim and Thummim cannot be identified with the twelve jewels, and the Hebrew words plainly indicate that they were placed inside as into a pouch. In Lev. xiii. 8 the verb nathan el, “to put into,” is used and not ncthan ‘al, “to put upon.”
The breastplate of the high priest seems to be the same as what is called in Babylonian history the “tables of judgment,” which also were worn on the breast. But the identification does not seem convincing. We would have to assume that the ephod was first worn around the loins after the fashion of a loin cloth and that later in a more civilised age when the priests were dressed in sacerdotal robes, it was suspended from the shoulders and hung upon the breast.
After Solomon’s time there is no longer any historical record of the use of the Urim and Thummim. It seems certain that in the post-exilic age the rabbis knew no more about it than we do to-day and regretted the loss of this special evidence of grace. They sup- posed their high priests must be no longer fit to consult the oracle (Esdras ii. 63; Neh. vii. 65) and Josephus states ( Antiq . iii. 8-9) that two hundred years before his time, it had ceased. According to common tradition, however, it was never reintroduced into the temple service after the exile.
While Josephus identified the Urim and Thummim with the twelve jewels in the breastplate of the high priest, Philo* claims that they were pictures exhibited in the embroidery of the breast- plate representing the symbols of light and truth. His conception is untenable, but it is noteworthy because his view seems to be in- fluenced by his knowledge of the sacerdotal vestments of Egypt. We are told that the high priert in his capacity as judge used to wear a breastplate bearing the image of truth or justice. One such
* De vita Mosis, p. 670 C; 671, D. E. ; De Monorchia, p. 824, A.
40
CHINESE THOUGHT.
shield has been found, upon which were two figures recognisable by the emblems on their heads : one with a solar disk as Ra, the sun-god or light, the other with a feather, as Maat or truth. If the Urim and Thummim were not plural and were not contrasts, and if we did not know too well that they were placed in an ephod, Philo’s interpretation would have much to recommend itself. Perhaps he and also the Septuagint were under Egyptian influence.
While we do not believe that the Urim and Thummim were exactly like the yang and yin we are fully convinced that the Chinese method of divination throws some light upon the analogous Hebrew practice and will help us to understand the meaning of the terms. If the two systems are historically connected, which is not quite impossible, we must assume that they were differentiated while yet in their most primitive forms.
P‘AN-KU.
The basic idea of the yih philosophy was so convincing that it al- most obliterated the Taoist cosmogony of P‘an-Ku who is said to have chiseled the world out of the rocks of eternity. Though the legend is not held in high honor by the literati, it contains some features of interest which have not as yet been pointed out and deserve at least an incidental comment.
P‘an-Ku is written in two ways: one8 means in literal trans- lations, “basin ancient,” the other “basin solid.”8 Both are homo- phones, i. e., they are pronounced the same way ; and the former may be preferred as the original and correct spelling. Obviously the name means “aboriginal abyss,” or in the terser German, Urgrund, and we have reason to believe it to be a translation of the Babylonian Tiamat, “the Deep.”
The Chinese legend tells us that P‘an-Ku’s bones changed to rocks ; his flesh to earth ; his marrow, teeth and nails to metals ; his hair to herbs and trees ; his veins to rivers ; his breath to wind ; and his four limbs became pillars marking the four corners of the world, - — which is a Chinese version not only of the Norse myth of the Giant Ymir, but also of the Babylonian story of Tiamat.
85£ *
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
41
Illustrations of P‘an-Ku represent him in the company of super- natural animals that symbolise old age or immortality, viz., the tortoise and the crane ; sometimes also the dragon, the emblem of power, and the phenix, the emblem of bliss.
* * *
When the earth had thus been shaped from the body of P‘an- Ku, we are told that three great rulers successively governed the world : first the celestial, then the terrestrial, and finally the human sovereign. They were followed by Yung-Ch‘eng and Sui-Jen (i. e., fire-man) the latter being the Chinese Prometheus, who brought the fire down from heaven and taught man its various uses.
The Prometheus myth is not indigenous to Greece, where it received the artistically classical form under which it is best known to us. The name, which by an ingenious afterthought is explained as “the fore thinker,” is originally the Sanskrit pramantha10 and means “twirler” or “fire-stick,” being the rod of hard wood which produced fire by rapid rotation in a piece of soft wood.
We cannot deny that the myth must have been known also in Mesopotamia, the main center of civilisation between India and Greece, and it becomes probable that the figure Sui-Jen has been derived from the same prototype as the Greek Prometheus.
THE FIVE ELEMENTS.
Occultism dominated the development of thought during the Middle Ages of China not less than in Europe, and here again in the conception of the elements we find traces of a common origin in both the East and West.
The Chinese speak of five elements : water, fire, wood, metal, and earth ; while, according to the ancient sages of Hellas and India, there are but four: water, fire, earth, and air. This latter view also
10 See Steinthal’s “The original Form of the Legend of Prometheus’’ which forms and appendix to Goldziher’s Mythology Among the Hebrews, translated by Russell Martineau, London. 1877.
Mantha is derived from the same root as the German word mangeln, “to torture,” and one who forces (viz. Agni, the god of fire) is called prania- tliyu-s “the fire-robber.” The Sanskrit name in its Greek form is Prometheus, whose nature of fire-god is still recognisable in the legend.
4 2
CHINESE THOUGHT.
(although in a later age) has migrated to China, where it is com- monly accepted among the Buddhists, but has been modified in so far as ether has been superadded so as to make the elements of the Buddhist-Chinese conception equal in number to the older enumera- tion which we may call the Taoist view.
[The proportions of the several heights are deemed important, and are as follows: the square, io; the circle, 9; the triangle, 7; the crescent, 2; the gem, 6. When built in the form of a stupa, the square changes into a cube, the circle into a globe, the triangle into a four-sided pyramid, and the crescent and gem also into solid bodies. The globe retains its proper dimensions but is, as it were, pressed into the cube and the pyramid; the pyramid is frequently changed into an artistically carved roof. The Mediaeval European conception is obviously not original.]
That the Buddhist conception of the five elements has been im- ported to China from India, is proved beyond question by the fact
CHINESE OCCULTISM
43
TIBETAN STUPA.
[This illustration is reproduced from The East of Asia, (June 1905), an illustrated magazine printed in Shanghai, China.
The monument represents the five elements, but its shape is no longer exact. The upper part of the cube shows a formation of steps, not unlike the Babylonian zikkurat or staged tower. The globe is no longer a true sphere, and the pyramid has been changed into a pointed cone, so slender as to be almost a pole. The monument is probably used as a mausoleum.]
44
CHINESE THOUGHT.
that the Chinese diagrams are frequently marked with their San- skrit terms. Tt is strange that the symbolic diagrams are more nearly identical than their interpretations. Earth is represented by a square, water by a sphere, fire bv a triangle, air by a crescent.
GATEWAY TO BUDDHIST MONASTERY, PEKIN.
A further development of the Stupa of the five elements.
[The cube has been changed into a roofed house; the sphere has assumed the shape of a Chinese cap, the pyramid is adorned with a peculiar ornament imitative of a cover, and the crescent has been changed into a flower-like knob, as has also the gem which surmounts the whole.]
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
45
and ether bv a gem surmounting the whole. The two upper symbols are conceived as one in the treatises of the mediaeval alchemy of Europe, and serve there as the common symbol of air. The symbol ether is commonly called by its Sanskrit term mani, which literally means “gem,” and in popular imagination is endowed with magic power.
The five elements are also represented by memorial poles which on the Chinese All Souls’ Day are erected at the tombs of the dead, on which occasion the grave is ornamented with lanterns, and a torch is lit at evening.
All over the interior of Asia so far as it is dominated by Chi- nese civilisation, we find stupas built in the shape of the symbols of the five elements, and their meaning is interpreted in the sense that the body of the dead has been reduced to its original elements. We must not, however, interpret this idea in a materialistic sense, for it is meant to denote an absorption into the All and a return to the origin and source of life.
It is noticeable that this reverence of the elements as divine is a well-known feature of ancient Mazdaism, the faith of the Persians, and is frequently alluded to by Herodotus in his description of Persian customs. The desire not to desecrate the elements causes the Persians to regard burial and cremation as offensive. They deposit their dead in the Tower of Silence, leaving them there to the vultures, whereby the pollution by the corpse either of earth or of fire is avoided.
The Taoist view of the elements is different from the Buddhist conception, and we may regard it as originally and typically Chi- nese. At any rate it is full of occultism and constitutes an impor- tant chapter in the mystic lore of China. According to this view, the five elements are water, fire, wood, metal, and earth.* The knowl- edge of these elements, legend tells us, is somehow connected with the marks on the shell of the sacred tortoise which, having risen from the river Loh, appeared to Ts‘ang-Hieh (Mayers, Ch. R. M., I, 756). Tsou-Yen, a philosopher who lived in the fourth century B. C.,
** * * & ±
46
CHINESE THOUGHT.
wrote a treatise on cosmogony in which the five elements play an important part (Mayers, Ch. R. M., I, 746).
The five elements also figure prominently in “The Great Plan,”* 11 which is an ancient imperial manifesto on the art of good govern- ment. There it is stated that like everything else they are produced by the yang and yin, being the natural results of that twofold breath which will operate favorably or unfavorably upon the living or the dead according to the combination in which they are mixed. All misfortunes are said to arise from a disturbance of the five elements in a given situation, and thus the Chinese are very careful not to interfere with nature or cause any disturbance of natural conditions. We are told in “The Great Plan”12 that “in olden times K'wan dammed up the inundating waters and so disarranged the five ele- ments. The Emperor of Heaven was aroused to anger and would not give him the nine divisions of the Great Plan. In this way the several relations of society were disturbed, and [for punishment] he was kept in prison until he died.” KSvan’s misfortune has re- mained a warning example to the Chinese. In their anxiety not to disturb the proper mixture in which the five elements should be combined they pay great attention to those pseudo-scientific pro- fessors who determine the prevalence of the several elements, not by studying facts but by interpreting some of the most unessential features, for instance, the external shape of rocks and plants. Pointed crags mean “fire” ; gently rounded mountains, “metal” ; cones and sugar-loaf rocks represent trees, and mean “wood” ; and square plateaus denote “earth” ; but if the plateau be irregular in shape so as to remind one of the outlines of a lake, it stands for “water.” It would lead us too far to enter into further details ; at the same time it would be difficult to lay down definite rules, as there is much scope left to the play of the imagination, and it is certain that, while doctors may disagree in the Western world, the geomancers of China have still more opportunity for a great divergence of opinion.
The elements are supposed to conquer one another according
11 A chapter in the Shu King, translated into English by James Legge. S. B. E., vol. Ill, 137-
11 See S. B. E., Ill, 139-
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
47
to a definite law. We are told that wood conquers earth, earth conquers water, water conquers fire, fire conquers metal, and metal conquers wood. This rule which is preserved by Liu An of the second century B. C. is justified by Pan Ku, a historian of the second century A. Decompiler of the books of the era of the Han dynasty, as follows :
“By wood can be produced fire, by fire can be produced earth [in other words, wood through fire is changed to ashes] ; from earth can be produced metal [i. e., by mining] ; from metal can be produced water [they can be changed through heat to a liquid state] ; from water can be produced wood [plants]. When fire heats metal, it makes it liquid [i. e., it changes it into
THE FIVE ELEMENTS AND THEIR INTERRELATION.
ELEMENTS
PARENT
CHILD
ENEMY
FRIEND
PLANET
water’s
metal
wood
earth
fire
Mercury
fire’s
wood
earth
water
metal
Mars
wood’s
water
fire
metal
earth
Jupiter
metal’s
earth
water
fire
wood
Venus
earth’s
fire
metal
wood
water
Saturn
the state of the element water]. When water destroys fire it operates ad- versely upon the very element by which it is produced. Fire produces earth, yet earth counteracts water. No one can do anything against these phenom- ena, for the power which causes the five elements to counteract each other is according to the natural dispensation of heaven and earth. Large quanti- ties prevail over small quantities, hence water conquers fire. Spirituality prevails over materiality, the non-substance over substance, thus fire conquers metal ; hardness conquers softness, hence metal conquers wood ; density is superior to incoherence, therefore, wood conquers earth ; solidity conquers insolidity, therefore earth conquers water.”
Besides being interrelated as parent and offspring, or as friend and enemy, the five elements are represented by the five planets, so that water corresponds to Mercury, fire to Mars, wood to Jupiter, metal to Venus, and earth to Saturn.
48
CHINESE THOUGHT.
The yih system being cosmic in its nature, has been used by the Chinese sages to represent the universe. The first attempt in this direction is Fuh-Hi’s diagram in compass form representing the four quarters and four intermediary directions.
The system was changed by Wen Wang who rearranged the eight trigrams but retained the fundamental idea. It was supposed to have been revealed to Fuh-Hi on the back of a tortoise, but later sages superadded to the fundamental idea further characteristics
of the universe, according to their more complicated knowledge of science and occultism.
We reproduce here a mystic tablet of Tibetan workmanship, which, however, reflects the notions prevailing over the whole Chi- nese empire. The kwa tablet lies on the back of the tortoise, pre- sumably the same as was supposed to have been present when P‘an- Ku chiseled the world from out of the rocks of eternity — and
"The table has been reproduced from Waddell's Buddhism of Tibet, p. 453. Students who take the trouble to enter into further details are warned that in Waddell’s table, by some strange mistake, the position of the trigrams tui and chan, in the east and in the west, has been reversed, a mistake which we have corrected in our reproduction.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
49
certainly the same tortoise which made its appearance in the Loh river to reveal the secret of the kwa to Fuh-Hi.
In the center of our kwa tablet is the magic square written in Tibetan characters, which is the same as that represented in dots in the so-called “Writing of Loh.”14 It is also depicted as resting in its turn on the carapace of a smaller tortoise.
This magic square is surrounded by the twelve animals of the duodenary cycle, representing both the twelve double-hours of the day, and the twelve months of the year. In the left lower center is represented the rat which, in passing around to the left, is followed in order by the ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey,
A TYPICAL CHINESE GRAVE.
[The dead are protected against the evil influence of unfavorably mixed elements in the surroundings of the grave by a horseshoe-shaped wall. Cf. pp. 56-57-1
cock, dog, and boar. The symbols of the days are : a sun for Sunday, a crescent for Monday; a red eye for Tuesday (red light of the planet Mars) ; a hand holding a coin for Wednesday (indicating the function of the god Mercury) ; a thunderbolt for Thursday (sacred to Marduk, Jupiter, Thor, the thunder-god) ; a buckle for Friday (day of Frigga or Venus) ; and a bundle for Saturday.
The duodenary cycle of animals is surrounded by various em- blems indicating lucky and unlucky days. Among these we can discover gems, buckles, thunderbolts, various limbs of the body, triangles, five-spots, links of a chain, luck symbols, and swastikas.
14 See the author’s pamphlet, Chinese Philosophy, p. 19.
50
CHINESE THOUGHT.
They surround the eight trigrams which are placed according to the arrangement of Wen Wang. The kwa in the lower part repre- sents north and winter ; in the upper part, the south and summer ; toward the right, west and autumn ; and toward the left, east and spring. The kwa in the lower right hand corner represents heaven ; in the lower left, mountain ; the upper left, air or wind ; and in the right upper corner, earth.
SYSTEMS OF ENUMERATION.
The twelve animals which are pictured on our Tibetan tablet are a curious relic of prehistoric civilisation. They represent at once the twelve months, the twelve divisions of the zodiac, and the twelve double hours of the day. Kindred systems of designating duodeci- mal divisions of the cosmos, both in time and space, by a cycle of animals can be traced in Babylon, Egypt, primitive America, and modern Europe, where to the present day the constellations along the ecliptic are divided into twelve groups, called the Zodiac, or Thierkreis, i. e., the animal cycle.
The duodenary cycle is an ancient method of counting, ex- pressed by animal names, a custom which has only been abolished in Japan since the Great Reform under the influence of Western civilisation. Up to that time people spoke there of “the rat hour,” “the ox hour,” “the tiger hour,” etc., and these terms had no other significance than in Western countries, one o’clock, two o’clock, or three o’clock.
The twelve animals are affiliated with the twelve branches, so- called, which practically possess the same significance, being also a duodenary cycle. The twelve branches may be summarily charac- terised as the twelve months, beginning with the eleventh in which the yang principle begins to prepare for its appearance in the new year, and ending in the tenth month of the ensuing year. The twelve branches are correlated not only to the twelve animals, but also to the five elements as indicated in our diagram. The fifth element “earth” is missing because it represents the center around which the twelve branches are grouped.
THE DUODENARY CYCLE.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
51
«S 4J- ® * g at DU- gg S& K »
£ B 0 £ w
w M H
W !> J J O w W H 05
W
K W h J
2 >
£ £3 fc H 03
.G Zh
a
O
*This character has now no meaning: except in its relation to the duodenary cycle. Formerly it denoted kernel, but now the character for tree is added to give that meaning.
52
CHINESE THOUGHT.
There is another system of counting, which however is decimal, and is called “the ten stems” ; and it appears that it is simply an older method of counting the months of the year. In their original here also the explanation of the several symbols has reference to the progress of the year.
It is not impossible that the decimal system was the original and indigenous Chinese method of counting, while the duodecimal system
THE TEN STEMS.
NAME
TRANSCRIP-
SIGNIFICANCE
ELEMENT TO WHICH
TION
RELATED
1
tp
chia
Yang moving in the East
fir tree '
sprouting.
wood
2
7
yi
Plant growing in a crooked
bamboo j
U*
way; tendril; twig.
3
R
ping
Growth in southern heat; bloom.
........ ,
y fire
4
T
ting
Vegetation in warm season; summer.
lamp-light
5
$
vvu
Exuberance; surcease of life.
|
> earth
6
£
ki
Wintry sleep; hibernation.
level ground
I
7
keng
Fullness of crops; the West;
weapon
autumn fruit.
>■ metal
8
sin
Ripened fruit and its flavor;
cauldron
1
i
supposed to be metallic.
9
jen
Yin at the height of its
billow 'i
■ 1 *
function; pregnancy.
> water
10
kwei
Water absorbed by earth;
unruffled
,
Yang preparing for spring.
stream J
was imported at a very early date from Accad or Sumer, the country of the founders of Babylonian civilisation.
The existence of these two systems suggests the occurrence of a calendar reform such as was introduced in Rome under Numa Pompilius, and we are confronted with the strange coincidence that in China as well as in Rome the two additional months (January
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
53
and February) were inserted at the beginning as a result of which we call even to-day the last month of the year December, i. e., “the tenth.” We must leave the question as to the plausibility of a his- torical connection to specialists familiar with the influence of Baby- lonian thought on the rest of the world. It is not impossible that a Babylonian (perhaps Sumerian) calendar reform traveled in both directions, rapidly toward the more civilised East, and very slowly toward the West, producing in these remote countries and at differ- ent times this startling coincidence of a similar calendar reform.
We might parenthetically state that the original meaning of the ten stems and twelve branches has practically been lost sight of, and both systems have become simply series of figures, the former from one to ten, the latter from one to twelve ; while their symbol- ical relations, the former with the elements, the latter with the twelve animals, are of importance merely to occultists.
The ten stems are also called “the ten mothers,” and the twelve branches, “the twelve children.”’ That the former is the older ar- rangement appears from another name which is “the ten hoary characters.
By a combination of the ten stems with the twelve branches in groups of two in which the former are repeated six times and the latter five times, a series of sixty is produced which is commonly called by sinologists the sexagenary cycle, and is used for naming years as well as days. The invention of the sexagenary cycle and its application to the calendar is attributed to Nao the Great, one of the prime ministers of Hwang Ti, the Yellow Emperor,15 who had solicited this work in the sixtieth year of his reign. Nao the Great, having accomplished the task, set the beginning of the new era in the succeeding year, 2637 B. C. Accordingly we live now in the seventy-sixth cycle which began in 1863 and will end in 1922.
A convenient method of translating the properly Chinese names of the sexagenary cycle would be to render the two characters by their equivalent relations to the twelve animals and the five elements,
15 According to traditional chronology, Hwang Ti reigned from 2697 to 2597 B. C.
54
CHINESE THOUGHT.
THE SEXAGENARY CYCLE.
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CHINESE OCCULTISM.
55
so as to speak of the “fir-rat” year, the “bamboo-ox” year, the “torch-tiger” year, etc.
FENG-SHUI.*
Chinese occultism lias been reduced to a system in an occult science (or better, pseudo-science) called feng-shui which, literally translated, means “wind and water,” and the two words combined denote atmospheric influence, or climate. As a science feng-shui means a study of conditions, spiritual as well as physical, and the average Chinese is very anxious to locate the site of graves, tem- ples, public and private edifices so as to insure the auspicious in- fluence of their surroundings. Belief in the efficiency of feng-shui is very strong, and consequently its scholars play an important part in public and private life.
The science of feng-shui is fantastical, but its advocates claim the authority of the ancient Yih King, which in chapter XIII, I to 12, reads as follows:
“By looking up in order to contemplate the heavenly bodies, and by looking down to examine into the natural influences of the earth, man may acquire a knowledge of the cause of darkness and light.’’
Feng-shui is also called ti-lif and k‘an-yii.% Ti-li may fitly be translated by “geomancy.” Li, frequently translated by “reason” or “rational principle,” means a system of the dominant maxims which govern nature. Ti means “the earth” and so the two together signify “the divining art as to terrestrial conditions.” K‘an-yu, translated literally, means “canopy chariot,” but k‘ an (canopy) re- fers to the sky and yii (chariot) refers to the earth as the vehicle in which all living beings are carried. The term “canopy chariot” then means the art which is occupied with the conditions of man’s habitation.
The professional diviners who practise feng-shui are called sien-sheng, % “the elder born,” which is a title of respect and has been translated by “professor.” They are called either feng-shui sien- sheng, “professors of divination,” or ti-li sien-sheng, “geomancers,” or k‘an-yii sien-sheng, “masters of the canopied chariot.”
tM
t±iM
56
CHINESE THOUGHT.
The application of the feng-shui is naturally very loose, and two different professors may easily come to opposite results accord- ing to their individual interpretation of the correct balance of the mixture of the elements and the several spiritual influences that may be discovered in special localities. Diviners use for their geo- mantic investigations a peculiar instrument with a mariner’s compass in the center the purpose of which De Groot explains as follows: “The chief use of the geomantic compass is to find the line in which, according to the almanac, a grave ought to be made, or a house or temple built. Indeed, in this most useful of all books it is every year decided between which two points of the compass the lucky line for that year lies, and which point is absolutely inauspicious. This circumstance not only entails a post- ponement of many burials, seeing it is not always possible to find a grave, answering to all the geomantic requirements, in the lucky line of the year; but it regularly compels the owners of houses and temples to postpone re- pairs or the rebuilding of the same until a year in which the line wherein their properties are situate is declared to be lucky. Many buildings for this reason alone are allowed to fall to ruin for years, and it is no rare thing to see whole streets simultaneously demolished and rebuilt in years auspicious to the direction in which they were placed.”
Considering the sacrifices which are expected of a good son in the selection of the site and the general equipment of the parental graves, we can easily understand that the burden of ancestral wor- ship is very heavy. While we must admire the filial piety of the Chinese, we regret to see the uselessness of their devotion and the waste to which it leads. It is refreshing, however, to observe that the general rule is not without exceptions and we find that there are sensible men who raise their voices in protest.
Ts'ui Yuen of the second century, a mandarin of high position, died at Loh-Yang, the imperial metropolis. According to the cus- tomary ritual, his son should have transported his remains to his place of birth for burial in the family cemetery, but Ts'ui Yuen left these instructions with his son Shih, which we quote from De Groot ( loc . cit., pp. 837-8) :
10 In his voluminous work The Religious System of China, Vol. Ill, Bk. 1. “Disposal of the Dead.” Part 3. “The Grave,” p. 974.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
57
“Human beings borrow from heaven and earth the breath upon which they live, and at the end of their terrestrial career they restitute the etherial parts of that breath to heaven, giving their bones back to earth ; consequently, what part of the earth can be unsuitable for concealing their skeletons? You must not take me back to my place of birth, nor may you accept any funeral presents, neither offerings of mutton or pork.”
The Chinese authority from which Professor De Groot quotes, adds :17
“Respectfully receiving these his last orders, Shih kept the corpse in Loh-Yang and there buried it.”
The spirit of Ts'ui Yuen has not died out, as is attested by a satirical poem which is current to-day, and which humorously points out the inconsistency of those mantics or soothsayers who know all the conditions of the four quarters and promise their patrons to show them (for a due consideration) a spot so auspicious for a grave that the spirit of their ancestor will bestow upon members of the family the dignity of kings. If that were true, why have they not buried their own parents there? The poem in the original Chinese is as follows:
iii *
fa ^ ^ if 7$
ti li hsien sheng kwan shuo huang chih nan chih pei chih hsi tung shan chung je yu wang hou ti he pu hsin lai tsang nai weng.18
This translation imitates the original as closely as possible in metre and meaning:
Trash these mantics manifest,
Point out south, north, east and west;
Know graves royalty bestowing Yet their own sires there not rest.
17 Books of the Later Han Dynasty, Chap. 82 line 15.
18 In the early Chinese form, the final words of the first, second, and fourth lines were all pronounced as if ending in ong. Consequently, although the individual words have changed their form, the series is considered as containing one rhyme and, according to Chinese rules of rhyming, is still so used in verse.
58
CHINESE THOUGHT.
LO-PAN.
Collectors of curios may have seen in Chinese stores the instru- ment called Jo-pan* (net-tablet), or lo-king f (net-standard), or pan- shih% (disk-norm). This is the geomancer’s compass which incorpo-
LO-PAN OR NET TABLET.
[The original is in the possession of Prof. Friedrich Hirth.]
rates the sum-total of feng-shui. The Chinese salesman who showed the instrument at my request, a man who must have lived half his life or more in the United States, expressed great respect for it and tried to impress me with the fact that it contained the deepest wisdom of the ages.
The lo-pan is a disk of lacquered wood, mostly of yellow color,
*
t mm
t 32 £
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
59
carrying in its center under glass, a small mariner’s compass. Some of the characters written in the surrounding circles are red, and some are black. Different copies differ in details, but all are prac- tically the same in their general and most characteristic features. The concentric circles of the net tablet are called ts'eng* i. e., “tiers,” “stories,” or “strata.”
The mariner’s compass in the center represents t'ai chili ,f “the great origin.” The first circle contains the eight trigrams in the arrangement of Fuli-Hi, which denote the eight directions of the compass and the virtues and properties attributed to them.
The second circle contains the numerals from one to nine in the arrangement of the magic square, the five being omitted as it belongs in the center. Accordingly the sum of each two opposite figures always makes ten.
The third row represents twenty-four celestial constellations, each expressed in two characters, so that three names are registered in each octant.
The fourth circle represents in occult terms twenty-four di- visions of the compass. Southeast, southwest, northeast, and north- west are written in their kwa names, while the rest are designated alternately by the ten stems and twelve branches ; two of the stems are omitted, however, because referring to the element earth, they are supposed to belong in the center. If we write the ten stems as numerals from one to ten, the twelve branches in italic letters from a to m, and the four kwa names in Roman capitals A to D, we have the following arrangement, beginning in the southeast : A / 3 g 4 /i B i 7 f 8 I C ffl 9 fl 10 & D f 1 d 2 e. This arrangement is an- cient for it is quoted as an established part of the divining method by Sze-Ma Ch'ien in the twenty-fifth chapter of his Historical Records , which is devoted to the art of divination.
The fifth circle is divided into seventy-two parts each contain- ing two characters of the sexagenary cycle, written one above the other, and arranged in groups of five divided by blank spaces. If we again express the ten stems in figures and the twelve branches
t ic @
6o
CHINESE THOUGHT.
in italics, the scheme (starting with the first branch a standing in the north) reads as follows:
1 3 5 7 9
2 4 6 8 10
3 5 7 9 1
4 6 8 10 2
5 7 9 1 3
a a a a a
b b b b b
c c c c c
d d d d d
e e e e e
7 9 13 5
8 10 2 4 6
9 13 5 7
10 2 4 6 8
1 3 5 7 9
g g g g g
h h h h A
l l l l l
k k k k k
l l l l l
6 8 10 2 4 f { { f f
2 4 6 8 10 m m in in m
In the sixth row each octant is divided into three sections, each having five compartments in the second and fourth of which appear twro characters of the sexagenary cycle. Accordingly they are ar- ranged in the following order, the blanks being expressed by zeros:
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 a 0 a 0
0 a 0 a 0
0 6 0 6 0
0 6 0 6 0
0 c 0 c 0
0 c 0 c 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 d 0 d 0
0 d 0 d 0
0 e 0 e 0
0 e 0 e 0
0/0/0
0 / 0 / 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 g 0g 0
0 g H g 0
0 6 0 6 0
0 6 0 6 0
O
O
O
0 i 0/0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 3 0 7 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 4 0 8 0
0 k 0 k 0
0 k 0 k 0
0/070
0/0/0
0 m 0 in 0
0 111 0 in 0
The third and fourth stems refer to fire and the seventh and eighth to metal.
The seventh row is devoted to the eight stars of the Dipper, which in Chinese folklore is regarded with much awe, because this most conspicuous constellation revolves around the polar star and seems to resemble the hand of a watch on the great celestial dial of the universe. We must remember that the seventh star is double, its luminous satellite being visible even without the assistance of a telescope. If we represent the names of the eight stars by numbers from one to eight, their arrangement beginning with the southwest is as follows : 185744623 1 57813266475832.
Beyond the seventh circle we have a double line which divides the seven inner rows from the nine outer ones. The first of these, the eighth circle, is divided into twelve sections each having three characters, the central ones written in red being the sun and moon
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
61
together with the five elements twice repeated. Beginning in the south with the character sun, and turning toward the left, they read as follows : sun, moon, water, metal, fire, wood, earth, earth, wood, fire, metal, water.
The ninth row, consisting of twelve sections, represents the twelve branches in regular succession, beginning in the north with the first and turning toward the right. They coincide in position with the twelve branches as they appear in the fourth row.
The tenth row is a repetition of the fifth, with the exception that here the characters are distributed evenly over the whole circle.
The eleventh row consists of numerals only. The circle is di- vided into twelve sections, each being subdivided into five compart- ments which contain the following scheme repeated twelve times :
i 3 7 I i | 5 I i | 7 3 |-
The twelfth row is inscribed with the names of the sub-divisions of the four seasons, beginning with early spring above the unalloyed yin and turning toward the right.
SPRING.
JJL
f-' Beginning of Spring.
PM Rain Water.
m
m
Resurrection of hibernat- ing Insects.
Vernal Equinox.
iff ^3 Pore Brightness.
1§£ PM Rains over the Grain.
AUTUMN.
Ill 9 Beginning of Autumn. iM. ^ Limit of Heat.
|c? Idff- White Dew.
Autumnal Equinox, tit IS Cold Dew.
Descent of Hoar Frost.
SUMMER.
jjL Beginning of Summer. Grain filling a little. Grain in Ear.
Summer Solstice.
1 Slight Heat.
Great Heat.
*
IS
*
*
'b
*
*
A
WINTER.
Beginning of Winter. Little Snow.
Heavy Snow.
Winter Solstice.
Little Cold.
Severe Cold.
62
CHINESE THOUGHT.
The thirteenth row is divided into seventy-two equal parts, which are left blank.
The fifteenth row is divided into three hundred and sixty equal blanks representing the degrees of a circle which method of division the Chinese as well as we of the Occident have inherited from the Babylonians.
The sixteenth row contains the names of the twenty-eight con- stellations together with the number of degrees which each covers. These degrees are specifically marked in the fourteenth circle in which the odd numbers only are expressed. The series starting in the southeast and turning toward the right, is as follows:
1. The horn, n°; in Virgo.
2. The neck, 11°; in Virgo.
3. The bottom, 18° ; in Libra.
4. The room, 5° ; in Scorpio.
5. The heart, 8° ; in Scorpio.
6. The tail, 15°; in Scorpio.
7. The sieve, 9° ; in Sagittarius.
8. The measure, 24° ; in Sagittarius.
9. The ox, 8° ; in Aries and Sagittarius.
10. The damsel, 11°; in Aquarius.
11. The void, io° ; in Aquarius and Equuleus.
12. Danger, 20° ; in Aquarius and Pegasus.
13. The house, 160 ; in Pegasus.
14. The wall, 130 ; in Pegasus and Andromeda.
15. Astride, ii°; in Andromeda and Pisces.
16. The hump, 13° ; in Aries.
17. The stomach, 12° ; in Musca Borealis.
18. The Pleiades, 90. (In Chinese mao.)™
19. The end, 150 ; in Hyades and Taurus.
20. The bill or beak, 1°; in Orion.
21. Crossing, or mixture, 11°; in Orion.
22. The well or pond, 31°; in Gemini.
23. The ghost, 5° ; in Cancer.
24. The willow, 17° ; in Hydra.
™ The Chinese term mao does not possess any other significance except the name of this constellation. This character is unfortunately misprinted in Mayers, Chinese Reader’s Manual. It is correct in the enumeration of Pro- fessor De Groot, loc. cit., p. 972.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
6.3
25. The star, 8° ; in Hydra.
26. The drawn bow, 180 ; in Hydra.
27. The wing, 17° ; in Crater and Hydra.
28. The back of a carriage seat, 13° ; in Corvus.
EUROPEAN COMPASS.
(Presumably Italian.)
The two plates are hinged together and fold upon one another in the same way as the European compasses shown in the following pages.
64
CHINESE THOUGHT.
THE MARINER'S COMPASS A CHINESE INVENTION.
The lo-pan or net tablet unquestionably serves superstitious pur- poses, but we must bear in mind that much genuine science is in- corporated in many of its details, and the latter no doubt has given countenance to the former. This again is according to the general law of the evolution of mankind and finds its parallel in the history of European civilisation. We must bear in mind that the great occultists of the Middle Ages, Paracelsus. Albertus Magnus, and
CHINESE POCKET COMPASS.
men like them down to Agrippa of Nettesheim, were the most powerful intellects of their day ; and though they were deeply en- tangled in mysticism, much of their life’s work was devoted to the furtherance of genuine scientific enquiry.
In the Chinese Middle Ages the leading thinkers were of the same stamp, and so it is natural that much of genuine astronomy and the results of accurate observation of tbe stars are incorporated in the lo-pan. The most obvious part of it which must have ap-
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
65
EUROPEAN COMPASS.
(Presumably Nuremberg.)
66
CHINESE THOUGHT.
peared extremely mystifying in former centuries was, as the Chi- nese call it, the south-pointing needle — the mariner’s compass — situ- ated in the center of the lo-pan.
The south-pointing needle is an ancient Chinese invention which for some time seems to have been forgotten. Professor Friedrich Hirth of Columbia University has privately communicated to me facts which prove that it was employed in ancient times by travelers through the desert, that the invention was lost and had to be re- discovered. We would add, too, that the Chinese invention became known in Europe after the time of Marco Polo where it was soon used as a mariner’s compass. The incident is well known and can easily be established on the testimony of literary sources, but while sauntering through the National Museum at Washington, the writer discovered a palpable evidence in the show cases there ex- hibited, which displayed the Chinese pocket instruments containing south-pointing needles presumably a few centuries old, side by side with European compasses. They are of the same oblong shape and consist of two tablets hinged in the same manner. The European instruments have sun-dials in addition and are decidedly more ser- viceable for practical use but we can not doubt that for the original idea our ancestors are indebted to our Mongol fellow-men.*
THE PERSONIFICATION OF STARS.
To the Chinese (as also in some respects to the Babylonians) the stars are actual presences who sway the destinies of mankind, and we reproduce here a series of illustrations from a Buddhist picture-book printed in Japan. They are based upon ancient traditions ultimately derived from Sumer and Accad, but we have at present no means to determine the question of their history, especially as to their fate in China. One thing, however, may he regarded as certain, viz., that their traditional forms are prior to the calendar reform of the Jesuits. Hence we must assume that they have been imported by the way on
* We wish to express here our indebtedness to the National Museum and its officers, and especially to Prof. Otis T. Mason and Mr. George C. Maynard, for the reproduction of characteristic specimens of this interesting collection.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
67
land either by the Buddhists from India, or through some earlier civilising influences perhaps from ancient Babylon, or may be in later times from Greece by way of Bactria and Tibet. An historical
connection of some kind or other with Western astronomy which also derives its origin from ancient Babylon, can scarcely be doubted ; for the general similarities are too pronounced, and the more par-
68
CHINESE THOUGHT.
ticular ones serve as obvious evidences which cannot be rejected, while the differences afford suggestions in regard to their develop- ment and fate.
According to the Chinese and Japanese custom, the series be- gins in the right upper corners and the order proceeds downwards and to the left.
The first figure represents the sun ; the second, the moon. In
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
69
the next row we see the polar star seated (like Buddha) on a lotus and holding in his hands a wheel to indicate that he is the hub of the heavens. As Buddha in the spiritual world, so the polar star
among the constellations is alone at rest while all other things in the universe whirl round in unceasing rotation. In the same column is the star of twilight-brightness, which may be either the morning or evening star.
CHINESE THOUGHT.
7 o
The third row of the same page begins the series of stars that constitute Ursa Major, popularly called “the dipper” in America and known in China as “the bushel.”
The satellite of the seventh star in Ursa Major is pictured as a smaller companion in the right hand corner in the field of his bigger brother. Since he stands at the very point of the constella-
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
71
tion, his significance is in inverse proportion to his size, in a similar way as Tom Thumb always takes the initiative in all deeds and proves to be the saviour of his seven brothers.
The seven stars of Ursa Major are very conspicuous in the northern firmament, and turn around in the sky like a big hand on the celestial dial pointing out the hour in the clock work of the
CHINESE THOUGHT.
universe. There is a proverbial saying in China which incorporates the popular Chinese view as follows :
“When the handle of the northern bushel ( Pell Tao ) points
east at nightfall it is spring throughout the land ; when it points south, it is summer ; when west, it is autumn ; and when north, winter.”
The three stars i, k, A of Ursa Major are supposed to be the
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
73
residence of the three councilor spirits mentioned in the Kan Ying P'icn as recording the deeds of men, and thus our constellation is symbolically identified in the imagination of the Chinese, with divine justice.
The seven planets are here increased after the precedence of Hindu astrology by two three-headed figures called Rahu and Ketu, the former being conceived as the head, and the latter as the tail of
74
CHINESE THOUGHT.
the dragon who is supposed to be responsible for solar and lunar eclipses. Rahu represents the ascending and Ketu the descending nodes in the ecliptic.
The nine personalities which correspond to the seven planets plus Rahu and Ketu are in Hindu mythology called: Surva, the Sun ; Chandra, the moon ; Mangala, Mars ; Buddha, Mercury ; Vri- haspati, Jupiter; Sukra, Venus; Sani, Saturn; while Ketu and Rahu
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
75
are identified with stars in the Dragon. Rahu is represented head- less and Ivetu as a trunkless head. A representation of this Hindu notion is found in Colonel Stuart’s zodiac picture reproduced in Moor’s Hindu Pantheon, Plate XLYIII. Tt shows Surya the sun in the center drawn by seven horses, with Aruna as charioteer. Surya in the colored original is in gold, while Aruna is painted deep red. Chandra rides an antelope, Mangala a ram, Buddha is seated on a
carpet ; Rahu and Ketu here interrupt the regular order, the former being represented as riding on an owl, while the latter, a mere head, is placed on a divan. Vrihaspati like Buddha is seated on an animal that may have been intended for a cat, while Sani rides on a raven.
Next in order on our tables beginning with the second column
CHINESE THOUGHT,
/6
THE ARMILLARY SPHERE OF THE PEKING OBSERVATORY.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
77
of their fourth page, are the twenty-eight constellations mentioned above which play an important part in Chinese occultism. The ap- proximate outline of the constellation is indicated in each case above the picture, and we see, for instance, why the fifteenth constellation is called “astride,” and the twenty-sixth, a “drawn bow.”
We add here to our illustrations of stars a picture of Chin Nil and Keng Niu, the stars Vega and Aquila on either side of the Milky Way, of which Chinese folklore tells one of the prettiest fairy- tales of China. It is briefly thus: The sun-god had a daughter Chili Nil (star Vega = a in Lyre) who excelled by her skill in weaving and her industrial habits. To recompense her he had her
THE SPINNING DAMSEL AND COWHERD.
A Chinese fairy tale of the star Vega. A native illustration from Williams’s Middle Kingdom.
married to Keng Niu the herdsman (constellation Aquila), who herded his cattle on the silver stream of heaven (the Milky Way). As soon as married, Chih Nii changed her habits for the worse; she forsook her loom and gave herself up to merry-making and idleness. Thereupon her father decided to separate the lovers by the stream and placed them each on one side of the Milky Way, allowing the husband to meet his wife over a bridge of many thousand mag- pies only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, which is a holy day in China even now.
We know that the Chinese government has kept an impe-
OBSERVATORY OF PEKING. GENERAL VIEW.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
79
rial astronomer since prehistoric times, for the office is mentioned in the earliest documents. The famous emperor Kang Hi erected
a new observatory which was built according to the instructions of the Jesuit fathers whose learning at that time was highly re-
8o
CHINESE THOUGHT.
SPHERICAL ASTROLABE OF THE PEKING OBSERVATORY.
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
8l
spected in China. The instruments remained at Peking until the Boxer riots when they were removed to Germany at the command of Emperor William.
Our illustrations will enable the reader to form a clear con- ception of the instruments as well as the style in which they have been put up. They stand on a high platform overlooking the city, surrounded by battlements in the style of an old fortress. One general view is a reproduction of an old cut at the time of the erection of the observatory %mder the Jesuit fathers. The other one is a photograph made in modern times and showing the instru- ments in situ before their removal to Potsdam.
The gem of the collection is decidedly the spherical astrolabe which has been made after the instructions of Ko Chow King, astronomer royal of emperor Tai Tsu, of the Yuan dynasty, the founder of Peking. It is said to be a marvel of Chinese art. In the general view we notice a quadrant on the left-hand side between two light columns in French style. It is a present of King Louis XIV sent to the emperor Kang Hi in the seventeenth century. Among the instruments preserved in the shed there are some curios of great artistic and historical value. The whole observatory as it stood has always been regarded as one of the most noteworthy treasures of the Tartar capital of the Celestial Empire.
PREHISTORIC CONNECTIONS.
The evidences that indicate a Western origin of Chinese civili- sation are very strong, and it seems that the first Chinese settlers must have come in prehistoric times from a country that was closely connected with the founders of Babylonian culture. There is an unmistakable resemblance between cuneiform writing and Chinese script, so as to make it quite probable that they have been derived from a common source. We have, further, the sexagenary cycle corresponding to the use of the number sixty in Babylonia, and many similarities in astronomical names and notions. Moreover, the Chinese divide the circle into three hundred and sixty degrees as did the Babylonians, a system which has been adhered to in the West down to modern times.
82
CHINESE THOUGHT,
GREAT CELESTIAL GLOI5E OE THE PEKING OBSERVATORY
CHINESE OCCULTISM.
83
The Prometheus legend seems to come from the same source (presumably Akkad) as the story of the Chinese “Fire Man,” Sui- Jen. The Babylonian story of Tiamat as to the formation of the world is repeated in the legend of P‘an-Ku, the personification of the ancient abyss.
Finally the yih system of the yang and the yin is paralleled in at least one Semitic tribe by the similar divining method of the Urim and Thummim. Though in the latter case the loss of details prevents us from having any evidence of a historical connection, the similarity of the purpose, as well as the duality of the elements of the oracle cannot be denied.
If none of these indications is conclusive when considered sepa- rately, we can not disregard them when all are taken together.
Further bearing in mind that there is an ancient tradition in China of a settlement having been made by a tribe coming from the Far West, we may very well assume the ancestors of the Chinese to be a detachment of the founders of the Babylonian civilisation, either Sumerians or Akkadians, and that they left their home in prehistoric, times presumably even before the first Semitic invasion or soon afterwards. They were perhaps that portion of the people who would not submit to the new condition of things and preferred exile to absorption by a victorious enemy.
Our proposition that even in prehistoric times a connection must have existed between all civilised nations of the East and of the West, will be further borne out by the additional evidence fur- nished by a comparative study of the several calendar systems, as based upon the sun’s course through the zodiac, and it is remark- able that it includes even the Mayas of Central America. Since the subject is interesting but rather complicated, requiring considerable space and the reproduction of many illustrations, we shall discuss it in a special chapter,
ZODIACS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.
WITH REFERENCE TO CHINA.
TT OW close must have been the interrelation of primitive man- kind, how keen their observation of nature, and considering their limitations when compared with modern methods, how pro- found after all, their philosophy, their science, their astronomy, their physics, their mechanics ! In spite of the absence of railroads, steamers, postal service and telegraph, there must have been a communication of thought which is as yet little appreciated. Ideas, the interpretation of nature, and the conception of things divine as well as secular, must have traveled from place to place. Their march must have been extremely slow, but they must have gone out and spread from nation to nation. They had to cross seas and deserts. They had to be translated into new tongues, but they traveled in spite of all obstacles. This is certain because we find among the most remote nations of the earth kindred notions the similarity of which can scarcely be explained as a mere parallelism.
I will say here that I arrived at the theory of an interconnection of primitive mankind not because I sought it, but because I tried to collect unequivocal instances to the contrary, and so I naturally deem it a well-assured conclusion.
The human mind will naturally pass through certain phases of evolution and man will necessarily, and in different places in perfect independence develop certain definite ideas of ghosts, of gods, of devils, of sacrifice, of prayer, of the contrast between God and Devil, of one omnipotent God, of a God-father, of a God-man, of a Saviour, of an Avatar, of a Buddha, of a Messiah, of a Christ,
ZODIACS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.
85
of salvation, of immortality, etc. It would be desirable to have some information on the development and history of the rational beings on other planets, and it is probable that in spite of many differences all the essential features of their spiritual and religious growth will prove the same. I am still convinced that the greater part of the parallelism between Buddhism and Christianity is of independent origin, for it is certain that at any rate the church development in both religions took place without any historical
THE ZODIAC ON THE MITHRAIC MONUMENT AT HEDDERNTIEIM. 2514
connection except in Tibet where the Nestorian faith had for a time taken deep root. And yet we have a Christian Doketism and a Buddhist Doketism ; we have Christian reformers who believe in the paramount efficacy of faith, and Buddhist preachers who pro- claim the doctrine almost in the same words as Luther, etc.
I believe that the decimal system of numbers originated natur- ally and necessarily, and it is obvious that it may very easily have developed simultaneously in perfect independence. If the rational
86
CHINESE THOUGHT.
beings of some other planet have eight fingers, instead of ten, they will with the same inevitable necessity develop an octonary system which possesses many advantages over the decimal. Again, if they had twelve fingers, they would count in dozens and dozens of dozens.
Some features are universal, others depend upon definite con- ditions, while all of them are subject to local modifications in un-
MAYAN CALENDAR. Zejevary Manuscript.
essential details. Having gone in quest of unequivocal evidences of the independent development of the universal, I found myself everywhere baffled by a possible historical connection, and now I am forced to concede that an interconnection of prehistoric man- kind in its remotest corners can no longer be doubted.
Mr. Richard H. Geoghegan has published in The Monist (Oc-
ZODIACS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.
87
tober 1906) an interesting article “On the Ideograms of the Chinese and Central American Calendars,” in which he traces several most remarkable similarities between the Chinese and the Mayan calen- dars.
The results of Mr. Geoghegan’s investigations suggest that in a prehistoric age there must have been an interconnection between
the primitive civilisation of America and Asia, and it can scarcely be gainsaid if we but compare the Mayan, the Chinese, and the mediaeval European interpretation of the several organs of the body in terms of the calendar or the zodiac, and we must grant that here are similarities of such a peculiarly intricate character
88
CHINESE THOUGHT.
that they can not be explained as intrinsic in human nature, nor is it likely that the parallelism is accidental.
There can be no doubt that the entire Western civilisation may be traced to one common source. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans have inherited their mathematics, the division of the
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loannem KcfJpferum
i 6 c 8 .