Download Social Thought in Ancient China

Social
Based
on
Thought
the
Yao
in
謠
Ancient
and
China
Prognostication
By Hisaharu KUSHIDA
CONTENTS
Chapter Ⅰ
What are the Yao 謠：ballads ?
Section Ⅰ
A history of studies of the Yao
Section Ⅱ
The beginning and definition of the Yao
Section Ⅲ
Political and social meanings of the Yao
Section Ⅳ
Relations between the Yao and prognostication
Chapter Ⅱ
The Ge 歌：songs in the early years of the Former Han 前漢
and their foretellings
Section Ⅰ
The Ge around Lu-hou 呂后
Section Ⅱ
The Ge “Wai-nan Min-ge 淮南民歌”
Section Ⅲ
The Ge “Ying-chuan Er-ge 潁川兒歌”
Section Ⅳ
Concealed persons behind these two Ge ： Liu An 劉安, Tian Fen 田
蚡, Wang Tai-hou 王太后, and Wu-di 武帝
Section Ⅴ
The “Han shu 漢書”interpretations of the Ge in the early years of
the Former Han
Chapter Ⅲ
The Yao and prognostication in the Former Han
Section Ⅰ
Foretellings of Sui Hong 雎弘 and Xia-hou Sheng 夏侯勝
Section Ⅱ
The Yao in the period of Yuan-di 元帝
Section Ⅲ
The Yao in the period of Cheng-di 成帝
Section Ⅳ
The Yao at the end of the Former Han and some prognostications of the
death of Wang Mang 王莽
Chapter Ⅳ
The Yao and prognostication in the Latter Han 後漢
Section Ⅰ
The Yao in the period of Shun-di 順帝
Section Ⅱ
The Yao in the period of Huan-di 桓帝
Section Ⅲ
The Yao around Dang-gu 黨錮
Section Ⅳ
The Yao at the end of the Latter Han
Chapter Ⅴ
The Tong-yao 童謠：Children's ballads and Mars
Section Ⅰ
Mars in astrology
Section Ⅱ
The Tong-yao sung by the spirit of Mars
Chapter Ⅵ
Prognostication in ancient China
Section Ⅰ
Events of good omen and natural disasters
Section Ⅱ
A prognostication of the fall of Qin 秦
Section Ⅲ
Two prognostications of the death of Shi huang-di 始皇帝
Section Ⅳ
The circumstances of the fall of Qin
Section Ⅴ
Politics of prognostication and the Yao
Notes
Afterword
Index
SUMMARY
Ever since a Japanese scholar named Shuku NAKANE 中根淑 and a Chinese scholar
named ZHOU Zuo-ren 周作人 did research on some Tong-yao 童謠:Children's ballads
which were created in ancient China, they have been mentioned in books about the
history of Chinese literature, which were in print in both Japan and China. But almost
all scholars of Chinese literature stated that these Tong-yao were nothing more than
the forerunners of the Tang-shi 唐詩, and many scholars of Chinese social thought
slighted them as “preposterous”.
I have analyzed almost all the Yao 謠 from the Han 漢 dynasty and clarified their
real meaning, and I have tried to place the Yao in the history of Chinese thought
through making clear the fact that they had been a moving force in the overthrow of
the Establishment and had altered the actual politics or society of ancient China.
Since ancient times, Chinese administrators collected verse from the people, in
order to seek their judgment, and this good tradition of reigning dynasties was
followed in the Han dynasty. This means that the Yao were to be reckoned by
administrators. The intellectuals who knew this fact made political Yao into which
were woven radical criticisms, and they spread their Yao against those in power.
The reason that a lot of Yao were made and that they had political power as weapons
of anti-Establishment intellectuals is, first of all, that it was not necessary to
fear the onus of responsibility because the Yao were camouflaged as to who made them
by naming them Min-yao 民謠:Folk ballads, Er-yao 兒謠:Children's ballads, Tong-yao
童謠:Children's ballads, or the like. This was a most effective means against those
in power because the Chinese attach no aesthetic value to martyrdom. The other reason
is that unaccompanied Yao are not different from the Ge 歌:songs which must be played
to the accompaniment of musical instruments, that is to say there are no limitations
to singing the Yao. Therefore the Yao came easily to everybody's lips, were well known,
and became popular. So even those in power could not forbid Yao that had been repeated
by everybody. This was the proper function of the Yao.
The times when the Yao were made and sung have something in common. They were
made and became popular when the political situation was threatening or there was
social unrest such as when a dynasty was changed, or when ceaseless internal strife
and struggle for power broke out, or when natural disasters like earthquakes,
unseasonable weather, or crop failures due to insect plagues occurred frequently.
Accordingly, each Yao expresses dissatisfaction against society and the government.
They sometimes ridicule and abuse incompetent emperors, and sometimes persons who
are power-mad; sometimes they express revolt against authority, or challenge the
machinery of government. On the one hand they express various messages to
sympathizers; on the other hand they slash administrators with severe criticism.
In the meantime, the Yao that criticize political affairs or oppression, at the
same time express hopes and expectations. They sometimes indirectly presage the death
of the emperor or the empress, sometimes express anxiety about the annihilation of
the empress' relatives, sometimes express longing for new leaders. When the hopes
and expectations in these Yao came true, they became facts in the people's memory,
and people thought that they had predicted the future; hence they were chronicled.
This is the distinctive feature of Chinese prognostication. Another distinctive
feature is that there are no specific soothsayers in Chinese prognostication, which
survives in the fact that the Yao were anonymous.
It should be noted that Dong Zhong-shu 董仲舒 advocated the Zai-yi theory 災
異説 as the antithesis to absolute Confucianism, which can control the authority of
a monarch, and the Zai-yi theory had become firmly established in the Han dynasty.
It advanced the theory that if a monarch broke the Providence of Tian 天:God, Tian
will first reprimand by natural disasters, and if the monarch will not correct his
misrule, Tian will next threaten by abnormal weather. But if the monarch will not
regret and improve, Tian will at last destroy his country. It says that Tian by means
of natural disasters and abnormal weather calls on monarchs to reflect on their past
conduct, and rebukes them for tyranny, but Dong Zhong-shu admonished against
predicting on the basis of natural disasters and abnormal weather. However, the Zai-yi
theory which took on the main burden of criticizing the Establishment, was amalgamated
with the Chen-wei theory 讖緯説 and changed into mere foretelling, and then it
changed into an oracle and gradually was used to justify the Establishment.
In the Han dynasty, various types of the Yao unified into one style, the Tong-yao,
and the Tong-yao were prevalent and took root in the Han dynasty in the place of the
Zai-yi theory. This was because the Zai-yi theory already had lost its own assumption
that natural disasters were the reprimands of Tian against the administrators. The
Tong-yao primarily opposed those in power and played a large part in criticizing the
unreasonableness of the Establishment with respect to the Former Han society. However,
at the end of the Latter Han dynasty, the Tong-yao were identified with Mars in
astrology, and it was believed that Tong-yao were the poems sung by a child who came
from Mars.
In astrology in ancient China the five planets Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, and
Mercury, in that order, had filled the role of prognostication. As time went on, only
the idiosyncrasy of Mars stood out among the five planets. This is because Mars can
be seen with the naked eye, is uncanny at a glance, and often moves in an unexpected
orbit. People feared that Mars was an ominous planet, which invited disaster. Of
course, the “Wu-xing-zhan 五星占”, which was discovered in an ancient tomb in 1973,
the “Gan-shi-zhan 甘氏占”, and the “Shi-shi-zhan 石氏占”, did not give Mars special
treatment, but after ominous Mars combined with the Zai-yi theory in the Former Han,
it changed into the mysterious Mars that predicts wars, rebellions, conflicts of a
maternal relative or eunuchs, or the death of an emperor in the Latter Han. Then its
spirit(the Tong-zi:童子), which landed on the earth, gave oracles, and at last, it
combined with the Tong-yao which had borne the role of reprimanding those in power.
Now that things had arrived at this point, the Tong-yao were reborn as a form of
prognostication in which the spirit of Mars sang.
From ancient times, the Yao have been critical of tyranny, yet we cannot treat
every Yao alike. Though every Yao is rich in prognostication, its purport changed
with the times. I think that the Yao can be classified under four groups:
(1) The Yao before the Zai-yi theory until the Wu-di 武帝 period of the Former Han
前漢 dynasty
(2) The Yao under the influence of the Zai-yi theory from the Zhao-di 昭帝 period
to Yuan-di 元帝 period of the Former Han dynasty
(3) The Yao at the height of the Chen-wei theory's from the Cheng-di 成帝 period
to the Latter Han 後漢 dynasty
(4) The Yao which were identified with Mars after the end of the Latter Han and
Wei-Jun 魏晉 dynasty
In the Han dynasty, Yao, which included ancient astronomy and the Zai-yi theory,
bore a prognostication that wanted something to be improved or be reorganized. After
the Yao linked with Mars and was given a mystique, they exposed and denounced
scandalous facts about those in power and political corruption, and then the Yao
functioned as criticism. After that, the counter culture of the Yao was established.
I have tried in this research to demonstrate through my analysis of the Yao that
unscientific prognostication had great effects in ancient China. This gives another
meaning to so-called mysticism in ancient China, and it proves that ineffable thought
in ancient China was no doubt rational at that time.