Maandag, 6 maart 2006WAAAAH! FrustratingZaterdag, 4 maart 2006Better transcription of Chujian Zhouyi
In this article I referred to a transcription of the Chujian Zhouyi. But there is a better transcription available, which comes close to the pdf I made from pages from the 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹. This page on the site of the Center for Zhouyi and Ancient Chinese Philosophy (Shandong University) compares the Chujian Zhouyi with the Mawangdui text and the current text (the latter both in simplified and in traditional characters). The file is compiled by Liu Dajun 劉大鈞, head of the center and co-author of I Ching: Text and Annotated Translation; a transcription of the current text in simplified characters, with some comments about the MWD text.
Because the site is extremely slow I have taken the liberty to make a pdf of the page. It can be downloaded here. Thanks to Niraya for pointing me to this link. Dinsdag, 28 februari 2006A review of Lillian Too's "The New I Ching: discover the secrets of the plum blossom oracle"
.....can be found here at Steve Marshall's site.
Maandag, 27 februari 2006Questioning the questionIn every Yi book that teaches you how to consult the oracle you read the same thing: you must ask a question, and the Yi answers that question. It is necessary to formulate that question as specific as possible - an accurate question gives an accurate answer, etc. I don't know where and when this practice of asking questions originated. All I know is that in all the old Chinese Yi books that I have read there is no mentioning of 'asking a question'. In the old days you consulted the oracle not by asking a question, but by addressing a (potential) situation. You described in short what was going on, what elements were involved, how you got there, and then you consulted the oracle to find out how the spirits thought about all this, and if their judgment would help you to accomplish what you desired. If the spirits condemned the situation and the actions that lead to it you could try to change the course of the developments and/or gain approval by doing sacrifices. But you did not ask specific questions to the oracle; at the most you asked for approval - not by asking a question but by posing a situation you desired: "Would it be that I become king". This reminds us of the charges that we find on the oracle bones: "The next ten day period there will be (no) harm". There is a lot to say for this method. A question that focuses on a specific part of the situation discards a lot of elements because of this focusing. Focusing is what you want, but the risk is that because of this (subjective) focusing you will not see other elements that might be important. A question like "is X the right man for me?" focuses on a person, but it is also possible that circumstances play an important role in the situation. But if you ask about a person you will see the answer of the Yi as saying something about that person. And you will not see everything else, like time and circumstances, means and matter, that are involved. By addressing a situation to the Yi you allow every aspect of the situation to play an equally important role. The Yi will help you to find what you really need to focus on, it will point to the aspects that do deserve your attention. Without a question you will get the most objective answer possible. Zondag, 12 februari 2006Programming again
In the last Xiangshu module that I gave at the Oriental College we also discussed the Heluo Lishu method of calculating a birth hexagram. Using your bazi, your eight characters which form the basis of your Chinese horoscope, you calculate two hexagrams: one for the first half of your life, and one for the second half. From these hexagrams you can calculate yearly hexagrams, monthly hexagrams and even daily hexagrams (although I have not yet worked out how the method of daily hexagrams could fit in our Western calendar).
Heluo Lishu was introduced to the West by Sherril & Chu in their book The Astrology of I Ching, but they made quite some modifications to the original material. For instance, they say that if a person is born at the end or the beginning of a month you should calculate two sets of bazi - one for the original and one for the adjecent month. This is simply not true, because no person has two sets of bazi. You are born at a specific time,and that time determines your bazi. They also took the winter solstice as start of the year, but for most forms of Chinese astrology the solar calendar is used, and in the solar calendar the year starts on or around 4 February. S&C skipped the calculation of monthly hexagrams, and they completely changed the method for calculating daily hexagrams, making it far more complex than the original method. They probably did this because the original method uses a fixed amount of 30 days in a month, but some solar months have 29 days, some 30, some 31. This indeed makes it hard to put the method for daily hexagrams to use, but what S&C made of it is extremely complex and far from the rules in the original method. S&C give complex calculations to get your bazi, they use lots of tables which make it easy to make a mistake. And one small mistake will give a totally different outcome. You can skip the calculations for the bazi if you use a solar calendar, and this is what I learn my students. But a computer program which does all the calculations for you would be even more welcome. There are already programs which do this, and 15 years ago in the good old days of MS-DOS I wrote one myself, but all these programs are based on the work of Sherril & Chu, with all the faults that come with this book. Time for a new! improved! version. The advantage of a computer program is not only that it can do the calculations for you, but you can also make statistics of your yearly hexagrams (which hexagram do you encounter most in your life, which one do you never have as a yearly hexagram) and other data. So I picked up my programming skills, which by the way I don't have anymore. A lot has changed since the good old days of DOS. I used to program in Powerbasic for DOS, in that time a magnificent programming language which made writing code almost as easy as making a shopping list. But the latest version of Powerbasic for Windows is not suitable for anyone who is a novice in Windows programming. You need to know how Windows works at the core and why it works like it does. It is very hard to grasp the concepts of it. Since I am a hobbyist and not a diehard programmer with instant coffee on my desk I choose to program in Visual Basic 2005, using the Express edition that is freely available. You can say about Microsoft what you want, but they sure know how to promote their products. With VS2005 comes free video tutorials to get you started, there are manuals to explain the basics and the forum to dump your question when you get stuck can easily be accessed within the program. Programming in VS2005 is far more easier than in Powerbasic, because the IDE, the screen in which you type the code, helps you with writing by suggesting the proper code when you type a structure, procedure or whatever. Neat. It will probably create bloatware with lots of redundant code where Powerbasic can deliver complex programs which fit on a diskette, but it least I enjoy using it. But although it is easier than Powerbasic it is still a totally different world to me. I have to work with classes, structures, forms, MDI's, modeless dialogs, public or private variables of type integer, double, string, event handlers, etc. Slowly I am progressing. Today I finished the module which calculates the bazi: This is just a testing dialog, and if you think, pffff, that's nothing, then please keep in mind that the underlying code involves not only the calculation of the position of the sun for any given date & time (to find the start of the Chinese solar months), and that time corrections for UT and true local time are also made, with al the necessary code that comes with it. After that the bazi are calculated using some nifty routines which I partly wrote myself and partly took from Astronomy with your Personal Computer by Peter Duffett-Smith. It is fun to do. It will take some time to finish, but hey, who said I was in a hurry? Dinsdag, 17 januari 2006Articles moved
There were a few English articles on my other website (www.yjcn.nl). To keep it all together I have moved them to this diary.
Zondag, 15 januari 2006A review of Chung Wu's "The Essentials of the Yi Jing"
.....can be found here at Steve Marshall's site.
Zondag, 11 december 2005Don't forget the Germans
It is a pity that the German literature about ancient China is so much neglected or ignored. There are numerous excellent studies about Chinese literature, history and culture written by German professors, but you will hardly find it mentioned in the English books that dominate this field of study. This is sad because often the German research excels in thoroughness; many German writers do not spare any effort to scrutinize the subject of their study. You will find a few examples of this below: German books in the spotlight.
Dominique Hertzer The first book is an excellent study about the Mawangdui Yijing, its history and how it compares to the received text. The second book is a translation of the Mawangdui text, and just as Edward Shaughnessy does Hertzer give the MWD text in combination with the received text. But Hertzer does a better job than Shaughnessy: her translation is very well annotated (and interpreted), and often the modern version of the MWD text that she gives seems closer to the original silk manuscript. For instance, where Shaughnessy gives 溍 as the name for hexagram 51 (35 in the received text), Hertzer gives 𣸄. A slightly different character with a slightly different meaning. She also translates the name of hexagram 14 (22), fan 繁 as 'a common and versatile plant, used for medicine purposes, the "Artemisia stelleriana" ', which differs quite from Shaughnessy's 'luxuriance'. She uses this meaning throughout her translation of hexagram 14. Another remarkable difference is her translation of 34 (11) - 2: 'The drum stick is lost....', where Shaughnessy gives 'wrapped recklessness...'. These differences are worth to take note of, because they give an entirely and less traditional view of the MWD text. If you want to study the MWD text you simply cannot do without Hertzer's books. Dennis R. Schilling This book consists of five parts:
Hermann G. Bohn Bohn's book is the most detailed study of xiangshu and yili philosophy and history available in a Western language. It talks in detail about the contents of the Ten Wings, the guaqi theories of Meng Xi and Jing Fang, the Eight Palaces, Wang Bi's Yijing commentary, Han Kangbo's commentary to the Xici, Kong Yingda's Zhouyi Zhengyi, the Yili school during the Song dynasty, Ouyang Xiu, Li Gou, Zhou Dunyi, Xue Jixuan, Lu Jiuyuan, Ye Shi's criticism, etc. etc. etc., illustrated with pictures and other material which is unknown in the West. This book contains so much new information that it will keep you busy (and puzzled; some systems from xiangshu are hard to comprehend) for months. It is a good company to Bent Nielsen's A Companion to Yijing numerology and cosmology. An extensive bibliography and an index make this book complete. Gerhard Schmitt This book, published in 1970, is small in size but has been very influential in the studies of the original language of the Yijing. Schmitt was one of the first to look at oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions to illuminate a selection of texts from the Yi. His translations differ greatly from the traditional ones, but it is all motivated by references to ancient Chinese literature and the early inscriptions. The book is very hard to find but it is compulsory reading for everyone who is interested in the language of the Yi. Therefore I have made it available as a pdf download. Tsung-Tung Chang There are not many books which discuss the meanings of oracle bone characters in their context. Chang's book is one of the few; all the characters are organized by topics as 'ghost and ancestor cult', 'nature cult', 'the highest god Di' and 'magic actions'. Although it is not a dictionary it is easy to use it like that because of the radical index at the back of the book. The main value of the book is not its definition of the characters alone, but more the mentioning of the context in which a character occurs. By doing this Chang's book also explains the culture of the Shang. Raimund Theodor Kolb It is hard to find good books about the military in Ancient China. The excellent works of Ralph Sawyer come to mind, and I am patiently waiting for his multi-volume book History of Warfare in China. Kolb's book is a welcome addition to what we have so far: it deals with the history of the infantry in ancient China up to the Zhanguo-period (475-221 BC). The material is divided by dynasty; it starts with the Shang-Yin period, the sources we have about this period, its culture, and a short section about the chariot. After that the divisions of the infantry is discussed: zhongren 眾人, chen 臣, shi 史, doghunters etc. are discussed in detail, with many references to oracle bones. For each dynasty there is information about weapons, tactics, recrutement, etc. Extensive footnotes, lots of Chinese characters and a lenghty bibliography make this book a valuable work if you want to know how the military shaped the history of China. The only thing that I miss is an index. Wolfgang Bauer This A4-sized book of 74 pages mainly deals with the Tuibeitu 推背圖, an ancient prophetic text in about 66 chapters, often compared to the work of Nostradamus. Just as with Nostradamus is the Tuibeitu used to foretell the future in todays world. But what many people do not know is that there were different versions of the TBT, and Bauer discusses four of these versions, giving images, the content of the text and the differences in each version. It also contains a complete edition of the TBT in color and BW pictures. The TBT is still an important text in China, and there is a version which links the TBT to some hexagrams of the Yijing. This is just what I have on my shelves. Don't forget the Germans! Their work is often valuable, inspiring and very complete if we compare it with the English equivalents.
Maandag, 7 november 2005The Revised Fortunetelling Changes by Wild Crane
At the moment I am teaching the Wenwang bagua 文王八卦 method of using the Yi at the Oriental College in Amsterdam. Here in the West it is a quite unknown way of using the Yi, probably because it is complicated and the Western literature which we have about this subject does not help much in comprehending it. Wenwang bagua uses a lot of words/terms which have to be properly described to understand them. It does not suffice to give a list of meanings for each of the liuqin 六親, you also have to describe them, otherwise your students are not able to add new material to the lists; they have not learned to expand on what they are taught. Alex Chiu does a good job at that, but since he made up his own words for certain terms (calling the liuqin 'stars') it is still not always easy to follow.
A name which pops up very often when you read Chinese books about WWBG is Ye He 野鶴, 'Wild Crane'. 'Ye He' is probably a pseudonym, because 'wild crane' is used to describe a recluse. I read somewhere that Ye He lived during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The book he wrote, Zengshan Pu Yi 增刪卜易, 'The Revised Fortunetelling Changes', is very influential and all major authors who write about WWBG quote from it. It is not easy material, but if you want to know where Alex got his material from, and what inspired others, you surely must take a look at Ye He's book. It can be downloaded here (you first have to register). This site contains a lot of other goodies which are worth checking out. Woensdag, 28 september 2005The 'sheng' sacrifice at Qi Shan
(If you see tiny squares where Chinese characters should be you are probably using Internet Explorer. Switch to Firefox, it does a much better job.)
Most Yijing translations translate sheng 升, the name of hexagram 46, as 'pushing upwards', 'advancing' or 'ascending'. 'Pushing upwards' and 'advancing' are not good translations to my taste, but 'ascending' is perfectly alright. But there is more to this character (as always), if we look at the etymology and the first uses of this character, we can get a picture of what is ascended and why. The text of the Yijing also helps getting this clear. On oracle bones we find this character with two meanings: - a unit for measurement, The original form of this character seems to depict some kind of ladle, with the same shape of the early form of dou 斗. But sheng often has little drops added to it (picture left), and in the bronze forms there is actually something in the ladle, where dou 斗 is empty (picture right). Already on oracle bones is dou 斗 used to refer to the star constellation beidou 北斗, the Northern Ladle, in the West known as Ursa Major or the Great Bear. The 甲骨文字典 explains dou as "疑用為星名,即北斗,夕至翌日祭之.", "probably the name of a star (constellation), namely beidou, from the evening to the next day sacrifices are made to it". However, the 甲骨文簡明詞典 adds a fragment from a bone inscription: "月庚從斗, 𢓊雨", which is read as 'when the moon passes through dou the rain will be prolonged'. It is impossible for the moon to go through the Northern Ladle, but there is also a nandou 南斗, a Southern Ladle, a constellation in the south which has the same shape as beidou but is smaller in size. As far as we know nandou was never receiving sacrifices, beidou was far more important. The Tianguan Shu 天官書 from Sima Qian 司馬遷 (135-87 BC) says:
Whether beidou had a similar meaning during the Shang and Zhou dynasties is not known, but we do know from the oracle bones that sacrifices were made to this constellation. Sheng 升 is also the precursor of 𥘥, a character which is described in the 甲骨文字典 as a utensil for measurement, used in sacrifices (p. 27). The old forms of this character sometimes have hands added to it, and/or an altar, to express the presenting of an offering. Sheng 升 was the name of a certain sacrifice, and because of the close resemblance between the old forms of sheng and dou, I believe that sheng could refer to a sacrifice made to the constellation beidou. Dou is empty, and this emptiness is already recognized in the Shijing 詩經, where we read:
Sheng, however, is full. Maybe a sheng 升 sacrifice was done to 'fill' the ladle by offering goods to it and thereby pleasing the gods, ancestors or spirits who regulated the movement of the constellation and the seasons. A logical object in this sacrifice would be a ladle. The meaning of 'ascending' comes from this sacrifice. According to Tsung-Tung Chang sheng is used in the meaning of another homophone verb which means 'bringing an offer at a high located altar ("Das zeichen steht in Orakelinschriften wie im späteren Zeichensysteem für das homophone Verb "Opfergabe auf einen höher gelegenen Kultplatz bringen" "; Der Kult der Shang-Dynastie im Spiegel der Orakelinschriften, p. 128). Chang does not specify which verb he refers to, but probably it is deng 登, of which certain old forms depict an altar with footsteps. The 王力古漢語字典 says that sheng and deng share a common root ("同源字", p. 89). In the Mawangdui 馬王堆 Yijing and the Fuyang 阜陽 Yijing deng 登 is the name of hexagram 46. The line texts of hexagram 46 tell a lot about sheng 升: Line 1 Yun 允 is used on oracle bones with the meaning of 'truly, really', as in 'it really did rain on that day' (甲骨文字典, p. 958) and is always used before a verb (甲骨文簡明詞典, p. 288). Tsung-Tung Chang says it probably depicts a person who nods his head in agreement ("Es zeigt vermutlich einen Menschen, der zustimmend nickt"; Der Kult, p. 212). According to the Shuowen 說文 the Yi originally used 𡻏(𡴞) instead of 允. 𡻏 consist of 山, 𠦍(=夲) and 允. 山 is a mountain, 夲 means 'to advance', but the 漢語大字典 adds that it happens with joy ('進趣', 1.60). Advancing on a mountain with joy seems to be connected with 允. 允升 could therefore mean 'really (and joyous) sheng sacrifice'. The offering is successfully taking place, the ladle is actually 'filled' (maybe stars were appearing in the container of the ladle, the little dots in the early form of sheng?). This brings great fortune (大吉). Line 2 Fu 孚 means 'captives of war' (甲骨文字典, p. 265, 895; 甲骨文簡明詞典, p. 164, 333; 金文大字典, p. 2694; 金文常用字典, p. 301). Nai 乃 is a so-called 'empty character' (xuzi 虛字), in most ancient texts it has a more or less abstract meaning which is not always easy to translate, but it comes close to 'thereupon', 'only then', etc., equal to nai 迺 (甲骨文簡明詞典, p. 293). On bronzes we also find nai with the meaning 'this is/has' (金文常用字典, p. 498), like in sayings as 貧乃禍中福: 'poverty, this is misfortune's blessing' (poverty is a blessing in disguise). But nai also signifies that what follows it is somewhat special, it is used to emphasize a fact or situation which needs special attention. Liyong 利用 is an old fixed expression and means '(put to) use things, objects or people' (漢語大詞典, 2.635b), like in the Guanzi 管子: "春秋冬夏,陰陽之推移也;時之短長,陰陽之利用也", "Spring and autumn, winter and summer represent shifts in the yin and yang. The shortening and lengthening of the seasons represents their appliance." (see W.A. Rickett, Guanzi, p. 117). Li signifies that the use of the object gives results and that these results are known; yong without li means that a result is not immediately expected or anticipated. I believe yue 禴 is a key character in understanding the meaning of sheng 升. Yue is the name of a sacrifice which was used mostly in summer, but also in spring. The Zhouli 周禮 says: "以祠春享先王. 以禴夏享先王 . 以嘗秋享先王. 以烝冬享先王", "Use the ci 祠 sacrifice to serve the ancestors in spring. Use the yue 禴 sacrifice to serve the ancestors in the summer. Use the chang 嘗 sacrifice to serve the ancestors in autumn. Use the zheng 烝 sacrifice to serve the ancestors in the winter"(周禮.春官宗伯; see also Shijing M166). The nature of the yue sacrifice is found
in the component 龠. The oracle bone graph is the picture
of a music instrument made from bamboo, maybe related to the 'khaen'
as still used in Laos. The 甲骨文字典 says yue is the
name of a sacrifice in which music was used, in later ages it was more and more
written as 禴 (p. 199). Music was associated with joy and
spring. Liyong 利用 signifies that what follows is probably an object, something that can be used. Putting all this together we can translate 孚乃利用禴 as 'Captives use the music instruments (of the yue sacrifice)'. To me 利用禴 does not mean that the yue sacrifice itself was used, they only used the instruments which bear the name of this sacrifice. Because I see sheng 升 itself as a sacrifice and the text of hexagram 46 as dealing with this sacrifice it would not fit to see yue 禴 as the yue sacrifice, rather I think it points to the objects of the yue sacrifice (after all, 禴 is the later form of 龠) . The fact that music is associated with joy (which reminds us of the variant form 𡴞 of 允 in the first line of hexagram 46) also adds a little bit of credit. Yue 禴 is also mentioned in the fifth line of hexagram 63: 東鄰殺牛. 不如西鄰之禴祭. Here the character ji 祭, 'sacrifice', is added to stress the act, and not the instruments used during the act. When the sacrifice itself is meant this is specifically stated, just as in 47-2: 利用亨祀 - heng 亨 being the sacrifice, si 祀, 'offer sacrifices' to stress the act. It might seem odd to let captives play musical instruments during an important sacrifice, but captives, prisoners of war, played an important role in Shang and Zhou society. If they cooperated they would be given rewards and occasionally a high position (J.C.H. Hsu, The Written Word in Ancient China, p. 846-849). Using captives during a ceremony, be it as a sacrifice or in other ways, showed the ancestors that the conquered clan was obedient and willing to serve the ancestors of the victorious clan. Besides that, a yue instrument was not difficult to play. One of the variant forms of the oracle bone graph for yue shows an A-shaped component on top of the tubes that was probably the single mouthpiece controlling the air to all the tubes, but with each tube producing only one single note. It was constructed like the modern thirteen-reed sheng 笙 pan-pipe. This meant that the player only needed to move his fingers on the holes of the tubes without blowing into each separate tube (The Written Word, p. 674). Line 3 In most Yi translations xu 虛 is translated as 'empty'. Although this is indeed one of the many meanings of xu it does not make much sense in the context of hexagram 46. If you want to use xu in the meaning of 'empty', then you must bear in mind that xu means that there is literally nothing at all. The phrase 'empty city' is therefore nonsense, because if there would still be a city, it would not be called 'empty', no matter how little is left of it. In Tang 唐and Song 宋 times the phrase 虛邑 stood for land enfeoffed to feudal lords by the king, but the lords were not allowed to levy taxes on these lands (漢語大詞典 8.820a) - there was nothing to get, it was 'empty'. Xu is also translated as 'ruins', as in Shijing M50 quoted below. This is also a better translation than 'empty'. Another, and concerning hexagram 46 more appropriate meaning of xu, is 'hill'. We have seen that sheng 升 means the ascending of a mountain, and in the Shijing sheng is also connected with hills or mountains: "升彼大阜", "ascend the great hill" (M180). In M50 it is said "升彼虛矣", and normally xu is translated here as 'old walls', but it would be equally correct to translate xu as 'hill', but a hill with inhabitants. The Shuowen supports this view. It says (quoting the Zhouli 周禮): "古者九夫為井,四井為邑,四邑為丘。丘謂之虛", "in ancient times 9 fu 夫 constituted a jing 井, 4 jing 井 constituted a yi 邑, 4 yi 邑 constituted a qiu 丘. A qiu 丘 is also called a xu 虛". It is interesting to see that in this context xu 虛 and yi 邑 are used, just as in line 3 of hexagram 46. Just like 龠, 斗 and 升 can 虛 and 邑 be seen as units for measurement. It gives the impression that the sheng 升 sacrifice was used to determine (and set straight) the measure units that were used in the country. But this is speculation, we can not really substantiate it by facts. The Shijing shows that sheng has to do with climbing, and I think xu should therefore be translated as 'hill', which would make 升虛邑 "ascending to the hill settlement". The old form of yi 邑 is the picture of a square, symbolizing a marked piece of land, and a person kneeling. On bronzes it is used in the meanings of 1. a measure word for cities, 2. a small city or town (as opposed to a dou 都, a capital), and 3. a country (金文常用字典, p. 663). Another interesting meaning is that of a capital without an ancestral temple ("指古代無先君宗廟的都城"; 漢語大字典, 6.3753). It also refers in a more general sense to a region inhabited by people. A large mountain is not just one isolated peak, normally it consists of several smaller hills which support the summit. Along the road to the top small settlements with temples would be placed, as a resting place, but also for worship during the travel. The Tai Shan 泰山 is a good example of this (see picture on the right, click to enlarge; from D.C. Baker, T'ai Shan - An Account of the Sacred Eastern Peak of China). Line 4 The original form of xiang 享 is 亯. In the small seal script (xiaozhuan 小篆), which became the standard during the Qin dynasty, 享 was written as . When the Lishu 隸書 style of writing was introduced during the Han dynasty the lower part of this character was abbreviated to 子, but the earlier form 亯 is also still in use (甲骨文簡明詞典, p. 125). 享 shares the same etymological root with 獻, 亨 and 饗. All these characters, which are close in pronunciation, share the meaning of 'serving food', to ancestors, nature spirits or guests. 享 in its earliest usage therefore referred to making offerings to please or entertain the spirits (maybe it is related to the so-called bin 賓 hosting ritual). Qi Shan 岐山, also known as 'Phoenix Mountain', is a mountain in the north of the modern 扶風 Fufeng district, the first Zhou capital Qiyi 岐邑 was established in the plain located to the south side of Qi Shan (Maria Khayutina, Where Was the Western Zhou Capital?, p. 2. See also Shijing M237). Considering the meaning of sheng 升 I believe that this is the mountain where the sheng sacrifice took place. 王用享于岐山 translates as 'The king applied an offering at Qi Shan". Line 5 Jie 階 means 'stairs'. The complete sentence could be translated as 'The divination is auspicious. Ascend the stairs (as part of the ritual)." Before a certain ritual would take place it was customary to consult the tortoise if the ancestors would approve (see for examples D. Keightley, The Ancestral Landscape, p. 41-42). In this case the ancestors approve, it is okay to proceed. Line 6 The etymology of ming 冥 is somewhat disputed. Guo Moruo 郭沫若 says we should read 冥 as mian 娩/㝃 which means 'to bear a son'. This meaning is also derived from the fact that mian often occurs with fu 婦, a title for a woman in a high position. Tang Lan 唐蘭 follows this, but adds that the graph is related to mi 幎, a veil. The earliest form shows two hands holding a piece of cloth (甲骨文字典, p. 1573), probably supposed to shield the mother from spectators while giving birth. This 'covering' gave the later meaning of 'dim, dusky, obscure' and 'evening' or 'night'. Added to the meaning of 'giving birth' the meaning of 'nether world', the dark place where spirits dwell, is formed (漢語大字典, p. 1.304). 冥升 Could mean 'dark sheng 升 sacrifice'. The 甲骨文字典 describes dou 斗 as a constellation to which "from the evening to the next day sacrifices are made to it". If sheng is a sacrifice to the constellation dou I assume that the ritual started in the evening with the ascension of Qi Shan, which takes quite some hours, and when the top is reached it will be in the middle of the night. This is when the serious work starts, it is the most important part of the ritual, the top is where the actual sacrifice takes place. Xi 息 means 'breath', but also 'to stop'. In bronze inscriptions it is used in the meaning of xiuxi 休息, 'to have a rest' (金文大字典, p. 1838). Buxi 不息 means 'not stopping, not resting'. The complete translation would then be 'Dark sheng sacrifice. Good result when performing divinations continuously'. The actual performance of the sacrifice in the dark, when the constellation beidou can be seen and you are close to the spirits, you are vulnerable to their influences. To find out if the sacrifice is going to their will it is wise to consult the oracle continuously (see for an example of a continuing divination M. Puett, To Become a God, p. 42-43). This also stresses the importance of the sheng sacrifice. From the line texts of the Yi we get the picture of a sacrifice which was performed on mountain Qi Shan, probably at the beginning of spring. A sacrifice which was performed to honor the beidou 北斗 constellation which was supposed to regulate the seasons, and maybe had something to do with setting straight the units of measurement. The sacrifice was performed from the evening through the night, and was accompanied with music to celebrate the joyous occasion.
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