Huai-nan Tzu: Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought

Chapter V. Translation of Huai-nan Tzu 6 and Commentary

Chapter V Translation of Huai-nan Tzu 6 and Commentary The present translation is based on the Chuang K'uei-chi edition of 1789 (revised by T'ao Fang-ch'i et al in 1875), as it is reproduced in Liu Wen-tien's Huai-nan hung-lieh chi-chieh 4事餌 (Collected Commentaries on Huai-nan hung-lieh), published in 1923. The numbers in the margin of the translation correspond to the page and column of the Liu Wen-tien edition. The Chinese text of Huai-nan Tzu 6, with critical emendations, is appended at the end of the present study (pp. 211-5). The notes to the translation deal mainly with the Kao Yu commentary, textual criticism and factual information. The structure, ideas and interpretation are discussed primarily in the commentaries that follow each of the nine sections into which the text of the chapter has been divided. Huai-nan Tzu 6: Peering into the Obscure1 SECTION 1 1a .4 In ancient times, when Master K'uang 曠 2 played the White Snow melody,3 wonderful creatures4 .5 because of this descended. rain and wind broke loose, Duke P'ing 平 5 became afflicted with infirmity, and the land of the state of Chin 昏 was scorched red. I Kao Yu explains lan 覽 in the title by lan-kuan 覽觀 (to peer into; to examine [both the details and the overall design]), and ming 冥 by yu-ming 幽冥 (obscure; mysterious; impenetrable). He justifies the title of the chapter by saying that the principles or beginnings of change are very subt1e, moving Heaven and 2penetrating the Infinite. Master K'uang was court musician of Duke P'ing 平 of Chin 昏， during the vi cent. BC. He was traditionally considered the most famous musician in Chinese history. Anecdotes illustrating his wisdom'and musical genius abound in pre-Han literature and occur in several other passages of Huai-nan Tzu. The Chapter Six anecdote forms but one episode in the long story about Master K'uang contained in Han Fei Tzu 10/43-5 (Liao, 1, 76). The long version is fully reproduced in Lun heng 63/213-4 (Forke, 1, 220-2) and in abridged form in Shih chi 24/1236 3(Chavannes, IIL288-90)and Lun heng19/51(Forke, II, 180). The Kao commentary explains that the ‘White Snow' (白宮之音) was a melody played on a fifty-stringed lute in honour of T'ai-yi 太乙 (supreme deity of the Han pantheon). Lun heng 19/51 (Forke, 11, 180) suggests that ‘White Snow' ~as perhaps 4only a different name for a better known melody called ℃h'ing-chit1，清徵. During Han times the expression shen-wu 神物 was used to refer to three kinds of objects: divine beings, immortals (see Shih chi 28/1388; Watson, 11, 42; Chavannes, 111，的0); numinous things, such as those used in divination: the holy' tortoise, milfoil and so on (see Yi ching 3A/102; Wi1helm/Baynes, p. 318); marvellous, unpredictable events or transformations, miracles (see Han shu 46/2196). In the Huai-nan Tzu text shen.wu seems to borrow from the second and third meanings. According to Kao, shen transformation, like the black cranes'. By this last expression Kao is referring to the longer version of the story in question in Han Fei Tzu, where it is related that when Master K'uang played the Ch'ing-chih melody,‘ two f10cks of eight black cranes f1ew in from the south and alighted on top of the outside gate. When he played again they formed themselves into rows, and when he played for a third time they crowed and stretched their necks, f1apped their wings and danced'. Kao's description of the black cranes, a detai\ not in Han Fei Tzu or Lun heng, further emphasizes their unnatural behaviour: ‘They were headless, like ghosts, brandishing swords as they danced.' Kao's allusion to the bl Peering into the Obscure: Section 1 103 .6 When the commoner's daughter6 declared herself7 to Heaven,8 thunder and lightning struck down, the .7 towered pavilion of Duke Ching 景 9 collapsed, his limbs and body were cut and broken, and the waters of the sea gushed forth in a great flood. 1b.l Now, take this blind music master and commoner's daughter: their rank was lower than 6 The story Kao n,!rrates here allegedly alluded to: There"was a w-idow of Ch'i 齊 who was childless and did not remarry. She took care...