The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture (review)

The theme of Christopher Lupke's well-edited book The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture is "ming" . As Lupke points out, perhaps no other topic "in the scholarship on China is as potentially personal as an examination of ming. All living beings must deal with this notion" (p. ix). This concept is also very distinctively Chinese, since in Chinese culture it "involves an imbrication of concepts that in the West we consider discrete entities, such as 'fate,' 'life,' 'allotment,' and (heavenly and humanly) 'command'" (p. ix). Indeed, it is one of "the few truly defining concepts that pervade all of Chinese culture" (p. 1). But the concept of ming, "with some exceptions and despite its pervasiveness in Chinese discourse," generally has not received sufficient attention from China scholars in the form of "extended study, essay volumes, or both," as have other concepts in this category (p. 1). Having set out to rectify the ming of the study of "ming," Lupke has done a fine job in editing this volume and has made an important contribution to China scholarship.

In this book an impressive ensemble of scholars have presented illuminating and provocative examinations of the Chinese concept of "ming" against different disciplinary and sometimes interdisciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, religion, history, anthropology, literature, and philology. They also look at how it is treated on the theoretical level; how it is involved in the esoteric procedures of religious practitioners, especially the religious Daoists, and in the daily lives of the common people; how it is interwoven with political and social movements; how it is presented in fiction; and how it is understood by an individual thinker or by a community. Some of the contributors have even done some comparative work, especially between the Chinese concept of "ming" and the Greek concept of "moira" or the Latin and Christian concept of "fate." The essays in this volume also range over different periods in Chinese history, and accordingly they are divided chronologically into four parts: the Pre-Han period as well as the Former Han; the Later Han and Six Dynasties; the later imperial period; and modern China. The extremely wide-ranging nature of this volume—which demonstrates the ubiquity and the significance of the concept of "ming"—nevertheless belies a remarkable unity, not only because of its common theme and its chronological organization but also because of how it has come into being (or how it has got its own ming, its life). There were two panels on this subject at the 1998 meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Washington, D.C., and then a conference on it in 2000. Christopher Lupke then developed a Web site to enable the participants to comment on each others work and to think further about how to revise their own. The result appears in the abundant cross-references in this volume, not only on specific points but also on some common problems.

In the following, rather than attempt another comprehensive and systematic review of the major points of each article in this volume, which would be redundant and unnecessary because Lupke has already done this in the Introduction, I shall only focus on a few points that have grabbed my attention and offer some of my own thoughts. So far as these thoughts are inspired by the rich discussions in this wonderful book, even the critical remarks in what follows are actually a form of praise for this volume and the essays in it.

In the first chapter, "Command and the Content of Tradition," David Schaberg traces the origin of ming and shows how it evolved from the idea of "command" and the related special form of speech used in divination and investiture, and possibly in other rites also, to the idea of "life span." In particular, he compares the Chinese concept of ming with the Greek concept of...