The Analects Jade Candle: A Classic of T’ang Drinking Custom

Tang Studies 4 (1986) The Analects Jade Candle: A Classic of T'ang Drinking Custom DONALD HARPER UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker --Ogden Nash Among the elite ofT'ang times the liquor party was high on the list of life's essential pleasures. No mere drunken revel, a sophisticated liquor party was an affair which offered amusements and games in an atmosphere of taste and esthetic refinement. Many features of such a party had existed in the festive customs of earlier ages, as evidenced in the formulation of drinking custom under the rubric Uliquorrules" (chiu ling ft!!i ~) or ttgoblet authority " (shang cheng MilX) during the Han and Six Dynasties periods. Guessing games, dice, and other games of chance were often played, and drinks poured according to one's luck in the game. The display of literary erudition and skill at extemporaneous composition were yet another means to get the liquor flowing and quicken the party.! Perhaps pre-T'ang liquor parties were as diverting and lively as those described in T'ang poetry and prose. Yet Po Chu.-i B '* ~ (772-846) poetizing on a party held the morning after a cold-snap portrays a style oflife most fully realized in the T'ang imagination:2 ISeveral Ch'ing scholars compiled monographs on the "liquor rules." Yu Tunp 'ei l{ .± was one of several T'ang poets to use the term: "Su shan chuang," CTS, 79.854, and "Ho Sun Chang shih ch'iu jih wo ping," CTS, 79. 860. Kato Ji5ken 110 Ki m-'if, "On yu-chu.:E.li, ya-ehou-shih 5t .1M" re., and yuheng .:E.1ffi,"Nippon-Chiigokugakkai hi) B *I=f:t ~ ~ It ¥Ii 19 (1967),1-10, offers some interesting speculations on the origin of the term yu chu and its significance in early calendrical astrology. 78 Harper: Jade Cartdlr T'ang would have recognized the candle-cylinder as a form of the t'ung; and the use of this type of container to hold drinking-lots is documented in T'ang sources on "liquor rules."24 In discussing the symbolic significance of the Jade Candle I have saved for last a question that I cannot satisfactorily answer: why is the object named Jade Candle? The term yll chu ("jade candle") was known in T'ang times as one of the proper names for seasonal conditions listed in the Erh ya 爾雅. The Erh ya states that "jade candle" is an ideal condition that arises when the chi 氣 ("vapors") of the four seasons are in harmony. Commentators explain the term by analyzing the two words, namely that yll and chu both signify the numinous glow that arises when a cosmic balance is struck and human society is synchronized with it. Thus the condition of'Jade candle" has been regarded since Han times as an auspicious portent and this is how the term is used in T'ang sources.25 I doubt that the yll chu inscribed on the Jade Candle is the same yll chu of the Erh ya tradition. Rather I think that the words yll chu in the cartouche mean "candle made of jade," jade being a epithet for objects of high quality and great value and an apt epithet for the gilt silver Jade Candle; and the reference to a candle being in some way related to the mantic aspects of the game. Even though the term is not attested in T'ang sources in connection with any type of game, I find it hard to believe that the newly discovered Analects Jade Candle was unique. T'ang sources also provide no evidence of drinking games played with quotations inscribed on lots, so the lack of specific reference to a Jade Candle game-set is not surprising. I think that it may have been a generic term for a literary drinking game. From the name Analects Jade 24See below, p.80,wherethe"canister-stand" refersto the samegeneraltype ofcylindricalcontainer. Laterliterature onthe "liquorrules''also refersto thelotcontainerasa t'ung(cf.Chiulingts'ungchao,4.la) 25Erh ya(Shihsanchingchushued.),"Shiht'ien" 釋天， 5.13a-b. In the Six Dynasties, Fan Yeh 范曄 used the termin HouHan shu, 88.30b. LoPinwang 駱賓王 was...