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The Term K'an-yü and the Choice of the Moment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Michael Loewe
Michael Loewe*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Oriental Studies, Sidgwick Avenue, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9 DA
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Extract

The term k'an-yü, which is seen in various texts from the Huai-nan-tzu (completed by 139 B.C.) onwards, has been subject to various attempts at explanation, and it is possible that its original meaning may have become forgotten at a comparatively early stage. It will be noted below that fromnthe third or fourth century commentators were explaining k'an-yü as referring to heaven and earth, but apparently without a clear comprehension of the term. In much more recent times, k'an-yü-chia has been used as a synonym for feng-shui-chia, meaning, specifically, experts in geomancy whose aim lay in ensuring that a site on earth would be auspicious, either for occupation or for burial.

Type
RESEARCH NOTES AND COMMUNICATIONS
Information
Early China , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , 1985 , pp. 204 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1983 

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References

NOTES

1. According to informants, in recent colloquial usage k'an-yïi tends to be restricted to educated or literary speakers. See also the preface (dated 1969) of Nan Huai-chih to a reprint of Ku Ling-kang and Hsu Shih-k'o , Ti-1i t'ien-chi hui-yüan (Taipei: Chen-shan-mei ch'u-pan-she, 1970)Google Scholar.

2. For these instruments, see Anhui sheng wen-wu kung-tso tui and others, “Fu-yang Shuang-ku-tui hsi Han Ju-yin hou mu fa-chüeh chien-pao” , Wenwu 1978.8:15ff.Google Scholar, 19, fig. 8; 25, figs. 9-10; and Plate III; Tun-chieh, Yen , “Kuan-yü hsi Han ch'u-chi ti shih-p'an ho chan-p'an” , Kaogu 1978.5:334–37Google Scholar; Ti-fei, Yin , “Hsi Han Ju-yin hou mu ch'u-t'u ti chan-p'an ho t'ien-wen i-ch'i” , Kaogu 1978.5:338–43Google Scholar; Harper, Donald J., “The Han cosmic board (shih ),” Early China 4 (1978–1979):1–10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cullen, Christopher, “Some further points on the shih,” Early China 6 (1980–1981) :31–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harper, Donald J., “The Han cosmic board: a response to Christopher Cullen,” Early China 6 (1980–1981):47–56 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loewe, Michael, Ways to Paradise: the Chinese quest for immortality (London: Allen and Unwin, 1979), pp. 75–80, 204–08Google Scholar. For the association of the shih with hsüan chi yü heng , see Cullen, , Early China 6:39 Google Scholar and Cullen, Christopher and Farrer, Anne S. L., “On the term hsu'an chi and the flanged trilobate discs,” BSQAS 46:1 (1983):52–76 Google Scholar.

3. The importance of choosing auspicious occasions may be seen in documents such as the Yüeh ling (as in the initial p'ien of Lü shih ch'un-ch'iu, ch. 1-12; Li chi, ch. 5; and Huai-nan- tzu, ch. 5)， and in the later and more practical Ssu min yüng ling . For criticism that was levelled against undue attention to the choice of a propitous time and other mantic practices, see under Lun-heng (passage 8 below), and also Lun-heng, 23 (“Ssu hui” ) and 24 (“Chi jih , ”Pu shih" , and "pien sui" ); and Fu, Wang , Ch'ien-fu lun , 6 Google Scholar ("Pu lieh" , "Wu lieh" , and "Hsiang lieh" ).

4. See Harper, , Early China 4:9 Google Scholar, note 53; Wen-hsüan (SPTK), 7.2b.

5. Haruki, Kusuyama , Enanji 1, 190–91 (Tokyo: Meiji shoin Google Scholar; Shinshaku kambun taikei [1979], 54 Google Scholar). In his note, Kusuyama suggests that the k'an-yu chia pronounced on questions of fortune after taking into account the movements of the heavenly bodies and the situation on earth, on the basis of the sexagenary cycle. See also the notes of Ch'ien T'ang (1735-90) to the passage in Huai-nan t'ien-wen shun pu-chu , reprinted in Liu Wen-tien , Huai-nan hung-lieh chi-chieh , 98b, 99).

6. For Ch'u Shao-sun (second half of the first century B.C.), see Chavannes, , Mémoires Historiques, vol. I, pp. cci–cciv Google Scholar, and Pokora, Timoteus, “Ch'u Shao-sun - narrator of stories in the Shih-chi,” Annali dell'Instituto Orientale di Napoli 41 (1981): 403–30Google Scholar; Pokora tentatively suggests the dates 104 to 30 B.C. for Ch'u's life. For the chien-ch'u chia, see my manuscript “The almanacs (jih-shu) from Shui-hu-ti: a preliminary survey.” Ts'ung-ch'en and T'ai-i form part of the titles of works included in the list of Han shu, 30.65, 70b, 71 (Han shu pu-chu). For the state cults addressed to T'ai-i, see Loewe, , Crisis and Conflict in Han China (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 169 Google Scholar.

7. Knechtges, David R., The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung (53 B.C.-A.D. 18) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 46, 128, n.21Google Scholar.

8. Loewe, , Crisis and Conflict, p. 178 Google Scholar.

9. Knechtges (p. 46) renders: “He assigns K'an and Yü to the ramparts.” Pi is the 14th of the 28th Lunar Lodges, sometimes known as Tung pi . Both in this passage and in Chang Heng's , Ssu hsüan fu the term pi-lei seems to be used as an extension of pi (Hou Han shu chi-chieh, 59.23 (biog. 49).

10. This figure is given in Han shu pu-chu, 30.72b; the actual total of chüan listed is 654.

11. Han shu pu-chu, 30.72.

12. Ibid., 30.73b.

13. Ibid., 30.77b.

14. T'ai-p'ing yü-lan (SPTK), 849.5b; Centre Franco-Chinois d'etudes sinologiques, Index du Fong sou t'ong yi (Peking, 1943), p. 85 Google Scholar. Avoidance of holding assemblies on shang-shuo days is also mentioned in the Lun-heng 24 (“Pien sui”), p. 1010 (Forke, vol. 1, p. 530). The expression is also seen on contemporary calendars from Hong Kong.

15. Biot, Edouard, Le Tcheou-1i ou rites des Tcheou, vol. II (Paris, 1851), p. 114 Google Scholar.

16. Forke, Alfred, Lung-heng, pt. II (original edition 1911; reprinted New York: Paragon Book Company, 1962), p. 393ffGoogle Scholar.

17. In addition to the passage under reference, see Lun-heng 23 (“Ssu hui”) and 24 (“Pien sui”); Forke, , Lun-heng, pt. II, p. 376ff.Google Scholar; pt. I, p. 525ff.

18. Lun-heng 24 (“Chi jih”; Hui, Huang ed.), p. 993ffGoogle Scholar.

19. Tüo, P'eng , ed., Ch'ien-fu lun chien (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1979), p. 299 Google Scholar.

20. For a shorter account, see Pei shih , 89 (biog. 77, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1974), p. 2925 Google Scholar.

21. This work is no longer extant.

22. See entries in Sui shu, 34 (chih 29), pp. 1028, 1032 Google Scholar.

23. See Karlgren, Bernhard, Grammata Serica Recensa (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1957), pp. 40, 42 Google Scholar for ancient reading iwo (items 82 1 and 89 j).

24. po-wu-kuan, Kan su sheng and so, Chung-kuo k'o-hsüeh-yüan k'ao-ku yen-chiu , Wu-wei Han chien (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan she, 1964), p. 139 Google Scholar.

25. Han shu pu chu, 30.70; Hou Han shu chi-chieh 76.7 (biog. 66).

26. Han shu pu-chu, 87A.9b.

27. As cited above in note 1.

28. See Wen-wu 1978.8:12ffGoogle Scholar., as cited above in note 1, and T'ieh-hua, Chao , ed., Chung-kuo ku-tai t'ien-wen wen-wu t'u-chi (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she, 1980), pl. 25Google Scholar.

29. Han shu pu-chu, 16.6.

30. Attention may perhaps be drawn to the vigorous criticism voiced by Ssu"ma Kuang in 1084 against the funerary practices of his day, which included, to his mind, an excessive degree of attention to geomancy. It is tempting to speculate that the recent introduction of the magnetic needle into the instruments and their subsequent use to excess may have been one reason for Ssu-ma Kuang's outspoken views. See Ssu-ma Kuang, Tsang lun in Ssu-ma wen-kung wen chi , Cheng-i-t'ang ch'üan shu , 13.2; and Wen-kuo wen-cheng Ssu-ma Kung wen-chi (SPTK), 71.11b. Also de Groot, J. J. M., The Religious System of China, vol. III (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1892–1910; reprinted Taipei: Literature House, Ltd., 1964), p. 1021ffGoogle Scholar. At a slightly earlier date, Chang Tsai (1020-1077) had, in a single sentence, dismissed feng-shui as being meaningless (Chang tzu ch'üan shu (SPPY), 8.6 (Sang chi ).