Introduction
Ritualistic and agricultural imagery dominates depictions of a proper organization of the human and social body in early Chinese texts. Bodies (shen 身) and human dispositions (xing 性) are born/grown (sheng 生), purified (zhai 齋), cultivated (xiu 修), or nurtured (yang 養).Footnote 1 The specific roles of these images, however, have been understudied.Footnote 2 Scholars of early China have thus far mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology.Footnote 3 To advance such an intellectual historical approach that focuses on imagery, this article introduces a methodology that enables scholars to retrace how discourses developed through the reworking of images. I will put into conversation three passages from the Mengzi 孟子, Zhuangzi 莊子, and Huainanzi 淮南子,Footnote 4 texts from roughly the fourth to the second century b.c.e.Footnote 5 that employ agricultural imagery in various contexts to depict distinct understandings of (de-)cultivation and governance.Footnote 6 Based on Hans Blumenberg's (1920–1996) project of a metaphorology, I analyze how changes in the usage of images of tilled fields and wilderness crystallize, and how they purport transformations of the conceptualizations of rulership in these three examples.Footnote 7 In other words, I want to turn scholars’ attention from debates based on concepts and terminologies to some of the ways in which imagery might function as a foundational aspect of reasoning in early China.
My analysis of the historical transformations of agricultural imagery in three instances demonstrates that Mengzi 3A.4 and the Zhuangzi’s “Horses’ Hoofs” (“Mati” 馬蹄) chapter represent two idealtypical representatives of oppositional views on governance and (de-)cultivation in the late Warring States period (475–221 b.c.e.).Footnote 8 While Mengzi 3A.4 positively interprets the development and active promotion of civilization and agriculture as a first step in the separation of humanity from birds and beasts (qinshou 禽獸) that needs to be continued by enabling the subjects to nurture their Four Sprouts (si duan 四端), the “Mati” chapter of the extant Zhuangzi rejects such a positive reading of regulating and straightening (zheng 正) the cosmos and the subjects’ bodies. Only by abandoning knowledge and decultivating oneself, leading to a dissolution of the civil (wen 文) as a whole, would men be able to revive the “age of ultimate integrity” (zhide zhi shi 至德之世) during which humanity harmoniously co-existed with the animal world in an unregulated wilderness.Footnote 9
I propose that these two dichotomic positions within the multilayered debates at the intersection of governance, (de-)cultivation, and agricultural imagery during the Warring States period re-appear in similar fashion in the Huainanzi,Footnote 10 a text whose production has traditionally been attributed to Liu An 劉安 (c. 179–122 b.c.e.), the king of Huainan 淮南, and his retainers.Footnote 11 In the chapter on the “Arts of Rulership” (“Zhushu” 主術), we encounter a passage (Huainanzi 9.13) that creates a contrast between the tracelessness and formlessness of an overgrown court(yard) (chaoting 朝廷) and the incised and structured shape of tilled fields (tianye 田野).Footnote 12 According to my reading, these two images function as paired metaphors that depict the difference between the sage ruler and the officials.Footnote 13 By purporting that both education and decultivation fulfill important functions in the running of an empire, the authors of chapter nine introduce with the two metaphors a bipartite approach to governance that distinguishes between the Dao-like, de-cultivated (fanxiu 反修) and non-interfering (wuwei 無為) role and body of the ruler and the cultivated (dexiu 得修) and policy executing officials.Footnote 14 In so doing, Huainanzi 9.13 effectively synthesizes the two contrastive discourses, parts of which are nowadays enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4 and the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter. In other words, I claim that Liu An and his retainers expressed their vision of rulership by working with a stock of agricultural images prevalent throughout the late Warring States and early imperial period that manifested in oppositional forms in the two passages from the Mengzi and Zhuangzi.
Hence, the Huainanzi’s contrastive employment of tilled fields and an overgrown court(yard) and, more generally, its use of metaphors and allusions, apparently transcend merely ornamental or rhetorical purposes, an interpretation of the function of imagery still prevalent in scholarship on the Huainanzi.Footnote 15 Rather, (agricultural) imagery seems to play a significant, irreducible, and unifying part within the Huainanzi’s argumentative exposition of sage rulership. However, before we may embark upon this journey, let us turn to Blumenberg's project of a metaphorology since it is relatively unfamiliar in sinological circles.Footnote 16
Hans Blumenberg's Project of a Metaphorology
Together with Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002), Hans Blumenberg may be considered one of the most important German philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. He is largely known for his work that brought imagination and “figurative” speech back into philosophical discourse. Blumenberg developed his theory of a metaphorology against a tendency in philosophy to dismiss imagery as a mere ornament that may be discarded or replaced by “pure” terminologies.Footnote 17 As Max Black (1909–1988) summarized this trend, “To draw attention to a philosopher's metaphors [was] to belittle him—like praising a logician for his beautiful handwriting. Addiction to metaphor [was] held to be illicit, on the principle that whereof one can speak only metaphorically, thereof one ought not to speak at all.”Footnote 18 Blumenberg intended to address this “iconoclastic” attitude of (post-)Enlightenment philosophical discourse, and he therefore went out to prove the intellectual significance of “figurative” speech in vast portions of his œuvre.Footnote 19
To address such a Cartesian skepticism towards imagery, he introduced the concept of an absolute metaphor (absolute Metapher)—that is, a metaphor that cannot be substituted or dissolved into pure terminology.Footnote 20 Instead of painting terms and logics as the epitome of philosophical inquiry, he construed the world of pure speech as developed, for example, in René Descartes’ (1596–1650) writings, to be inherently flawed.Footnote 21 In Blumenberg's words, “Concepts aren't capable of all the things rationality demands,” so humanity developed metaphors to cope with this deficit.Footnote 22 Due to their indeterminate meaning and open structure, metaphors are inherently better suited than terms to depict what he calls totalities—abstract concepts that as a matter of fact cannot be clearly defined and/or made present in the phenomenal world.Footnote 23 Since Blumenberg considers metaphors to be the main vehicle for envisioning totalities such as the world, life, truth, or governance,Footnote 24 an analysis of the historical transformations of imagery enables us to track down and unearth seminal changes and ruptures of people's lifeworlds and their reflections upon it.Footnote 25 In other words, a metaphorological investigation (metaphorologische Untersuchung) is a kind of archeology of the imagination.Footnote 26 It excavates and reconstructs how debates were conducted and concerns were conceived via metaphors.
According to Blumenberg, such debates and their constructions of metaphors are highly intertextual procedures, since their creators commonly develop them with and against a set of received images. Within this context, he introduces the notion that myths function as such imaginary storage units that transmit or hand down a repertoire of images to posterity against and through which anyone at any given time may develop metaphors.Footnote 27 In other words, he claims that metaphors are often a shortened and instrumentalized reworking of a myth—a procedure he calls “work on myths.”Footnote 28 Exactly in this tension between received images and “new” metaphors lies, according to Blumenberg, an indispensable opportunity for the historian to uncover some of our most foundational thought processes.
Hans Blumenberg developed the majority of his ideas paradigmatically rather than theoretically, and I follow his example in introducing his methodology. First, I will excavate Lord Millet's (Hou Ji 后稷) myth of an agricultural revolution with the help of the song “Giving Birth to the People” (“Shengmin” 生民; Mao 245) from the Classic of Odes (Shi jing 詩經).Footnote 29 Based on the importance of the Shi jing during the late Warring States and early imperial period, we can be almost certain that at least an oral version of the narrative was widely known among the literate populace of the late Warring States period.Footnote 30 Accordingly, I shall utilize it as a starting point for and backdrop to my selective discussion of image-based debates on governance, (de-)cultivation, and agriculture as recorded in Mengzi 3A.4, Zhuangzi’s “Mati,” and the Huainanzi’s “Arts of Rulership” chapters in order to showcase how texts were working with and against a continuously updated stock of (agricultural) imagery.
“Shengmin” and the Myth of an Agricultural Revolution
Agriculture as an important means to civility and ritual prowess features prominently in the Classic of Odes, a collection of traditional poems largely from the Western Zhou 西周 period (c. 1045–771 b.c.e.) whose assemblage had traditionally been attributed to Kongzi 孔子 (trad. 551–479 b.c.e.). In the piece “Shengmin” from the “Great Hymns” (“Daya” 大雅) section, which was probably a song performed during the (harvest) sacrifices at the Zhou 周 court,Footnote 31 we find a rather long illustration of the creation of agriculture as an important step in the evolution of the Middle Kingdoms (zhongguo 中國).Footnote 32 Although the text provides several semantic problems in its specific extant form, its general plot seems to be rather clear.Footnote 33 After describing how Jiang Yuan 姜嫄 gave birth to Hou Ji as a result of her stepping into the footprint of either the divine being Di 帝 or Emperor Ku (Di Ku 帝嚳), the poem narrates how the sage ancestor of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1045–256 b.c.e.) invented agricultural methods and shared this knowledge with his people.Footnote 34 It does so by recounting the steep rise of Lord Millet from being an outcast nurtured by wild animals to a culture hero and lord of the Tai household (Tai jiashi 邰家室). It depicts him as a semi-divine figure in tune with the natural world,Footnote 35 for “[O]xen and sheep protected and cherished him” (niuyang feizi zhi 牛羊腓字之) and “[B]irds covered him with their wings” (niao fuyi zhi 鳥覆翼之).Footnote 36 Due to his intimate knowledge and early experience of the wilderness, the poem depicts Hou Ji as being able to control and increase the growth of crops.Footnote 37 Forced to feed himself at a young age, he invented the agricultural technique of “clear[ing] the thick grasses” (jue fengcao 厥豐草) so he could “plant[] the fields with the yellow crop” (zhong zhi huangmao 種之黃茂) and several other plants.Footnote 38
After having been appointed the lord of the Tai household, “He surrendered his auspicious seeds” (dan jiang jia zhong 誕降嘉種) to his people,Footnote 39 provided them with the agricultural technologies he invented,Footnote 40 and “brought [the crops] home and installed a harvest sacrifice” (yi gui zhaosi 以歸肇祀).Footnote 41 Thereby, he granted his people control over the natural world and increased their harvest. Thus, according to the mythological narrative, Hou Ji enabled the ancestors of the Ji 姬 clan, the later imperial family of the Zhou dynasty, to nourish themselves comfortably and to use their surplus food to communicate with gods and the dead via sacrificial offerings and rituals whose descriptions fill the last two stanza of the ode. In that sense, this etiological myth enshrined in “Shengmin” depicts the rise of the Ji clan, its civility, and its ritual prowess as the result of a revelation of agricultural technologies that enabled humans to conquer and control the wilderness—a power conferred by a demigod who gained this practical knowledge due to his intimate relationship with the natural world. In other words, the poem seems to construe agricultural technologies such as the clearing and tilling of fields as the very means through which human beings may leave behind their “barbaric” origins, take control over the natural world via rituals, and ascend to civility—as the sine qua non of social order and governance.Footnote 42
Agricultural Technologies and Rulership in Mengzi 3A.4
Early Chinese texts commonly hailed this conquering of the natural world and the development of agricultural technologies by Lord Millet or, as in other stories, by the Divine Farmer (Shennong 神農). At the same time, however, these writings often elaborated and worked against/with the myth's conclusion that agricultural and therewith ritual prowess directly leads to social order in their specific discussions of proper rulership.Footnote 43 For example, a passage in the chapter “Upper Section of Lord Teng Wen” (“Teng Wen Gong shang” 滕文公上) from the Mengzi, a collection of sayings attributed to Master Meng Ke 孟軻 (c. 379–304 b.c.e.), uses this image of conquering the wilderness to explain that an agricultural revolution as depicted in the Shi jing’s ode to Hou Ji is not enough to lift mankind above its beastly roots.Footnote 44
The passage in question may be found in Mengzi 3A.4. This section of the extant text illustrates a scene in which Meng Ke dismantles the arguments of the Agricultural School (nongjia 農家) as put forward by his contemporary, Xu Xing 許行, whose policies are based on the “words of the Divine Farmer” (Shennong zhi yan 神農之言).Footnote 45 Chen Xiang 陳相, a Ruist disciple who had been impressed by Xu Xing's doctrines, seeks Master Meng to discuss the idea that everybody should produce their own food—including the ruling elite. Meng Ke rebuffs this claim, arguing that job-sharing is an inevitable and vital part of society since it is impossible for anybody to produce all the things that one needs. Only if “There are the activities of the great people and the affairs of the petty people” (有大人之事，有小人之事), each fulfilling their specific role (fen 分), will a society be well-ordered and functioning.Footnote 46
Within this context of a debate between the teachings of the Agricultural School and Ruists, Mengzi 3A.4 develops a vision of a cultivated and ordered society rooted in the conquering of the floods and the invention of agriculture to harvest foods and grains (gu 穀).Footnote 47 It utilizes Yao 堯, Shun 舜, and Hou Ji, and their focus on “labor with their hearts” (laoxin 勞心) rather than “labor with their strength” (laoli 勞力), to substantiate its claim that job-sharing is a sign of a cultivated society.Footnote 48 However, Mengzi 3A.4 employs this signification to argue that although the development of these technologies (i.e. channeling/damming and plowing) allowed humans to control the “[g]reat waters [that] overflowed their banks, spreading throughout the world” (洪水橫流，氾濫於天下) and the “[a]nimals [that] harried people” (qinshou biren 禽獸偪人), it still did not help them to transcend the limitations of being a thing (wu 物).Footnote 49 Humans “without instruction” (wujiao 無教) would still remain “close to being animals” (jin yu qinshou 近於禽獸).Footnote 50 Due to the limited impact that several portions of the Mengzi, including Mengzi 4A.1 and 6A.8, attribute to the mere satisfaction of nutritional and sacrificial needs,Footnote 51 Mengzi 3A.4 unsurprisingly claims that there is a need for the rulers to do more than just “[teach] the people planting, harvesting, and cultivating the five types of grain” (教民稼穡，樹藝五穀).Footnote 52
In this vision, ethical cultivation of the people is the next necessary step after an agricultural revolution to separate humans further from their origins close to animals.Footnote 53 By eradicating the threats of the natural world, culture heroes of the distant past spatially separated the animal from the human world so that “The Middle Kingdoms may be obtained and fed” (中國可得而食也).Footnote 54 Now, it would be the task of the present sages and rulers to cultivate the masses to such a degree that humans may leave behind their beastly traits and stop the interhuman struggles of the Warring States period.Footnote 55 In other words, it seems as though Mengzi 3A.4 argues that only if the rulers prepare the ground and provide both material and ethical means to nurture the subjects and their hearts (xin 心) would the Four Sprouts flourish and a harmonious society arise.Footnote 56
Hence, Mengzi 3A.4 reduces the development and importance of agriculture and its technologies from a sufficient condition for social harmony as found in the “Shengmin” and Xu Xing's words to a necessary one. It metaphorizes and projects agriculture and the tilling of fields, which functioned as the foundation of social order in the “Shengmin,” onto the totalities of governance, as well as the human and social body—an intellectual transition and “work on myth,” to use Blumenberg's terminology, that is also crystallized in the etymology of the term “arts” (yi 藝) in early China.Footnote 57
The Call of the Wild: The Admonition to De-Cultivate in the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” Chapter
As we have seen above, “Shengmin” and Mengzi 3A.4 apparently interpreted the conquering of the wilderness as a positive aspect of human governance. Although these two texts differ in their concrete employment of the etiological narrative and its scope (cultivation of fields vs. cultivation of bodies), they nonetheless depict the conquering and development of the natural environment that surrounded human beings in the Middle Kingdoms’ distant past as a necessary step out of barbaric circumstances. However, a passage from the Zhuangzi, a collection of materials and discourses edited by Guo Xiang 郭象 (d. 312 c.e.) that had retrospectively been attributed to Zhuang Zhou 莊周 (fl. fourth century b.c.e.), displays a different take on the human domination of the natural world.
In the “Outer Chapters” (“Waipian” 外篇) of the extant Zhuangzi, we find an essay in the “Mati” chapter that develops an elaborate argumentation for the superiority of the natural world over any “civilizing” human activities.Footnote 58 By comparing human governance as epitomized by rites (li 禮) and music (yue 樂) to the taming and breeding of wild horses and the throwing of pottery,Footnote 59 it in fact argues that any human intervention with natural processes inevitably leads to violence and death.Footnote 60 Thereby, all three examples illustrate a situation in which the Myriad Beings (wan wu 萬物) are artificially reshaped and utilized, a violent act according to the “Mati” chapter's vision that only makes them subservient and useful to humanity and its “civilizing” process.Footnote 61 Accordingly, humanity should refrain from any such project and instead return to the Uncarved Block (supu 素樸).Footnote 62
To substantiate this claim, the “Mati” chapter develops an alternative reading of the relationship between mankind's distant past and present. It construes a vision of a primordial utopia in which humanity “dwel[t] together with the birds and the beasts. They would come together in tribes with the [M]yriad [Be]ings” (同與禽獸居，族與萬物並).Footnote 63 It describes this early stage of human development prior to the emergence of “civility” (wen) as an “age of ultimate integrity” (zhide zhi shi),Footnote 64 of an inborn, untaught, and unreflective disposition of humanity as a self-less (wuji 無己), desire-less (wuyu 無欲), and knowledge-less (wuzhi 無知) partaker in the phenomenal world.Footnote 65
With “the arrival of the sages” (jizhi shengren 及至聖人) and their implementation of rewards and separations in the forms of benevolence (ren 仁), righteousness (yi 義), music (yue), and rites (li),Footnote 66 however, the entire situation changed drastically.Footnote 67 The “Mati” chapter claims humans only lost their ultimate integrity due to the rise of (agri-)cultural technologies, education, and knowledge (zhi 知). It blames the creation of rites and music, understood to be the epitome of the ritualistic construction of roles (fen) and separations (bie 別),Footnote 68 as a transgression or “error of the sage” (shengren zhi guo 聖人之過),Footnote 69 a cultural invention that destroyed humanity's inborn virtue of togetherness (tongde 同德).Footnote 70 Consequently, it calls upon humans to decultivate and release themselves from the project of civility so they may become a generation of ultimate integrity and non-knowledge (wuzhi) again.
Hence, we may conclude that this discourse on the necessity to decultivate the Middle Kingdoms into a primordial society as enshrined in the “Mati” chapter connotes the phase of “human development” as a violent and destructive intrusion into the workings of the universe.Footnote 71 In fact, it states that the sages “chopped the Way and its Potency in order to create benevolence and righteousness” (毀道德以為仁義).Footnote 72 In other words, the “Mati” chapter's vision starkly contrasts the treatment of agricultural imagery in the Shi jing’s “Shengmin” and Mengzi 3A.4.Footnote 73 It reverses the judgmental directionality of their shared agenda to further separate humanity from the natural sphere by turning back to the wilderness as an ideal lifeworld—a past prior to the rise of sages, culture heroes, agriculture, and civility.Footnote 74 In Blumenberg's words, we find in the “Mati” chapter a depiction of the totalities of governance and social order in terms of agriculture's antipode: primordial wilderness. In so doing, it works against the “Shengmin's” myth by developing its own cosmogonic narrative. It rejects the positive interpretation of tilled fields as both cultivated spaces and educated bodies, as evinced in Mengzi 3A.4, and purports an image of agriculture as a violent and forceful implementation of intentional actions (youwei 有為).
Employing Wilderness and Tilled Fields: The Huainanzi’s “Arts of Rulership”
Thus far, we have encountered two oppositional understandings of agriculture and utilizations of its imagery. Although Mengzi 3A.4 considered agricultural technologies as being insufficient to guarantee social order and thus diverted slightly from the “Shengmin's” eulogy of Hou Ji, it nonetheless attributed to their invention and the tilling of fields a significant role in the evolution and maintenance of human society. In other words, Mengzi 3A.4 worked with the image of tilling as enshrined in Hou Ji's myth and projected it onto the human body and its cultivation. At the same time, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter worked against the myth of agriculture as the source of social order by completely reversing Mengzi 3A.4 and the “Shengmin's” vision of culture heroes and their (agricultural) inventions and by counter-intuitively stylizing the stage of a primordial wilderness as the real pinnacle of humanity.
When we turn our focus to the Huainanzi, a highly intertextual and comprehensive text from the early Western Han 西漢 dynasty (202 b.c.e.–23 c.e.) that Liu An, the king of Huainan, presumably presented to his nephew Emperor Wu 漢武帝 (156–87 b.c.e.; r. 141–87 b.c.e.) during his inaugural visit, we find a synthesis of these two positions.Footnote 75 I propose that Liu An and his workshop illustrate in a passage from chapter nine, titled “Arts of Rulership,” the relationship between the ruler and the officials and their respective responsibilities regarding punishments (zhu 誅) and rewards (shang 賞) with the help of the metonymical images of a “court(yard) [that] is full of weeds and devoid of traces” (朝廷蕪而無跡) and “farmers’ fields [that] are well tilled and devoid of weeds” (田野辟而無草).Footnote 76 In other words, I suggest that the Huainanzi works with and combines the two polar treatments of agricultural imagery as paradigmatically enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4 and the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter. The passage in question from Huainanzi 9.13 reads as follows:
是故明主之治，國有誅者而主無怒焉，朝有賞者而君無與焉。誅者不怨君，罪之所當也；賞者不德上，功之所致也。民知誅賞之來，皆在於身也，故務功修業，不受贛於君。是故朝廷蕪而無跡，田野辟而無草，故「太上下知有之」(Laozi 17)。
Thus in the governance of an enlightened ruler, when the state implements punishments, there is no place for the ruler's anger. When the court bestows rewards, there is no place for the ruler's involvement. One who is punished does not resent the ruler, for the punishment suits the offense. One who is rewarded does not feel gratitude toward the ruler, for the reward has been earned by merit. In such a state the people understand that rewards and punishments all come from themselves. Thus they perform their duties and serve their callings, not feeling that they should receive special tribute from their ruler. Thus the court(yard) is full of weeds and devoid of traces; farmers’ fields are well tilled and devoid of weeds. Therefore, “Of a great ruler, those below know only that (s)he exists.”Footnote 77
The Huainanzi narrates here a twofold scheme that presents an idealized vision of the responses of subjects towards their punishments and rewards. In both cases, the text suggests that only a ruler's absence from any decisions on and conferrals of punishments and rewards will lead to the situation that the subjects dissociate their specific treatments from the ruling power that underlies the governance of the empire. Similar to the Way's (dao 道) running of the cosmos whose hidden powers (yinde 陰德) we may only experience through the motions (xing 行) of the celestial bodies, the changes of seasons, and other natural processes,Footnote 78 Huainanzi 9.13 suggests by using the words of chapter seventeen of the Laozi 老子 that subjects should only experience the ruler's might through the actions (xing) of the officials so that “Of a great ruler, those below know only that (s)he exists” (太上，下知有之).Footnote 79 In other words, the passage purports a vision of governance that construes the ruler as the unknowable pivot at the center of the human realm that takes care of the underlings by not actively interfering (wuwei) with their actions and the resulting punishments and rewards.
In this discussion of the functionality of rulership based on punishments and rewards that is reminiscent of legalist conceptualizations of governance, we encounter at the end of the passage the two images of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields that immediately catch our eye.Footnote 80 What is the meaning and purpose of these two images? First, it seems as if we can reconcile the situation with the help of a rather literal reading, suggesting that “The court(yard) is full of weeds and devoid of traces” and “The farmers’ fields are well tilled and devoid of weeds” because the government works. Such an interpretation propounds that the court is empty since everyone is off doing what they should be doing (namely, managing the fields, etc.) so that the population does not bring their grievances and suits before the ruler.Footnote 81 In other words, such an interpretation understands the two images as an emblematic illustration of “the governance of an enlightened ruler” (mingzhu zhi zhi 明主之治).Footnote 82
Although such a “literal” reading seemingly explains the usage of the two images of an overgrown court as a deserted place and tilled fields in this passage, it does not explain why a court building would be overgrown with grass. In my opinion, we may only reconcile this impasse with a metaphorical reading that interprets the overgrown character of chaoting as some sort of figuration—that is, as a symbol for its non-utilization over a long period of time in a sage empire. But then we would treat the images constructed in congruence in two completely distinct ways: the tilled fields as factual and the overgrown court(yard) as symbolical. To avoid such a bifurcated reading of the two images that, as we will see, are clearly construed in congruent terms, I would like to suggest an interpretation that further takes into account the larger textual and cultural context of these two images and the allusive quality of the contrast between traceless (wuji 無跡) and tilled (bi or pi 辟) spaces. In other words, I propose that the function(s) and meaning(s) of the two contrastive images of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields might be far less determinate than they appear at first sight.
When we consider the passages right before and after Huainanzi 9.13, it seems as if this part of the “Arts of Rulership” is also concerned with the relationship between the ruler and the officials. Huainanzi 9.12, for example, utilizes the image of crafts and the production of a chariot (che 車), an image commonly used to depict the state,Footnote 83 in order to emphasize the importance of job-sharing.Footnote 84 Similar to the creation of a chariot for which one would utilize several specialists who do “not have two different skills” (gong wu er ji 工無二伎), a ruler and the officials should “each st[i]ck to [their] professions and … not interfere with others” (各守其職，不得相姦).Footnote 85 Hence, the portion of the Huainanzi that directly precedes the passage on the overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields problematizes the relationship between rulers and officials as part of “the governance of an enlightened ruler.”Footnote 86 Only if “[T]he ruler and [her/]his ministers work closely together for a long time without imposing on each other” (君臣彌久而不相猒)Footnote 87 will a government “possess[] the technique for ‘driving the chariot’ [of state]” (有術以御之也; Huainanzi 13.8).Footnote 88
The same theme continues after Huainanzi 9.13. The majority of Huainanzi 9.14 also describes the ruler's role within the government and explains how her/his non-involvement would still impact the “[H]undred [O]fficials [who] obtain their cultivation from [her/]him” (bai guan dexiu yan 百官得修焉).Footnote 89 It claims that the ruler should “cover up hearing and sight/illumination and decultivate her/his way” (掩聰明而反修其道).Footnote 90 Only “if (s)he is placed in foolishness and fulfils Potency” (chuyu chengde 處愚稱德),Footnote 91 a characteristic that the Laozi and later material cultural depictions of True People (zhenren 真人) and Ascended Beings (xianren 仙人) often associate with sagehood,Footnote 92 do “[T]he [M]yriad [Be]ings revert” (wan wu gui zhi 萬物歸之), and then “[T]he world gives what it has” (tianxia wei zhi 天下遺之).Footnote 93 Thus, the ruler's non-involvement in the daily activities such as punishment and reward and her/his decultivation (fanxiu) into an empty and foolish non-being, which strongly contrasts the Huainanzi’s discourse on the utilization of the officials who obtain cultivation (dexiu), are apparently at the heart of these passages.Footnote 94
This contrast between the hidden ruler and the openly active officials, whom the Huainanzi also illustrates with the help of the contrastive images of the chariot wheel (axle/hub:sage and spokes:officials), roots and branches (benmo 本末), round and square (yuan 圓 and fang 方), or bones and flesh (gurou 骨肉) amongst others, dominates the majority of the “Arts of Rulership” chapter.Footnote 95 According to Roger Ames, chapter nine is filled with repeated concerns about the proper roles of rulers and officials.Footnote 96 Hence, it seems as if the images of the overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields belong to a long list of binaries the Huainanzi utilizes to depict the relationship between the ruler and the officials/subjects. Isn't it possible, then, that the images of the overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields not only depict a sage empire but also allude to the discourse of job-sharing that permeates the “Arts of Rulership”?
When we turn our focus from the images’ textual context to their microstructure, it becomes even more likely that the two images not only illustrate a sage empire, but also function as paired metaphors that construe a contrast between the ruler (tenor) as a court(yard) (vehicle) and the officials (tenor) as tilled fields (vehicle).Footnote 97 For example, the specific characters for grass and tilling that the passage employs insinuate the Huainanzi’s congruent vision of governance. The term weed (wu 蕪) visually alludes to the central concepts of non-being (wu 無) and non-active interference (wuwei)—two ideas that also play a prominent role in the ninth chapter's vision of a sage ruler.Footnote 98 Moreover, the utilization of the expression wuji in this passage seems to point towards a quality of the Way, as I will show below. The court(yard)’s traceless environment starkly contrasts the fields’ tilled or incised (bi or pi) structure that hints at the practice of active law enforcement (bi or pi) and educative training as reflected in writings such as the Mengzi.Footnote 99 Hence, in addition to their literal reading as a sage empire these two images also evoke associations to the traceless sage whom the Huainanzi depicts as someone who embodies the Way (tidao 體道) and the well-cultivated and policy executing officials.
This contrast is reaffirmed in the passage's seemingly intentional usage of parallel sentence structures. While “The court(yard) is full of weeds and devoid of traces” (朝廷蕪而無跡), “The farmers’ fields are well tilled and devoid of weeds” (田野辟而無草).Footnote 100 The two sentences contrast these two spaces by cross-using the ideas of grass and trace. In so doing, the Huainanzi seems to consciously construe the two metaphors in terms of an opposition of having (you 有) and not having (wu). In my reading, they therefore evoke with the help of terminological allusions and parallelism a juxtaposition between private yards and public fields; between “useless” spaces of leisurely roaming and dwelling and useful areas of productivity; between the emperor's non-active (wuwei) and the officials’ active (youwei) governance; and finally between the ruler's inward (nei 內) and the officials’ outward (wai 外) realms of activity. Due to the passage's contention that officials and not the ruler should administer punishments and rewards, the cultural significance of plants and agriculture as metaphors for governance and practices of self-cultivation in early China, as well as the images’ textual context and microstructure, it is therefore very tempting, in my opinion, to read these two images not only as an illustration of a sage empire but also as metaphors for the specific roles of rulers and officials, respectively.Footnote 101
Unwrapping the Allusiveness of the Images of an Overgrown Courtyard and Tilled Fields
Thus far, this first analysis has only scratched the surface of the images’ implications. In addition to a literal reading, it suggested that the court(yard) and tilled fields might also function as paired metaphors that refer to the distinct roles of the ruler and the officials within the Huainanzi’s vision of governance. If we read these two images as metaphors within this context of a debate about political roles, however, the passage raises at least two further questions: in what sense do an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields really serve as vehicles for the tenors ruler and officials? And what are the larger implications of these two metaphors within the Huainanzi’s discussion of rulership? In the next sections, we will see that the overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields might not only refer to governmental roles. They similarly evoke strong associations with early Chinese discourses of the cosmos, body, and (de-)cultivational practices, evading any possibility of being substituted in pure terminologies.Footnote 102
To illuminate further their relationship to late Warring States and early Han 漢 understandings of the body and (de-)cultivation, I will concentrate on the image of the overgrown court(yard) and its tracelessness (wuji) in the following discussion. Since Huainanzi 9.13 construes tilled fields and the overgrown court(yard) in congruent terms according to my reading, I deem it sufficient to present at this point only a detailed analysis of what I consider to be a metaphor for the ruler. We will see that the Huainanzi purports that the practice of wuwei would finally result in a ruler's hiding (cangji 藏跡 and dunji 遁跡), covering up (yanji 揜跡), or eradicating traces (mieji 滅跡), leading to a transformation of her/his body into a formless being homological to an overgrown court(yard) and the Way. In that sense, I will suggest retrospectively that the Huainanzi apparently construes two distinct self-cultivational programs depending on the role of the person in question. While the ruler needs to decultivate (fanxiu) her-/himself and her/his surroundings into an overgrown court(yard)—a Dao-like being of non-action (wuwei), non-knowledge (wuzhi), and formlessness (wuxing 無形)—I deduce ex negativo that officials must obtain cultivation (dexiu) and trim themselves into a cultivated field (tianye) defined by the traces of their actions and words.Footnote 103 But before we get to this point, let us first explore how tracelessness, a defining aspect of the Huainanzi’s metaphor of an overgrown court(yard), is related to illustrations of the cosmic Way and the sage.
The Tracelessness of the Way and the Sage's Eradication of Traces in the Huainanzi
The Huainanzi’s metaphor of the ruler as an overgrown and traceless court(yard) alludes to a vivid discourse about the tracelessness of the Way in texts from the late Warring States period and the early Han.Footnote 104 Texts such as the Zhuangzi and the Huainanzi depict the Dao as an intangible force that remains untraceable for human beings while its actions are omnipresent in the universe.Footnote 105 Huainanzi 1.13 from the chapter “Originating Way” (“Yuandao” 原道), for example, refers to the two locomotive terms motion (xing) and movement (dong 動) to depict the actions of the Way. It creates a stylistic parallel between these two activities by saying that “Its movements are formless” (qi dong wuxing 其動無形) and “[I]ts motions/actions are traceless” (qi xing wuji 其行無跡).Footnote 106 Hence, the Huainanzi implicitly contrasts the trace- and formlessness of the Way with the Myriad Beings’ bodily shapes and tracks.Footnote 107
This discourse on the tracelessness of the Way gains further importance since Liu An and his workshop projected this ideal onto the sages, construing them and their actions as being beyond the grasp of humanity. Huainanzi 14.32 from the chapter “Explaining Words” (“Quanyan” 詮言), for example, further fleshes out the techniques (shu 術) that according to the Huainanzi would enable a sage to act like the traceless Way. The passage depicts an environment in which the goodness of the officials’ actions and the benefit that the subjects receive all originate from the sage who “makes certain that [her/]his goodness does not bring [her/]him fame” (shi shan wuming 使善無名).Footnote 108 Only if neither the scholars (shi 士) nor the people (min 民) know of the beneficiary origin of their actions, will the ruler be able to avoid the consequences that “[F]unctionaries will compete [to establish] reputations” (shi zheng ming 士爭名) and “[P]eople will vie with one another to obtain them [i.e. benefits]” (min zheng gong 民爭功).Footnote 109 We find here again the same discourse that guided our discussion of the overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields above and according to which the ruler should manifest hidden powers (yinde). This time, however, the Huainanzi connects this political discourse with the act of “hid[ing] [her/]his tracks [in] doing good” (yanji yu weishan 揜跡於為善).Footnote 110
Chapter fourteen further elaborates on this idea of hiding one's traces in doing good by comparing cosmic entities and their attributes with the outcomes of sage and human rulership. Huainanzi 14.45 creates a parallel between human governance and Heaven and Earth—i.e. the rulers of the cosmos—whose impartiality and intangibility are the basis for their successful control and ordering of the universe: “Heaven and Earth are without anything to give. Therefore, they are without anything to take. The sun and the moon are without hatred. Therefore, they are without enmity” (天地無予也，故無奪也；日月無德也，故無怨也).Footnote 111 Accordingly, human rulership should follow the same patterns in order to create social harmony. Only if human governance cosmicizes itself so that it correlates with “the self-so-ness of Heaven and Earth” (tiandi ziran 天地自然),Footnote 112 i.e. the order (zhi 治) and principles (li 理) of the cosmos, will the world and the empire be working effectively and successfully.Footnote 113 Again, the Huainanzi argues that “eradicating one's traces in non-interfering action” (mieji yu wuwei 滅跡於無為) is an important component of such cosmicized rulership.Footnote 114
Since this passage uses the same sentence structure we encountered in the example above to depict good actions as being traceless (yanji yu weishan), it seems as if chapter fourteen intends to parallel the two concepts of wuwei and weishan, implying that a good (political) action, i.e. a ruler's non-interference with the workings of the cosmos and the empire as expressed in Huainanzi 9.13, leaves no traces in this world in form of praise (yu 譽) or benefits (li 利).Footnote 115 In other words, wuwei is portrayed as the very means that allow a ruler to keep the underlings in control without relying on the use of praise, insult (hui 毀), benefit, or harm (hai 害). Thus, it enables the ruler to become an intangible force similar to the origin of the universe that automatically orders the empire/cosmos.Footnote 116 If we follow the parallel in content and structure regarding punishment and rewards in Huainanzi 9.13 and the “Quanyan” chapter, it seems as if the court(yard) may also refer to the sage and her/his performance of wuwei. However, it is important to note that the Huainanzi does not only call here for an implementation of Dao-like policies and actions in the sage ruler's governance. In fact, it develops this kingly way based on characteristics of a practice through which a ruler may embody the Way (tidao), as we will see in the next section.Footnote 117
Embodying the Way: The Sage as a Form-, Action-, and Traceless Dao-Being
The Huainanzi repeatedly proposes that sage rulers should not only mimic the workings of the universe but also embody the Way. A passage in Huainanzi 13.8, for example, directly addresses such a technique of “us[ing] their bodies to incarnate it [i.e. the Dao]” (yi shen ti zhi 以身體之).Footnote 118 With the help of paradoxical pairings reminiscent of the Laozi’s rhetorical strategy of utilizing exclusionary binaries to depict the Way, this part of the “Boundless Discourses” (“Fanlun” 氾論) chapter claims that sages conjoin the qualities of yin 陰 and yang 陽 by being “lenient yet firm” (kuan er li 寬而栗) or “forceful yet humane” (meng er ren 猛而仁).Footnote 119 In other words, by “obtain[ing] the root of the Way” (de dao zhi ben 得道之本),Footnote 120 the sages’ bodies function as spaces in which the cosmic forces of yin and yang may synthesize into a primordial unity.Footnote 121
This passage raises an interesting question: if the sages use their physical form in order to embody such a primordial unity of cosmic forces similar to the Way, how should we concretely imagine the outcome of the process of embodying the Dao? Fortunately, the Huainanzi contains several passages that provide some clues to this question. Huainanzi 7.6 from the chapter “Quintessential Spirit” (“Jingshen” 精神), for example, explicates this transformation of the ruler into the force that, according to Huainanzi 2.12 from the “Activating the Genuine” (“Chuzhen” 俶真) chapter, “transformingly gives birth [yet] does not die and transforms beings [yet] does not transform” (化生者不死，而化物者不化) in terms of being and non-being.Footnote 122 In the words of Huainanzi 7.6, “The sage would use [her/his] non-existence in order to resonate with those that exist” (聖人以無應有),Footnote 123 an ontological binary the Huainanzi apparently frequently utilizes to depict the relationship between the ruler and the officials/subjects as shown above.Footnote 124 The continuation of Huainanzi 7.6 makes it clear that the sages transform themselves into formless non-beings (wu) who are able to impact and govern the phenomenal world:Footnote 125 by “[M]ak[ing] the Way their boundary and Potency their neighbor … [d]eath and life do not alter them” (與道為際，與德為鄰 … 死生無變於己).Footnote 126 According to Huainanzi 7.7, such sages or True People (zhenren) are Supreme Spirits (zhishen 至神) whose “inborn nature [merges] with the Way. Therefore, they [exist] but appear to be [non-existent]. They are full but appear to be empty” (性合於道也。故有而若無，實而若虛).Footnote 127 At the end, the passage depicts the sages as the ones who “perform wuwei, return to the Uncarved Block” (wuwei fupu 無為復樸), and therewith “embody the root” (tiben 體本).Footnote 128
This vision of the sage ruler as a human embodiment of the Way is emphasized by the fact that the Huainanzi construes wuwei as the very body of the Dao. Huainanzi 2.6 claims that “The Utmost Way is/performs wuwei” (zhidao wuwei 至道無為).Footnote 129 In addition, Huainanzi 9.10 proclaims, “[Wuwei] is the Ancestor of the Way. Attaining the Ancestor of the Way, one [resonates with] the [Myriad] [Be]ings without limit” (無為者，道之宗. 故得道之宗，應物無窮).Footnote 130 Or as Huainanzi 14.56 puts it succinctly and in the most explicit way: “Wuwei is the body of the Way,” or perhaps “The one who performs wuwei is/becomes the body of the Dao” (無為者，道之體也).Footnote 131 Hence, it seems as if we do not only deal here with the implementation of a wuwei-policy. The Huainanzi rather claims that the implementation and performance of wuwei leads to a physiological transformation of the ruler into a trace- and formless (non-)being by merging with the Way.Footnote 132
As Mark Csikszentmihalyi has powerfully demonstrated, a physiological and material vision of virtues and powers should not surprise us since it might have been commonplace during the Western Han dynasty.Footnote 133 If we consider such a physiological understanding of (de-)cultivation for our examples from Huainanzi 9.13, the “Mati” chapter, and Mengzi 3A.4, it seems as if the Huainanzi does not only compare in the metaphors of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields the roles of farmers and officials with the sage ruler as I suggested at the beginning of this discussion. It rather claims that the sage ruler's body—like a decultivated court(yard)—is homological to the traceless Way.Footnote 134 Consequently, the eradication or hiding of one's traces via wuwei, which is repeatedly depicted as the very means to make the ruler a formless (wuxing), universally resonating non-being (wu), becomes a central concern of the Huainanzi’s body politics. In this vision, it is not enough if the ruler only replicates the actions of the Way in her/his governance. (S)he rather has to decultivate her/his body to such a level that (s)he alleviates her-/himself of her/his thing-ness (wu) and transforms her-/himself into a form-, trace-, and action-less force similar to the Way in order to control the cosmos and the empire.Footnote 135 Or to use Michael Puett's terminology, the task of the ruler is to divinize her-/himself so (s)he “can become fully linked with the proper patterns of the universe … that any spirit inherently follows.”Footnote 136 And according to my reading of Huainanzi 9.13, this entire discourse has been alluded to and is encapsulated in the metaphor of the ruler as a traceless, overgrown court(yard).
Conclusion: The Role of Imagery in Early Chinese Texts
In this article, I utilized Hans Blumenberg's method of a metaphorology to explain why the Huainanzi might employ the metonymical images of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields in its chapter on the “Arts of Rulership.” By retracing an idealtypical speckle of the history of agricultural imagery in early China, I suggested that there might be a much wider and more complex connotation to these two images than it first appears. In addition to interpreting them in a literal fashion as an emblematic illustration of a sage empire, I proposed that these two images also function as paired metaphors for the ruler and the officials, evoking a vast array of interlinked discourses on social roles, practices of (de-)cultivation, and the body prevalent during the late Warring States and early imperial period. In other words, I read the two images as responses to an image-based debate on governance and body politics whose polar positions paradigmatically crystallized in the received versions of Mengzi 3A.4 and the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter.
Within this discussion of agricultural imagery in Mengzi 3A.4, Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter, and Huainanzi 9.13, it turned out that the text attributed to Liu An and his retainers only partially agrees with the “Mati” chapter's negative evaluation of agricultural and educational cultivation. On the one hand, the Huainanzi clearly follows the “Mati” chapter's interpretation of wilderness as a primordial stage of ultimate integrity and incorporates it in its own discussion of the ruler's role as someone without intentional actions. While the passage from the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter calls for a primordial civilization in which the entire community displays aspects or behaviors of the Dao, the Huainanzi, however, requires this mimicking of the Way only for the sage ruler. By de-cultivating the human physique so that (s)he may eradicate her/his traces, the ruler is thought to embody the Dao, enabling her/him to guarantee the proper working of the empire via her/his universally resonating (non-)presence (wu). Thereby, the sage ruler and her/his body—like the overgrown court(yard)—do not fulfil any discernibly “useful” tasks (shi 事) for the realm and in so doing remain out of reach for the subjects. Hence, the ability to decultivate (fanxiu) the ruler's body to such an extent that (s)he is able to hide and eradicate the traces of her/his actions and loses her/his human condition is a central concern in the Huainanzi’s body politics. Only the organization of the ruler's court and body in such a way that (s)he disappears as the source of the power behind punishments and rewards would enable her/him to govern the empire successfully.Footnote 137 In that sense, it describes the Arts of Rulership as the implementation of the traceless workings of the Dao in the ruler's actions, body, and court.Footnote 138
On the other hand, Huainanzi 9.13 rejects the “Mati” chapter's complete dismissal of any form of human cultivation. Regarding the officials and subjects, it also employs an image similar to Mengzi 3A.4. According to my reading, Huainanzi 9.13 claims that human beings—like agricultural fields—need to be cultivated (dexiu) and tilled so they may fulfill their roles (fen) in the running of the empire. As part of this vision, it illustrates the body of the subjects and officials as cultivated and tilled fields devoid of weeds (wucao 無草) and full of furrows or traces. While it apparently perceives plowing to be an active and humanly forced production of agricultural furrows in the ground that shall lead to literal fruition and “birth” (sheng) of agricultural goods, it seemingly depicts learning as the watering and tilling of a human body whose knowledge and skills may be harvested in “the governance of an enlightened ruler.”Footnote 139 Similar to the Way and its utilization of the Myriad Beings, the Huainanzi understands officials and farmers to be human beings in the service of the sage ruler who help nourish and keep running the empire's physique.Footnote 140 Thus, it seems as if Liu An and his workshop, like Mengzi 3A.4, also consider the tilling of the agricultural and human fields as two important aspects of sage governance.
Hence, the “Arts of Rulership” chapter presents a bipartite approach to governance that distinguishes between the Dao-like and non-interfering (wuwei) ruler and the executors (youwei), i.e. officials and farmers. While it is fundamental to maintain the intangibility of the ruler to guarantee an ineffable framework or guiding force for the ordering and harmonizing of the empire, it is almost equally important to employ educated and trained subjects in order to engender a smooth running of the world. In short, Blumenberg's method allowed us to retrace via an analysis of the reworkings of agricultural imagery how Mengzi 3A.4 and the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter partake in an elaborate debate on (de-)cultivation and governance that became synthesized in Huainanzi 9.13.
In addition to providing some specific insights into early Chinese debates about governance and (de-)cultivational practices, this article has also shown that an engagement in the historical transformations of images and metaphors may yield new insights into conceptual changes within early Chinese debate culture. Michael J. Puett has recently argued that narratives and poems worked as catalyzers for the production of new meanings and debates in early China.Footnote 141 In his understanding, various narratives functioned as a stock of cultural knowledge that became repeatedly reinterpreted and reappropriated in early Chinese texts. I would like to suggest in this conclusion that we should not limit such a discourse-analytical model to narratives and poems, but also include reworkings of imagery.
As we have seen, Huainanzi 9.13 apparently works with the polar positions of the images of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields in order to develop its novel vision of governance and body politics.Footnote 142 Hence, the Huainanzi construes itself as a text that—like the sage who conjoins yin and yang—synthesizes binary forces.Footnote 143 Consequently, the images’ functions within the Huainanzi go far beyond mere illustrations of a sage empire or ornamental and rhetorical purposes, as classical theories of metaphors would suggest.Footnote 144 The metaphors of an overgrown court(yard) and tilled fields apparently become the very ground on which Liu An and his retainers unite their specific visions of the body as a partaker in the universe and as the very site through which rulers may be transformed into Dao-beings and officials into useful resources of a sage governance, respectively.
Therefore, the Huainanzi’s metaphors of tilled fields and an overgrown court(yard), which allude to a wide range of discourses circling around the themes of governance, the body, and practices of (de-)cultivation, may not simply be substituted by some actual meaning or pure term (Begrifflichkeit). According to my reading such an interpretation would wholly disregard the images’ allusive qualities. Instead, these metaphors, due to their non-conceptuality (Unbegrifflichkeit) to use Blumenberg's terminology, seem to fulfill the requirements of what Paul Ricœur (1913–2005) termed a vivid (métaphore vive) and Blumenberg called an absolute metaphor; that is, a “strategy of discourse by which language divests itself of its function of direct description in order to reach the mythic level where its function of discovery is set free.”Footnote 145 They escape a clear definition by evoking a vast array of discourses. Hence, the article paradigmatically shows in the context of Huainanzi 9.13 that metaphors such as tilled fields and the overgrown court(yard) may function as “foundational elements of philosophical language, ‘translations’ that resist being converted back into authenticity and logicality.”Footnote 146 It calls for more research that tries to understand the diverse function(s) of (agricultural) imagery in early Chinese texts beyond linguistic figuration and encourages us to fully engage in imagery's role as a central and foundational aspect of early Chinese debates rather than a rhetorical side effect of its discourses about specific concepts and terminologies.
