8 · Chinese Cosmographical Thought: the High Intellectual Tradition

8 · Chinese Cosmographical Thought: The High Intellectual Tradition JOHN B. HENDERSON Chinese cosmographical thought of premodern times was to establish just what these relationships were. Hence this not as concerned as its counterparts in Western civili chapter must rely largely on verbal descriptions for its zations with the overall shape of the world or structure account of Chinese cosmographical thought in its form of the cosmos. There is no pre-seventeenth-century ative phase in the Han era (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), though Chinese equivalent of the medieval European mappae graphic reconstructions dating from the Song and later mundi or of Western representations of the earth show will be included where they are helpful and relevant. ing its various cosmographical divisions or climatic zones. A glance at these reconstructions reveals that most of The widely held conception that China comprised "all them were patterned on the same model, a square divided under heaven" (tianxia), as well as the geographical iso into nine equal squares resembling the form of a simple lation of Chinese civilization, may have contributed to magic square or three-by-three grid. Cosmographers in Chinese cosmographers' lack of interest in outlining, traditional China applied this plan to the conceptuali either realistically or schematically, the form of the world zation and arrangement of such diverse kinds of space as as a whole. Whatever the explanation, traditional Chinese astronomical, political, agrarian, urban, and architectural. cosmographical charts generally represent structures in Just as Sir Thomas Browne, according to Coleridge, saw such microcosmic dimensions as the architectural, the "Quincunxes [or lozenges] in Heaven above, Quincunxes urban, and the agrarian rather than depicting the shape in Earth below, & Quincunxes in the water beneath the of the earth or the system of the world. Like many West Earth,"l so Chinese cosmographers of the Han and later ern cosmographical diagrams, however, these Chinese eras regarded the simple nonary square as the basis of charts were generally based on the supposition that there proper order in practically every realm of space. This exist correspondences or correlations, which may be form was at least as important and ubiquitous in pre graphically expressed, between various orders of exist modern Chinese cosmography as the circle was in Greek, ence or realms of the universe, such as those of heaven, medieval European, and Islamic cosmography. One of earth, and humanity. But in Chinese cosmographical my principal aims in this chapter is to outline the devel thought these correspondences were drawn less often opment, articulation, and later criticism of this dominant between macrocosm and microcosm as among various cosmographical conception, which made Chinese cos orders of mundane reality. mographical thought, at least that of the high literate In comparison with most of their counterparts in West tradition, remarkably uniform and well integrated. In so ern and Middle Eastern cosmographical traditions, doing, I will focus on two particularly important eras in Chinese cosmographical charts were also generally more the history of geometric and nonary cosmography in subordinate to and less independent of textual descrip China. These include the formative phase of the Han tions. Although graphic representations of cosmograph period and the seventeenth century, which saw the crit ical schemata were common in China from the Song era icism and decline of established cosmographical concep (960-1279), those diagrams were often printed principally tions and the emergence of new ones. to illustrate or substantiate a cosmographical conception that received a more authoritative or precise formulation I thank Nathan Sivin of the University of Pennsylvania for his valuable in an accompanying text. For Chinese scholars a picture comments and constructive criticism on drafts of this chapter. (or graph) was not worth a thousand words, however 1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's letter to Sara Hutchinson, on two and useful it might be as a visual aid. The relationships one-half flyleaves of a volume containing Browne's Vulgar Errors, Reli between graph and text may well have differed in earlier gio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and Garden of Cyrus (London, 1658), now periods, as the lore surrounding the composition and in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library; see Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century, ed. Roberta Florence Brinkley (Durham: Duke articulation of the canonical Yi jing (Book of changes) University Press, 1955). The reference is to Browne's The Garden of implies. But so few of such diagrams have survived from Cyrus; or, The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the the pre-Song or preprinting era in China that it is difficult Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered. 203 204 Cartography in China In composing this outline of the formation and decline palaces,"6 the nonary square. But Fu Xi was believed to of the perennial Chinese cosmography, I found it nec have first observed such a pattern on the shell of a turtle essary to consult sources on such diverse topics as micro emerging from the Luo River. So even though the nine cosmic architectural structures, classical city plans, and palace formation, the graphic basis of the perennial ideal agrarian orders, for Chinese cosmographical con Chinese cosmography, was credited to an ancient sage ceptions were articulated most extensively and illustrated king, its pattern was supposedly taken from the natural most graphically in these areas. Little of the modern world. It was immanent in the structure of heaven and scholarship on these subjects or schemata is devoted to earth, or at least marked on the shell of a remarkable their cosmographical aspects, however, focusing instead turtle. on their political, economic, or ritual significance and As one of the great civilizing inventions attributed to treating them in isolation from congruent cosmographical an ancient sage, the nonary square or three-by-three grid, coriceptions. In short, cosmography is not a well-'devel like other inventions such as agriculture, written lan oped or even a very distinct field of study among Sinol guage, and herbal medicine, was meant to be applied for ogists. Hence there is at this juncture little point in the development and improvement of human culture and attempting a systematic historiographical or bibliograph society. It was not, in other words, simply an aspect of ical overview of the secondary literature on Chinese cos the traditional Chinese worldview; it had policy impli mography. cations and practical uses. Its judicious application in the agrarian realm, in the form of the "well-field system," FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRIC AND for example, was supposed to secure the livelihood of NONARY COSMOGRAPHY the cultivator, the revenue of the state, and the peace and prosperity of the realm as a whole. The construction Antecedents of the perennial Chinese cosmography may be traced back to high antiquity. Rectilinear forms, espe cially squares, figure prominently in Chinese art and arti 2. Michael Sullivan, The Arts of China, 3d ed. (Berkeley and Los facts from the dawn of Chinese history. Indeed, the Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 7. designs on Chinese Neolithic pots dating from as early 3. David N. Keightley, "The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese Political Culture," History of Religions 17 as 5000 B.C. often consist of "parallel bands or lozenges (February-May 1978): 211-25, quotation on 221. containing concentric squares, crosses, or diamonds."2 4. Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, rev. and The art of the earliest Chinese civilization, the Shang, enl. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 291. which flourished in the latter half of the second millen 5. Schuyler Cammann, "The Magic Square of Three in Old Chinese nium B.C., is also marked by "the imposition of abstract, Philosophy and Religion," History of Religions 1 (summer 1961): 37 79, quotation on 44. Cammann as well as other historians traces the balanced, geometric patterns over entire surfaces."3 Even cosmographical applications of this magic-square form in China to a Shang domiciles, palaces, temples, and tombs, according rather shadowy classical thinker, Zou Yan (305-240 B.C.?), whose orig to Chang, "were invariably square or oblong, governed inal works have not survived. According to the account preserved in in orientation by the four cardinal directions and dom the Shi ji (Records of the grand historian, completed ca. 91 B.C.) of inated in design by a persistent attempt at symmetry." Sima Qian, Zou Yan held that China, which itself consisted of nine Shang Chinese, moreover, may well have conceived of regions, comprised the central eighty-first portion of the world and the central ninth of the middle continent of the world. Small encircling the form of the political cosmos as square, or at least seas separated the nine continents from one another, and a large encir have seen the Shang realm as oriented toward the four cling sea marked the outer rim of the earth where it met the dome of directions, with the "countries beyond the kingdom ... heaven. "Mengzi Xunqing liejuan" (Collected biographies of Mencius grouped into four directional classes."4 and Xunqing), in Sima Qian, Shi ji, 74.1 b; see Xinjiao Shi ji sanjia zhu By the Han era, these rectilinear orientations and divi (Newly collated Shi ji with three principal commentaries), 5 vols. (Taipei: Shijie Shuju, 1972), 4:2344. The Shi ji is the first in the series sions had been developed into a systematic cosmography of twenty-five official histories, and the most celebrated Chinese his in which most realms of space were supposed to be torical work. ordered by forms that were not only symmetrical or rec 6. Chen Menglei, Jiang Tingxi, et aI., comps., Gujin tushu jicheng tilinear but patterned on the nonary square or three-by (Complete collection of books and illustrations, past and present, com three grid.

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