M05.1 Cosmology and Psychology in the New Medicine

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En provenance du cours de The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Intellectual Change in Early China: Warring States and Han

27 notes

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Intellectual Change in Early China: Warring States and Han

27 notes

This sequence of four courses will propose a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of Chinese cultural history conceived of as a succession of modes of rationality (philosophical, bureaucratic, and economic). The focus will be on the moments of paradigm shift from one mode of rationality to another. For each of these moments, cultural facts and artifacts—thought, literature, ritual—will be examined in relationship to changing social, political, and economic systems. The first two courses will cover the periods of the Warring States (481-256 BCE) and the Period of Division (220-589 CE), with a brief excursion into the Han (206 BCE-220 CE). The Warring States laid the social and cultural foundations for the emergence of the imperial mode of rationality; the Period of Division saw the Buddhist “conquest” of China and the emergence of a rationality defined by the opposition of the Three Teachings to shamanism, that is, of a clear contrast between elite and popular culture. The third and fourth courses will focus on the emergence of modern China in the Song-Yuan (960-1368) and of today’s China 1850 to the present. We will see how the modern attack on religion, redefined as "superstition", led not only to religious reform movements but also to a society in which science and the nation became the primary value systems promoted by the state. The courses are listed below: A Critical Cultural History of China - Early China I: Intellectual Change in the Warring States and Han (481 BCE-220 CE) A Critical Cultural History of China - Early China II: Religious Transformation in the Period of Division (220-589 CE) A Critical Cultural History of China - Modern China I: Religion and Thought in the Song, Jin, and Yuan (960-1368) A Critical Cultural History of China - Modern China II: Structuring Values (1850-2015)

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MODULE 05: Changing Theories of Illness

This module states how new theories of healing based on the cosmology of Dao and Qi, in the face of the political and social crisis of the second century CE, made way for a return of ideas of demon-caused illness.

M05.1 Cosmology and Psychology in the New Medicine21:27

Rencontrer les enseignants

Prof. John Lagerwey
Research Professor
Centre for China Studies

So today we'll still be in the <i>Early Chinese Religion Part I:</i>

<i>Shang through Han.</i>

We've come down to the Han and now we're actually going to look,

peer over into the next period that we can call the second period of warring states,

that is to say when once again China is divided and there are warring elements inside the territory and as a result also warring ideologies.

And what we're going to see in a chapter called "Changing Theories of Illness,"

we're going to see how this new period of disunity—

both political and ideological—

is prepared by a second Han dynasty, the Eastern Han, with its capital at Luoyang,

as opposed to the Western Han which had its capital in Xi'an or Chang'an.

We're going to see how a much weaker Eastern Han dynasty leads to gradual collapse

which is at once political, ideological, social and all the rest.

Okay, so: our basic text today is by Li Jianmin,

who is a scholar working at the Nangang,

at the Academy of Sciences [Academia Sinica] in Taipei,

and the title of his chapter is "<i>They Shall Expel Demons</i>: Etiology"—

a complicated word for simply saying the origin of illness—

so, "Etiology, the Medical Canon"— the medical classics—

"and the Transformation of Medical Techniques before the Tang."

So exactly, he carries it right up until the period of reunion under first the Sui dynasty in 589

and then on to the Tang dynasty in 618.

So it's the perfect transition to the second period that we'll be talking about in the next session.

So today I want to simply, before we begin—

there's going to be a lot of quotes,

some of them are rather difficult from these classical texts—

to outline the three phases through which Li Jianmin leads us.

The first phase is in fact the phase that we talked about when we talked about shamanism;

that is to say we saw how demons, ghosts,

were considered to be the cause of much illness.

Then we will see how in the second phase what we've called cosmological rationalism

penetrates completely all of the medical classics so that rational, cosmological—

and then skeptical with respect to the existence of the gods of the past—

how this plays itself out,

manifests itself in the medical classics that are still consulted today,

like the <i>Huangdi neijing</i> 黃帝內經 and so on.

Okay? So: that's the second phase.

And then in a third phase,

we're going to see what I've called the return of the repressed.

But we're going to see ancestors appearing,

no longer as a source of political power but as a source of trouble.

And of course also these unfortunate dead that we've already referred to—

people who don't live out their lives and therefore have a sense of desire for revenge or justice, okay?

And how these make a new appearance in the medical classics of the Eastern Han and into the period of division.

So the story is also going to be, so those are the chronological three phases that we'll be looking at,

but it's also a story of elite vs. popular.

And I hope you understand immediately that that's in fact what we've been talking about from the very beginning,

because the attack on shamanism, as we saw, was an attack of the intellectual elite.

And we even saw with the story of the Chu high official that not just illiterate people—

though he may have been illiterate as well—

but in any case this high official in the state of Chu was doing divination, which is characteristic of,

or in contradiction with what the elite intellectuals were expounding about spirit mediumism and the gods of the spirit mediums.

Okay, so: that elite vs. popular has been there from the very beginning of our presentation,

but it's going to become much sharper in this period

and we could say that the return of the repressed is in fact the re-emergence of that popular form of subjectivity in religiosity,

its re-penetration into the elite discourse.

And we'll see at the same time how elite discourse and the development of the whole imperial bureaucracy is going to impact in turn—

it's going to impact popular religion, with the development of what we can call a spiritual bureaucracy.

That is to say for: you have the political bureaucracy here on earth,

and then in that other world you have a spiritual bureaucracy,

with an emphasis on a subterranean bureaucracy,

that is to say an underground one, dealing with the dead, okay?

So: there in a very quick fashion is a summary of the things that we'll be talking about.

So before, we went from a demon haunting ideology explanation of illness—

the time of the, of shamanism or spirit mediumism—to this Qi-based cosmology.

So there were exorcistic methods that we'll be talking about again in a bit,

but there were exorcist methods such as "incantations for removal."

The term in Chinese is <i>zhuyou</i> 祝由, okay?

So: "incantations for removal" for getting rid of spirits that cause trouble, and "cursing charms"

called <i>zhoujin</i> 咒禁 in Chinese.

And that these were used, these ritual methods were used to effect healing.

But with the—so that's the first phase.

The second phase is the medical classics like I just mentioned, the <i>Huangdi neijing</i>,

<i>Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic,</i>

the most famous of the medical classics which are still in use today.

So I'm going to quote from it:

"The Yellow Emperor asked: 'I have heard that when the ancients treated disease, they only moved essence and transformed Qi.

Thus they were able to perform zhuyou'"— this exorcistic incantation—

"'and that was all.

In our current age, disease is treated with toxic medicines to treat the inside and with needles and stones'"

—that's acupuncture and moxibustion— "'to treat the outside.'"

"Sometimes it is cured, sometimes not. What is the reason for this?" And the Yellow Emperor,

who we've talked about already, he says,

"People in the present age are not like this. Anxiety and worrying hem in the inside."

So an emphasis on the psychological, the subject source of illness.

"Anxiety and worrying hem in the inside, while the body is injured on the outside,

and they have in addition lost compliance with the four seasons."

We saw how important that idea of compliance with the four seasons was even for the emperor in his Mingtang,

in his Hall of Light or Hall of Spirits,

where he circulated and did the rituals which were appropriate to the seasons.

So here we see that same cosmological rationalism penetrating into the medical classics.

So they've lost— they're not eating what they should be eating in the winter

as opposed to what they should be eating in the summer and so on.

Then, they "go against what is appropriate in the cold or in summer heat. Bandit wind"

Bandit wind? Well, it's just that wind, which of course is a manifestation of Qi,

is one of the—it's the key source of illness in the medical classics.

So he says, "Bandit wind frequently arrives, and emptiness evil arrives morning and night inside in the five viscera."

Now what are they talking about?

Well, the five viscera are the five key organs in the, inside the body,

which are considered to be precisely the seats of the five vital energies, of the five phases.

We saw that there's not four seasons but five,

because there are five phases, the <i>wuzing</i>, okay?

And so here we see this cosmological structure of space incorporated into the vision,

the medical vision of the body, okay?

So: you have, on the one hand, the bandit wind that comes from the outside, and then you have this emptiness on the inside.

So what we're seeing here is that exploration of the inner world of the subject

which is also coming to play an important part in the medical explanation of illness.

Okay, so: emptiness in the five viscera "and in the bones and marrow and externally damages the orifices, the flesh and the skin.

For these reasons, minor illnesses invariably become serious, and major illnesses invariably lead to death.

Therefore, performing <i>zhuyou</i>," this exorcistic incantation, no longer works.

Okay, so: we've seen it there,

a very clearly cosmological rationalization together with a psychological explanation of disease in the medical classics—

a perfect summary of this second phase of the understanding of illness and how to treat it.

Let's look a little bit more closely at psychological explanations.

According to Li Jianmin,

in the medical classics, "the only disorders related to ghosts and spirits are 'withdrawal' <i>dian</i> 癲 and 'mania' <i>kuang</i> 狂.

Seeing ghosts was the result of mania, not its cause."

And then he quotes from a text called the <i>Jingui yaolüe</i> 金匱要略,

<i>Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer</i>:

"Feebleness of <i>yinqi</i>," that is to say <i>yin</i>, negative Qi,

"causes withdrawal; feebleness of <i>yangqi</i>causes mania."

So these two psychological explanations of a kind of psychological illness are also tied together

with the notions of either your <i>yinqi</i> or your <i>yangqi</i> inside the body, not outside the body—

so we're still inside the body—are what is causing the the psychological illnesses. Okay.

Another medical classic, the <i>Suwen</i> 素問, says as follows:

"When people are tranquil and empty," empty of desires and things that bother them that trouble them—anxiety,

"true Qi will follow them and the spirit will be guarded inside," will be kept inside.

"Where could disease possibly come from?"

So again that focus on the internal, on the subjective, being tranquil and quiet, empty.

The term "true Qi," <i>zhenqi</i> 真氣, is also often referred to as "correct Qi," <i>zhengqi</i> 正氣.

<i>Zheng</i> means straight and it's contrasted with <i>xieqi</i> 邪氣, which means "evil Qi."

So again the contrast between good and evil is spoken,

is described in terms of Qi, these basic energies.

So we have a quotation from Zhuangzi, the philosopher Zhuangzi,

"When a person is level," <i>ping</i> 平, "and at ease, tranquil and quiet, worries are unable to enter and evil Qi,"

<i>xieqi</i>, "is not able to take the person by surprise.

Hence the person's virtue is complete and the spirit lacks nothing."

I have to say immediately the word "virtue" here is the one we've already encountered, the <i>Daode jing</i> 道德經.

It's used by Sinologists, because it reminds one of the Latin term <i>virtus</i>,

which is not just moral and ethical but it's a kind of a basic strength.

Okay? We saw the De is the manifestation of the Dao.

So when you have the Dao here, when you're tranquil and calm and natural and at ease,

then these worries can't take possession of you and the evil Qi can't enter into you or take you by surprise.

So that's what he means when "therefore the person's virtue," or his inner power,

"is complete and his spirit lacks [for] nothing."

Now we take a quote from Han Feizi—so Zhuangzi the Daoist, Han Feizi the Legalist—

puts it in an even more radical way:

"What everybody refers to as ‘being haunted'"— the key term in Chinese for being haunted

that is for <i>gui</i>, evil spirits,

coming back and haunting is <i>zuosui</i> 作祟—so:

"What everybody refers to as 'being haunted' is in fact a condition where the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls"—

the <i>hun</i> which are the celestial souls and the <i>po</i> which are the terrestrial souls of the body,

ten altogether: three <i>hun</i>, <i>qipo</i>, seven <i>po</i> souls—so:

it in fact refers to a condition where the "souls have departed the body and the spirit"—the term is <i>jingshen</i> 精神,

still used today for spirit—"and the spirit is in disarray.

When the spirit is in disarray, virtue"—that same term, or inner strength, inner power—"is absent.

When demons do not haunt a person, the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls don't leave,

and when the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls have not departed, the spirit is not in disarray.

The state of the spirit not being in disarray is called ‘having virtue',"

or having that inner power, that inner strength, okay?

So: a very very similar kind of vision of the inner self that must be calm and tranquil so that the souls don't leave the body.

Soul loss—we'll come back to that.

So we've already seen in our previous presentations that nurturing life or self-cultivation is the context for the attack on shamanism.

And this is also called nurturing life, <i>yangsheng</i> 養生,

and we'll start with a quotation from the <i>Lüshi chunqiu</i> 呂氏春秋,

which is that text from the very very late pre-imperial period.

"The sage"—the wise man—"observes the appropriateness of <i>yin</i> and <i>yang</i> and discerns

what is of benefit to the myriad things so as to facilitate life.

For this reason, the essence spirit"—in fact the same term <i>jingshen</i>—

"is peaceful in the physical body and the years of life can be extended.

Being extended means that they are not shortened but continued and their number is completed."

Their number is completed—the idea that everybody has a fixed term, their <i>ming</i> 命, okay?

And the idea is that one should live as long as that <i>ming</i>,

as that fixed term of life should extend.

"Striving to complete their number, the sage removes all harm."

What does "removing harm" refer to?

Well, it refers to three things in this discourse of the <i>Lüshi chunqiu</i>.

It refers to in fact things that we take into our bodies through our mouth,

through eating; it refers to emotions; and it refers to outside seasonal influences.

Let's see how they describe it:

"Great sweetness, sourness, bitterness, acridity, and saltiness"—clearly all taste-related—

"these five fill up the physical body, generating harm."

Then the emotions: "Great joy, anger, anxiety, fear and grief: these five take hold of the spirit, generating harm."

Then on the outside, that's the seasons: "Great cold, heat, dryness, dampness, wind, rain, and fog:

these seven move essence"—

the <i>jing</i> 精 part of <i>jingshen</i>, referring to that vital energy—"generating harm."

"For this reason, whenever you want to nurture life," <i>yangsheng</i> 養生,

"you had better know the root.

When you know the root, disease has no reason to arrive."

The next quotation is from a very famous Confucian philosopher from the period of Han Wudi

that we've already talked about in the middle of the second century.

It's Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, whose dates are around 176 to around 104 BC,

and he is part author at least of a very large text called the <i>Chunqiu fanlu</i> 春秋繁露,

<i>Luxuriant Dew of the Annals.</i>

And here's what he says: "Harmony and pleasure constitute external happiness,"

<i>waitai</i> 外泰, "essence and spirit," there you have <i>jing</i>, <i>shen</i>,

represent "internal fulfillment," <i>neichong</i> 內充.

"If external happiness cannot compare with internal fulfillment,

how much more is this true of external harm 外傷!"

That is to say external harm is not nearly as bad as internal harm.

So notice how this early imperial period Confucian philosopher is focused on the subject and therefore focused on the importance of the internal.

And this emphasis on the internal led to theories of disease in which "evil," <i>xie</i>,

"alone cannot harm a person." It is invariably," says Li Jianmin,

"only when the two vacuities,"

the two emptinesses, "of wind vacuity and vacuity in the body," outside and inside,

"combine with each other that wind is able to settle in the body."

And of course we have to recall the skepticism of the elite about the gods,

and this skepticism that we already saw in the attacks on shamanism,

it really comes to a height in a very famous philosopher from the second Han dynasty, Wang Chong 王充.

His dates are 27 to around 100 AD. A famous book of his is called <i>Lunheng</i> 論衡.

He says as follows, and this is a really extraordinary statement:

"People suffering from illness experience severe physical pain and therefore say that demons are assaulting them with whips and staffs."

In other words, they anthropomorphize it.

"If they see demons, they keep mallets (hammers) and ropes by their side.

In the fear and apprehension due to the pain of illness, they have absurd apparitions.

At the onset of disease, they experience fear and surprise; hence they see demons arriving.

Suffering from illness, they fear death; hence they see the demons' anger.

Experiencing the pain of disease, they see demons' beating."

Now get this: "All of these are empty fictions of their imagination and not necessarily real."

He sounds like a contemporary, doesn't he?

It's purely mental; it's purely psychological; there's no illness there at all.

And what's particularly interesting is the term that he used for "fictions of their imagination"—

or it's translated that way—is <i>cunxiang</i> 存想,

which will become a key term of Daoist practice of visualization. We'll get to that much later.

But in any case, it's just purely a matter of their imagination.

So here we see how that skepticism about demons and ghosts and so on being source of

illness emerges as the ultimate expression of the rejection of the old form of religion—

the form that is being attacked in the attack on shamanism.

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