M05.4 A New Synthesis

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En provenance du cours de The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Intellectual Change in Early China: Warring States and Han

4 notes

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Intellectual Change in Early China: Warring States and Han

4 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) (To be launched in late 2018) A Critical Cultural History of China - Modern China I: Religion and Thought in the Song, Jin, and Yuan (960-1368) (To be launched in late 2018) A Critical Cultural History of China - Modern China II: Structuring Values (1850-2015) (To be launched in late 2018)

À partir de la leçon

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.

M05.4 A New Synthesis11:51

Rencontrer les enseignants

Prof. John Lagerwey
Research Professor
Centre for China Studies

So now we move on to another Daoist text or series of texts, but written by a specific person,

Tao Hongjing 陶弘景.

Tao Hongjing, his dates are 456 to 536 AD, so towards the end of the period of division, 220 to 589,

and he is an extraordinary member of the elite, of the elite literate population.

He is a famous Daoist, he is a famous medical expert,

and he is also a famous consultant of emperors in the South,

which is controlled by Chinese dynasties as opposed to the North,

which in his lifetime were controlled by non-Chinese dynasties,

dynasties of tribal groups that descended from the north.

So in the writings of Tao Hongjing we can see what we saw developing in the previous section.

We can see how this comes to fruition and expression in his vision of what is the cause of disease,

and he sees three causes.

First of all, "diseases of suffering caused by things."

Then, there is "externally arising diseases," <i>waifa bing</i> 外發病,

which are simply "caused by the contraction of external evils like wind or cold."

So these are the traditional medical classic kinds of things caused by external events or elements.

But then he has a category of "internal diseases."

We've already seen that this idea of internal diseases was very much associated with psychology,

that is to say people are afraid, they're anxious, they're stressed out, whatever, okay?

So: that category of internal rising diseases already existed,

but it takes a new turn which is precisely the expression of this return of the repressed of these demonological etiologies of disease.

Why? Because this kind of internal disease is caused by demonic haunting,

and "the ghosts in this category of internal disease are not associated with conditions caused by the presence of spirits in a person's mind."

In other words, it's not all in their heads, "but refer to actual <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls and other spectral beings," <i>gui</i>

"that exist," literally exist, really exist, "outside the person's body."

So here we're at the exact antipode of Wang Chong who says it's all in the person's imagination,

fiction of his imagination.

Here these are real spirits, these <i>ligui</i> precisely who come into the person,

so they're "external evils," <i>waixie</i> 外邪, not internal evils, that are then "transformed into internal causes," <i>neiyinhua</i> 內因化.

So they're interiorized external spirits and "are therefore classified as different from external disease causes such as wind evil."

So they come from the outside, but they effect on the inside, we can say in a psychological way, but they are really existing spirits, okay?

In the mind of this great literatus Tao Hongjing.

He's very much involved with the <i>Bencao</i> 本草, that is to say a materia medica,

that is to say a list of all of the herbal solutions to disease,

and there's a text which includes not only the <i>Bencao jing</i> 本草經 itself but also a whole series of commentaries.

And this is what it says: "Now the reasons for disease are many,

but they're all related to evil," always the same term <i>xie</i>.

Right down to the present day when the government wants to say a certain teaching or religion is evil,

they call it <i>xiejiao</i> 邪教, okay?

So: <i>xieqi</i>, <i>xiejiao</i>. "What is evil is so because it is not right," <i>buzheng</i> 不正.

So, <i>zheng</i> versus <i>xie</i>, orthodox versus heterodox.

Here what does it refer to?

"It refers to that which is not normal," abnormal, "in the human body.

Wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, hunger, overeating, taxation (too hard work) and leisure—

all these are evil, and it is not just ghost Qi that causes terrible diseases."

So here we have all of the external causes related to the seasons and so on.

"Humans live in Qi as fish live in water," so that cosmology of Qi is still very much there.

"When the water is muddy, the fish become thin; when Qi is clouded, humans become sick."

"Nothing is more serious than when evil Qi harms a person," <i>xieqi</i>.

So here there's no reference to the <i>gui</i> as in the Tao Hongjing text.

It's much more like the medical classics that it's all in terms of Qi,

but let's watch what happens to this term <i>xieqi</i>, or evil Qi.

"Once the channels and network vessels" of the body as it is conceived in Chinese medicine "have received this outer Qi,"

the <i>xieqi</i> from outside, "they pass it on into the viscera," the five organs and into the "bowels which,

depending on their state of vacuity or repletion, cold or heat, knot it into disease."

So again that same idea of combination of outer and inner, okay?

But we're talking about <i>xieqi</i> coming from outside.

"Disease then gives rise to disease until it spreads and mutates on a wide scale."

Now listen carefully to the next sentence:

"The spirit"—still that term <i>jingshen</i>—"the spirit uses the body for its residence,"

so the spirit and the body, and the one is physical and the other is spiritual,

and the one lives in the other. "When the body receives evil"—so the <i>xieqi</i>—"the spirit inside is also in disarray.

When the spirit is in disarray, then ghost spirits," <i>guiling</i> 鬼靈, "enter.

Their demonic power gradually strengthens, while the hold of the spirit of the person gradually weakens.

How could this not lead to death?" So there you have it, illness as spirit possession.

So from Han Feizi to Tao Hongjing, in fact, there's a very similar understanding of the human person.

Tao Hongjing: "the spirit," <i>jingshen</i>, "uses the body for its residence."

Wang Shuhe from the <i>Maijing</i>: "the five viscera are at once the abode of the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls and the support of the essence spirit," the <i>jingshen</i>.

Han Feizi: "the state of the <i>jingshen</i> not being in disarray is called ‘having virtue'."

We're simply recalling here now key phrases from the whole longer passages that we've already looked at.

So, spirit disarray or soul loss, that is the loss of the soul,

in turn allows evil spirits to take possession of the body.

So still to this day one of the standard rituals of exorcism done is called <i>shouhun</i> 收魂, that is to say to bring the souls back,

especially done for children—children who have what?

Been surprised by something and so their spirit flies out of them and they become listless, and they become ill, they don't want to eat.

And so you call in the Daoist priest and he does a <i>shoujing</i> 收驚 or to bring to an end that impact of the surprise, but also a <i>shouhun</i> 收魂.

And in fact this goes all the way back to a text, a poem in a book called the <i>Chuci</i> 楚辭,

called "Zhaohun" 招魂, that is to say summoning the soul.

The idea was that in ancient China when a person died,

you went up onto the roof of the house and you summoned his soul to come back,

to make sure that he was really dead.

So "come back! come back!" Okay, so: this in fact very ancient idea of possession as the

normal state but also the abnormal state. Possession by <i>zhengshen</i> 正神, correct spirits,

as opposed to the <i>xieqi</i> or <i>xieshen</i> that can come in and occupy when there's an empty space inside, okay?

So: we see it, Tao Hongjing, Wang Shuhe, Han Feizi,

all with this basic idea that spirit disarray or soul loss then in turn allows evil spirits to take possession of the body.

Tao: "When the spirit is in disarray, ghost spirits enter."

Wang Shuhe: "When the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls become volatile, the five viscera are empty,

and evil spirits, <i>xieshen</i>, immediately take up residence there."

Han Feizi: "What everybody refers to as ‘being haunted' is in fact a condition where the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls have departed and the spirit is in disarray."

So Han Feizi, who is the most radical secularist of them all, he avoids the language of possession.

He just says soul-loss means "virtue is absent" or that inner power is absent,

but the obvious question is: what takes its place?

And it hardly seems to make any practical difference whether it is "evil Qi that takes a person by surprise,"

<i>xieqi</i> (<i>Suwen</i>); Wang Shuhe,

that "evil spirits that take up residence"; or another alternative from a late sixth century medical text

called <i>Zhubing yuanhou lun</i> 諸病源候論 or <i>Discussion of the Origin and Symptoms of the Various Diseases</i>,

who says that "outside perversity," <i>waixie</i> 外邪—

so it's not designated either as Qi or as spirits but just outside perversity—

that is welcomed into the body by "corpse worms."

Well, that's something we haven't run into before, <i>shichong</i> 尸蟲, that reside there.

What is he talking about?

Well, we'll come back to that in a moment,

but what I want to insist on first is that we have here—the structure is that of possession,

either by "normal" or by "deviant" spirits.

So every person is possessed. Every person is a space that is either possessed by his normal sprirts

or by abnormal and dangerous spirits, spirits that cause disease, madness, and death.

And then as Li Jianmin says very rightly when he's discussing precisely ghost infixation,

"Looking at the main indications of these medicinals, evil Qi, <i>xieqi</i> 邪气, malign Qi, <i>eqi</i> Qi 惡氣

and ghosts appear to be very similar notions."

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