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HISTORICAL STUDYA-13
FALL 2003
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CONTENTS
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l7
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Keightley,David N., "Early Civilization in China: Reflections on How it Became
C~?~se,~'Herit~ge of China: ContemporaryPerspectives on Chinese
Czvllzzatzon, EdIted by Paul Ropp, pp. 15 - 54 """"""""""""'"
1
2.
Confucius, "Book N," "Book VI," The Analects, Translated by DoC. Lau,
pp. 72 -75,81 - 85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.
Mo Tzu, "Universal Love, (Section 16)," Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and
4.
Han Fei Tzu, jranslated by Burton Watson, pp. 39 - 49 . 0. 0. . . . . . . . . . . 0. . .29
Mencius, "Book I, Part: A," "Book II, Part A," "Book VI, Part A," Mencius,
Translated by D. C. Lau, pp. 73 - 84, 160 - 162
0. 0. . . . . . . . . . . 0. 35
5.
de Bary, William To, "Taoism," Sources of Chinese Tradition, ppo48 - 62 .. 0. . . . 0. .45
6.
Chuang Tzu, "Free and Easy Wandering, (Section 1)," "The Secret of Caring for
Life, (Section 3)," Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, Translated by Burton Watson,
pp. 23 - 30, 46 - 49 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . 00. 53
7.
Hsun Tzu, "RectifyingNames," "Man'sNature is Evil, (Section 23),"Basic
Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, Translated by Burton Watson,
pp. 151 - 171 0"""""""'"
0. . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.
Han Fei Tzu, "TheWay of the Ruler, (Section 5)," "Wielding Power,(Section 8),"
Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsun Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, Translated by Burton
Watson, ppo 16 - 20, 35 - 42. . . . . . . . . 0. . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
9.
Li sao, "On Encountering Trouble," "Notes," The Songs of the South, Translated by
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David Hawkes; pp. 67
- 95
Zhao hun, "Summons of the Soul," "Notes," The Songs of the South, Translated by
David Hawkes, pp. 219 - 231 . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . 81
10.
Ssu-ma Chien, "First Emperor of Ch'in," Selections from The Records of the
Historian, Translated by Yang Hsein-yi and Gladys Yang, ppo 169 - 196 o. 0. 103
11.
Gale, Esson, "The Basic Argument," "Hold Fast the Plough," "Circulation of Goods,."
"Territorial Expansion," "The Poor and the Rich," "Vilifying the Learned,"
Discourses on Salt and Iron, pp. 1 - 24, 99 - 119
0. . . . . . . . . . . 119
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TWO
0
Early Civilization in China:
Reflections on How
It Became Chincse
David N. Kcightley
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.....
If we are to understand how the culture of China differs from th,\t of
other great civilizations, two fundamental and related <Iuestions need to
be addressed: I-low did China become Chinese amI how do we definc
"Chineseness"? Answers to these questions no\. only aid our umlerstandin~ of the origins of Chinese culture but also, by implication and COIItrast, throw light on how Western values and social organii:ation developed differently.
Before pursuing these questions, three prdatory' COlllmcnts are in
order. First, only in broad, comparative trealtnents such as t.his one ,u'e
generalizations about "Chinese culture" permilled. Even for the early
period, we lIeed to remember that there were lIIallYversions of Chincse
culture that varied with time, place, and sociallevcl; I hanHy dojustice to
all of them in this chapter. In particular, I focus less OILthe explicit philosophical tradition represented by such early thinkers as Confucius alld
more on the reli~ious, social, aesthetic, and political practices of the Neolithic to the early Bronze Age from which these philosophers drew their
assumptions and values.
Second, it must be stressed that my concerns as a histori<m are explanatory, not.iud~lIIel1taL I emphasize this point because on occasion I describe early China as having "lacked" <:ertain features presell\. in my
Mesopotamian and Greek "touchstone cultures." But this negative tcrOllC vc..~ion of this I:ssay was /livcn at 8l,lII(ord Univcr~ity un 18 Noveillher I!J1l1i.I have
done lilYhcstto !:Ikc account of thc valuallle criticisill ol)c:rcil hy many collcague~, who arc
oOt, of coursc, rcspoosihle li)r lilY errors, III parlicular I should like to thank Davit!.
Johnsou, Thomas M':I1.gel', Da\'id Nivisoll,.Jen'rcy Ricgel, Hctscy Scheincr, Irwin Scheincr,
Raphael Sealey, David Ulallsey, Richanl Wellster, 011111
Yeh Wen-hsin for their carcful rcad..
ing of an earlicr draft.
15
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David N. Keightley
Earl)' Civilizatiull ill Chillil
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minology is conLrasLive, not pejorative; as we see by the end, iLis in no
sense meant to imply that such features ought Lohave been present.
Third, I should like to call attention to the word "rellections" in my
subtitle, for it serves a double funcLion. Our visions of early Chinese (or
Greek, or Mesopotamian) culture are partly and inevitably a product of
the later culture's own conceptions of what its past was or ought Lohave
been. The valucs of the present, generated by the past, rellect back on
thaL past; facL is sccn as valuc, and valuc in turn alJ"cets whaL facts arc
scen. Accordingly, the present chapter does noL simply express my refle<:tionson how the Chinese became Chinesc. It also in part reflects how
the laLer elite Chinese, on Lheir re[\ection-represented
by the cditing
and promoting of certain texts and quasi-historical sccnarios-thought
that they became Chinese. The discrepancies that arise between thcse
later idealizing rellections and earlier unedited reality are the continuing
concern of the professional historian. It is one of thc functions of this
chapter to place those concerns in a wider context.
THE HERO AND SOCIETY
IV
Hcroic Action: Its Rcprcsenlation and Conscqucnccs
. Becausecultures
are man-made and serve Lodefine man's conception of
himself, it is helpful in considering the question of what it means to
be "Chinese" to start by comparing the conception of man as hero in
ancienL China wiLh analogous conccpLions in Classical Grecce (Iirth to
fourth century B.C.),a culLure thaL has contributed so much to our Western.understanding of the human condition. The legend of Achilles and
the;Amazon queen, for example, which was popular ,in bOLhGreek and
}tOlilan cultures, expresses straLcgic views abouL the'ilRlividual and society that would have been entirely foreign to Chinese contemporaries.'
If we consider the legend of AchilIes and the Amazon queen as treaLed
by the l'enthesileia Painter on a kylix vase from ca. 460 B.C.(ligure 2.1),
we note a variety of characteristic features. The two protagonists are heroic in size, seeming to burst the confines of the bowl. Achilles is virtually
naked. And the .representation is characterized by the pm:ticuli'rity of
both its subject and its artist: we can identify the two figures, Achilles and
Penthesileia, and we can identify, at least as an artist if not by name, the
individual who made the vase. Most importanL, there is the ironic talc
itself. At the moment when Achilles plunges his sword inLo the breast of
his swooning victim, their eyes cross-and he falls in loveI That moment
of dramatic and fatal pathos is the one the artist has captured.2 The
I. For an introduction to thc Icgend, scc Emily Vermculc, A.'fleclJof nealll ill Earty Creek
Arl mid Poel'] (I\crkelcy: University of Califomia Prcss. 197!J), 158-!i!).
.
2. For au introduction 10 Ihc artistic I'cprcscntations of this slUry sec.J..J. Pollitt, Art a",1
Expe'1C11ce
ill ClassicalGreece(Camuridgc: Cambridge UniversityI'rcs., 1972),2(1-22.
Figurc 2.1. Kylix hy thc I'cllthcsileia I'ainlcr. Mlillidi. AIlI.ikl:lIsalllllllllllg.
»howgraph: l!inncr I'oloan:hiv MiinchclI.
painting and the legend express in powerful, individual, and supposedly
historical terms one of the Iw\jor assumptions of thc classical tradition ill
the West, namely, lhallhe human colu.lition is traJ.:icand poiJ.:nanL,that
the best and most heroic dceds may lead to unwished-for consequcnces,
and that even heroic viltue must be its own rcward. Peoplc live in a
quirky, unpredictable, and ironic world Lhat is by no mcans responsive 10
human values alld desires.
The dccoralion found on all Easlern Chou Chinese bronze h1/.vase
from aboutlhe same pcriod (Iigurc 2.2) is strikingly dilfcrent. Instead of
individuals we are pl'cscnted with stereotypical silhoucttes, all of wholll
wear the uniform of their fellows. We do lIot kllow the names of an yoI'
the people represcnted. We do nul know the namcs of any of thc people
involved in cast.ing the vessel. We do not even know with any assurance
the meaning of t.he actions depicted (see IIgme 2.2 caption). Whatevcl'
their precise iconographic coherence-which
may have involved somc
generalized depiction of rituals and marlial skills-the overwhclming
impression conveyed by these tableaux' is one of contemporaneous,
regimenled, mass aCLivity,whether in pe;l(:c or war; evcn thc birds appear to be Hying in formation. The individnals portrayed, small and
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Early Ciniliwtioll
ill Cllilla
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anonymous, havc bccn $ubordinated by an {~!Juallyanonymous master
designer to a larger ordcr.
This Chincse vase exprcsses the ideals of or/{anizationthal werc bcilll{
applicd wilh incrca$ing cll'cclivcnc$s duriJig lhc pcriod 01"the WaITing
Stales (453-221 ,n.c.), a period when men {()light less for individual
honor, as Achilles had done, and more for the survival of the state. Acsthetic concerns wcre ()cused on the gencral, Ihe $ocial, and Ihc nOIlhcroic rather lImn on the particular, the individual, and the hemic. This
ste1'cotyping, this bureaucratization of expcriencc, is implicit not only in
the decor of thc Chincse bronze-I()l' somcbody W<l$prcsumably OVCI'sceing thesc soldicr$ and orchcstra players-hul. also in its man\lI"<I(:ture-for sO.ll!£!)odyhad surely dirccted thc numcrous artisans involved
in the industrial-scale casting of the vcssel. Once again, I.his contrasts
sharply with thc practices of the Greeks, who both admired thc individual and who organized their workshop$ around a scrics of acts perlormed by single craftsmen.
The Hands of lhe Hero: Dirty or Glean?
w
Figure 2.2. Drawing of the decO!' on an ,Eastern Chou (late sixth to lifth century
II.C.) 1m wine vase from Chengtu, Szechwan, Front Wm-wII1977.11 :86. Moving
up the vessel, we see: hollom register,a battle by land and sea; middle register,
clockwisefrom hollom/eft, archers shooting at birds, a banquet scene, a bell-andchime orchestra; toll registel~more archery (ill the l'OltOlIl
half), the plucking of
mulben'y b.-anches (perhaps for the making of bows), an archery contest. At
least three examples of bronze 1111
decorated with these kinds of scenes have
been found, See Jenny F. So, "The Inlaid Bronzes of the Warrinl\' States Period,"
in The GrentBronze Ageof Chilla, ed, Wcnl'ong (New York: Metropolitan Museum
and Knopf, 1980),316, and Esther Jacobson, "The Structure of Narrative in
Early Chinese Pictorial Vessels," llefJl'eSClltatioll.l8
(Fa1l1g8-i): 77-80.
The role of hcro and protagonist was radically differcnt in the two cultures. Achilles acts f()J' himself. He fcels the thrust of the blade as it
pierces his opponent's breast; he is directly respon$ible; he has "dirty
hands," The analogon$ Chinese vision of the hero, at least by the time 01"
the Eastem Chou, was radically different. Ssu-llIa Ch'icn, for example,
the "Hemdotus of China," who wrote al.the slart of the fir$t ccntury 11,<:.,
presents live Chou and Ch'in case histories in a chapter cntitlcd "niographies of the Assassin-Retaincrs,"3 The lcitmotif is that of a statcsman
who has an enemy he wishcs lOdispatch. Ralhcr than undertaking (he
task himself, a$Achillcswould have donc, thc Chille$cpmtagonistl'clics
on the charisma of his elevatcd social and political position to cngage an
assassin.The a$sa$sin,in turn, attcmpts to pcrform thc deed (wiLh rcsuits fatal 10 himself in foul' of the live cascs), not for monctal'Y gain hut
to requite the overwhelming sodal honor thc lord had conferrcd by
deigning to entrust him with the task.
The genesis of sllch characteristic social obligations is a theme to
which I retum later. Here I simply note that the lord delegates what, in
thc Greck case, would have bcell lhc hcmic, thc personal, and thus the
tragic. task. His hands arc clean; thcy are not on the sword; he is not
even near whcn the deed is undertaken, A hureaucratic chain of command protects the initiator from the shock and comcqncncc$ 0(' his
dceds. The lord i$ not the hero; he has bccomc an adminislrator. The
hero, in thcse cases, docs not act for himself; he is a delegate, Therc is a
3. Burlon
W:ll~on, Ir:lns.,
C/,'im (New York: Colulllhia
/I"/'IInl, '1"'e
Universily
l1i.\'/Irirlll: (://(//J/f/:lji'/J}}l"'e
l'rcs~.
I!)(;U). ,t5-(j7.
"Shi/' Chi" '1'S.lII-I//(/
20
David N. Keightley
Em-Iy Civiliwtion in China
division betwecn the lord's original motivation for the deed and thc protagonist's heroic exccution of it
A1nbilfuily
~
{lmi
O/Jtilll;.5l11
The pedagogical role of the hcro (or the heroine-thc
role of gender in
such matlers would be worth exploring) in the two culturcs also differed,
The heroes of the Greeks often served only as tragic, negative examples;
fcw Grecks would wish lo imitate Achilles hy killing the woman he loved
(or imitate Oedipus by killing his father, Orestes by killing his mothcr, 01'
Antigone by killing herself-the
examples are numerous). And whcn
Grccks in their hubris acted in thc arbitmry and passionatc ways of thc
gods, they mct disaster. Achilles would have lovcd I'cnthcsilcia, but he
killed her; he did love Patroclus, but his arrogance as he sulked in his
tcntled to Patroclus's death.
In early China, by contrast, herocs were heroes precisely hccause they
were models worthy of emulation; the universc of moral action, at least
as it was representcd in the accounts of myth and history, was untrammelcd by ambiguitics. The basic, optimistic assumption of the Tso elman,
the massive semihistorical chronicle compiled in the fourth century D.C.,
was that the virtuous man would be rewarded here and now-by promotions, honors, and status. Cause and effect in the univcrse were rigorously fail'; the moral prospered, the wicked did nol. Thc subvcrsive
thought that the best intentions might lead to chaos and rcgret-not,
as
in the cascs of Confucius or Ch'lI Yuan, bccause those in power were too
nnenlightened to employ them, but because there was somcthing Hawed
in t,he human condition itself-was rarely dramatized (see thc discussion
of ~hc()(.licybelow):'
Onc could multiply many instanccs of this carly, ul'I(:QJ!!j)licatcdChiIIcsf vicw of man as a social being, cmbcddcd in and dclined hy the obli.
gallons and rewards of a hierarchical, cthical, bureaucratic system. The
largc-scale recruitmcnt of labor by a centralizcd burcaucratic elite (as
suggested by figure 2,2), the members of which, as Mencius (ca, 372289 D.C.) pointed out, labor with thcir minds rather than their hands,
may be discerned in thc Chinese record from at least the early Bronze
Age, if not earlier (see the discussion of Neolithic burials below): Eastcrn
Chou states were builders of m~or pu"lic works, particularly city walls
and the long, defensive walls that eventually culminated in the building
of the Great Wall at the end of the third century D.C.Thc massive recruitment of labor was idealized in semihistorical accounts in which the
". The only direcl expression 01"Ihis sllbversive Ihougla in early China appeal's ill
Ssu-ma Ch'jen's "Biography of 1'0Vi and Shu Ch'i" (in Walsoll, Reco/'/iJ, II-' 5), in which
Ihe hislorian is sorely lroublcd by virlllous aClions Ihnl nre IIlIrcwnrdcd mulllnrccugllizcd.
011 COlIl"lIcius'sphilosophicnl cCllHmimily ill a world whcrc pcl'l'cclioll is 1101possihlc, scc
lIel~imllill I. Sdl\V;Irll, The WorldofT/wl/gM il/ III/cieni Chil/Il (Cnmhridgc: 11:n'vard Ullivcrsily Prcss. 1985),80-81,
~:aa
. _a
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21
people, both elitcs allli masses, had cheerfully flocked to serve virtuous
rulers, often dynasty founders, who had won their allegiance not by coercion hut by excmplary government. Virtue was again rcwarded, in this
instance by the loyal scrvicc of othcrs.
Such optimistic faith in thc comprchensibility and henevolence of tllC
universe, which runs through the classical texts and which was explicitly
articulated in the view of Mencius that man's nature is basically good, call
be related to what Thomas A, Mctzgcr has tcrllled Ihc fundalllcntal
"epistemological optimism" of early Chillcse philosophy. This optimism
may "C defined as the willingncss to acceptlaq{c, roughly defined mor;1I
ideas-like
"benevolencc" or "rightcolllmess"-as
rcliahle, universal,
and objL't:tive; Metzger contrasls this wilh the kind of' pessimislic epistemology represented by Descartcs's "clcar allll distinct idcas."" Optimism about man's lot helps to explain the lack of illtcrest ill d ralllatic dctail found in early Chinesc texts (discusscd below). It also helps explain
thc Chinese distrust of laws and constitutions, the traditional prcfercnce for jen-chih, "governmelll by men," rathcr than li)r Ia-dtih., "governmcnt
by laws."
Later I consider the sourccs of this confidclJ(:e, but it was surely such
"radical world optimism,"" such trust in OIlC'SIcader as a lIIoral chlin-Izu,
or "noble man," and the optimistic assumption-by
thc recrniters, if not
always by the rccruits-that
such voluntary allCl l1onproblcmalic state
service was natural and proper that helps to cxplain the Chincse readiness to trust gl'cat leaders, whethcr l':mpel'Or Wu of thc r Ian or I'vlao
Tse-tung of the People's Republic, This optimism also helps to explain
the lack of safcguards against the power of the state that has charactcrized Chincsc governmcnt for at least two thousand years. 1I'leadcrs arc
good-and
if thc good is unambignous-who
nccds to he prolcctcd
againstthcm? Achilles, his hand on Ihc sword,'his act rcgrelled as il is,
commilled, represents a more somber visioll. 'j() thc Greeks, thc hero
might not bc bad, hut hc might he fundamentally and Iragically mistaken, '10 thc Chinese, a hero, hy definition, was good; his mistakcs, if hc
madc any, were likely to he tactical in nature. His intcnt was free fmm
crror and regret.
THr~ NHH.lTHlC
TO BRONZE AGE TRANSITION
I now turn to the evolution of Chinese culture in thc Ncolithic and early
Bronze Ages, with part\cular allentiontosuch su'~ects as individualism (01'
5. Thomas A. Melzger, "SOIlIC Alldelll Hool.. of AlldclIl Chinesc Tholl!;/II: Thisworldlincss, EpisICmolo!;ic:al Optimism, J)oclrillality, alld the Emcrg':IIl:e of Ilellcxivily ill
Ihe Eastern Choll," lilll-lyGhil/(/ 11-'2 (. UIl5-'U87): (;(1-72.
6. The phrasc is Max Wehcr's. Sl'e Max WelI/:r, "/1,p.IIrliKill1l'I{"(,"/rill(/.Irans. 11:lIIsII.
Gcrrh,
28,235. with 111\intrmlllc:lioll by C, 1<'Yanl: (New York: Frec I'rcss. I!J!i'). xxx. 2 '2. 227-
!.
22
David N. Keightley
Early Civilization
VI
ill China
23
its absence), ritual and decorum, bureaucratic control, dependcncy and
obligation, and mctaphysical optimism. The Neolithic is of fundamental
importance because of the remarkable cOlltinuity of post-Neolithic cultural developmcnt in China. It is p1"Olmblytrucr for China than 1'01"most
pans of the world that as the Neolithic twig was betH the mudcm tree
has inclined.
Neolithic cultures iOnChina Aoudshed dudng the Pustglacial Climatic
Optimum, when it is probable that temperatures were sOllie two to four
degrees Celsius wanner than they are today and rainfall, in at least the
Middle Yangtze and north China, was mure abundant. The development of early Chinese culture must be understoud in the context of
these relatively beneficent natural conditiuns,
Socially, the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in China,
as elsewhere in the world, witnessed the evolution of urban forms, the
genesis of the state, the institutionalization of eXploitation and servitude,
the validation of characteristic forms of sacrifice, and the systematic articulation of religious beliefs. Spiritually and psychulo~ically, this transition witnessed the development of a temperament and mentality that
lound certain worldviews and cosmological assumptions natural and
comfortable, involving, in particular, the willing acceptance of hierarchy, filiality, and obedience,
In the realm of religion, the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the
Ncar East, Greece, and East Asia-to say nothing of thuse uf Egypt and
India-developed
belief systems and institutions that dealt ill difi'erent
ways with the one certainty that faces us all: eventual death. Death can,
pat:adoxically, be a lively topic, for from Neolithic times onward the way
pe~ple have treated death and the dead has been deeply expressive uf,
an<l has had a significant impact on; the way they have treated the living.
-NeolithicChina
hn:haeological evidence provides considerable reasun fOl' thinking that
di!.~inctions between rich and poor, male and female, and the powerful
and the weak were emerging in China by the fourth and third millennia
II.C. Not only did grave goods become more abundant, but the general
egalitarianism of thc early Neolithic burials was replaced by markcd discrepancies in energy input, wealth, and ritual care in later burials (figure
2.3). Similarly, certain houses and certain village areas begin tu reveal
dillerentiation in the goods available to the living. The presence of grave
guods-which, although finely made, were generally items of daily lifepresumably indicates a belief in some kind of postmortem existence.
The burial, particularly in Eastern sites, of superbly made polished
stone and jade tools, such as axes and spades, whose edges reveal no
traces of use, also indicates that status dilferentiation was prolonged beyond the grave. These objects suggest that certain members of the so-
0
Figure 2.3. to. I.al(~ Neolithic slipinc-extended
Inl/'iar with ahuJI(lalll
atl.ill-wan,
eastern Tsinghai. From K'(lo./m 1976.6, plate 2,
grave goods
ciety had been the possessors of symbolic, rather Lhall workillg, Ioolsemblems ur the oWllcr's puwcr to control the lahur of 01hers, both in this
life and in thc next. There were already by ahoutthe mid fourlh millennium II.C.some people in China whuse hands were not as "dirty" as thuse
of others.
The Late Neolithic saw the emcrgcnce of scapulimancy and pJastromancy, methods of divination in which the scapulas of animals (usually
callie) or the plastrons of turtles were smrched or humt, the divincr interpreting the resulting cracks tu foretcll good or ill fortune. The presence of.someoof these "orade bones" in cemetery areas suggests that the
living, by cracking oracle bones, were aHempting to conllllunicate with
the dead. One may assume .hat a consistently successful diviner would
have acquired inucased political authority, an mllhorilY supported hy
his powerful kin, both living and dead.
24
liarly Gitliliza/itl/l in Chil/CI
David N. Keightlcy
25
0"1
Shensi. From
Figure 2.4, Secondary burials in grave M111 at Yuan-chiin-miao,
Yll~fI-cllilfl-7IIiaoYaflg-shao7lm-ti(Peking: Wen-\Yu Ch'u-pan-she, 1983), plate 33.
The Ncolithic Chinese trcated thcir dcad with rcmarkablc and chare
acteristic assiduity. Corpses were buried in orderly rows, Ol"iented to certain compass direclions dcpcnding on thc area of China in which thcy
had l.ived. This orderly layout prcsumably rel1cctcd expectations of social ()nlcr among thc living. The corpscs wcrc also gcnc"'tlly huried in
thc s~pine-cxtendcd posilion (see figure 2.a), a practice that required
more labor for the digging of the burial pit than, for instance, a flex
buria l . The log construction of coffin chambers in cerLain l~astern burials, particularly at the Ta-wen-k'ou site in ShanlUng, or of tomb ramps in
the northwest is a further indication of the labor expended on morluary
,concerns,
,
The 'practice of c;:ollectivesecondary burial, which, although never
dominant, flourished in the Centrall>lains and the Northwesl during the
fifth millennium, is particularly revcaling. The cleaning away of the flesh
and the careful reburial of the boncs-frequently
arranged in thc standard supine-extended posture of the primary burials, and with skulls
oriented to the prevailing local direction (figure 2.4)-implics the ability
to mobilize labor resources for ~he collective reilllcl'Il1enl of up to seventy or eighty skeletons in one' pit. It also implies that the dcad must
have been kept alive in the minds of their survivors during the period of
months, if not years, between primary and secondary burial.
Figurc 2.5, l;rave M\!5 aL'!h-wcn-k'ou, Shalllullg, The cight Lall/wi gohll:ts al.
the bOll.OIllor the pictllre had hccn placcd in the l:arth rill ami had presllmably
hccn used in a rarewell ritual. Fwm lIt-I/Ien-/I'ou:Hsill-.Ihih-ch'i.rhih-Ifli1l1It-I.flIl/g
[n-cfllleh fllll/-imo(I'ckin~: WCII-WUCh'u-pan-she, 1\171), plaLe 1:1-:1,
Olhcr mOrluary rituals wcrc cmploycd. Thc placcnlcnl orsomc orthc
jars and goulels in Ncolithic burials, 1'01'example, SUggCStSthe CXiSICIlC<:
of n,rcwclllihalions by mourners as lhe grave was bcing fillcd in (figul"c
2.5); thc prccarious,tall-stcmmcd black goblcts oflhc L':ast(figmc 2.(i)whosc finc, cggshell-thin construction itself sugg-csts some spccial rilual
funclion-may havc bccn used fO!"lhe consumption of millet winc althe
lime of inlcrmcnt.
.
Onc of thc moslremarkable of all Neolithic burials is M3 at the Liangchu culturc silC of SSIl-tun in Kiangsll (ca. 2500 B.C.; figmc 2.7), which
givcs ample cvidence of ritual aClivity: the corpse had been placcd atop
tcn jade IJi disks th,it had been burned; the body. had thcn becn surrounded by a variety ofjadc and SlOne 1O0lsami ornaments, including <I
perimcter of twcnty-sevenjade IJ'u.1t~llIbes; and live of the twenty-foul"
jade Iii in the burial had been deliberately broken in two and placed ill.
dilI'crent parts of lhe grave. Given lhe dillicully or working with jade, a
malcriallhal has hccn described as "sublimely impractical," the prcscnce
~-------------------------------------------
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~
~ ~
::: ~
"
n
.:.
;;:
~3
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v,
,t- ~.
-:-: ;;:::
-r'"'-~'
-
~§
i~
::...:~
f.
~
::::::;
§~
~ ~.
r~
t~
"::'.<:
~ :r.
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-
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,.,
,.
-
28
David N. Keighlley
Early Gitliliwlion
29
in Ghi1llt
00
Figure 2.8. Grave M327 at Liu-wan,eastern Tsinghai. The central corpse,
buried in a lIex position, is thought to have accompanicd thc other two corpses
in death. From Well-lOlL
1976.1:75, ligure II.
of large numbers of finely carved jade f}i and /s'ung in other Lower
Yangtze burials of the third millennium-they
have never been found in
the ;'lOusin~ remains-is furlher indication of the way in which the labors. of the living were exploiled lor the service of lhe-dead.
Spme burials also conlained viclims: animal and, occasionally, human.
I'}uman saCl'ifice was nol wides'pread in the Neolilhic, butthcre is evidence-both
in a Yang-shao burial al P'u-yang innorthcrn Honan (end
of the lifth millennium?) and in Ma-ch'ang and Ch'i-chia burials in eastern Tsinghai and westcrn Kansu (toward the end of the third millcnnium)-that
a small number of people were accompanying olhers in
death, furthcr cvidence of the kinds of paymcnts the living were constrained lo offcr the dead (figure 2.8). The presence of an occasional tool
by the side of the victim indicates, at least in the later sites, that a servant
in this life was to continue as a 'servant in the next life. Ties of obligation
and servitude were so strong that. they persis led aftcr dcath.
BronzeAge China
By t.he Late Shang period (ca. 1200-'1015 II.C.),rcprescnted hy the archacological IInds at I-lsiao-t.'un, near Anyang in thc northern Honan
A~~aA&A~~~~~~~a~~~~~~~~~----------------
Figure 2.9. A Late Shang royal tomb atllsi-pci-kang. From Liang Ssu-yung
and Kao Ch'U-hsun,
Institntc or History
HOIL-chia-clllIang lOo2-haola 1I1lI(Taipei:
ancll'hilolof{y,
1965), platc 3.
Acadcmia
Sinka,
panhandle, increasing slralification and the instilutionalization of power
were bOlh represcnted and rdnfon:ed by a highly devdoped mil of the
dead. The oracle-hone inscriplions reveal that. thc dead w(:re worshiped
as ancestors according to an increasingly precise ritual schedule. Neolithic mOrluary traditions were amplilicd hut not radically altered.
With regard lo grave goods, for example, the unrilled burial knoIVn
as M5-which has heen linked to Fu Hao, a consorl or royal woman associated with the powerful king Wu Ting (ca. 1200- 1181. II.C.)-COIltaincd over sixteen hundred grave goods, including 4G8 bronzes whose
total weight was over one and one-half lons. Extrapolation from lhis
relalively small uurial suggests that the conlents of the looted tombs ill .
the royal ccmclery at Hsi-pei-kang, across the river to thc norlhwesl of
Hsiao-t'un, would have been even more impressivc. The t.OInus wel-e
veritable underground storehouses of the linest produClS lhat Shang- <:ivilization could crcale; lhese greal cruciform, ramped pits, up lo fOrlytwo feet deep (figure 2.9) and equipped with heamed, room-sized grave
chambers up to ninc feel high, were mOlllllllcIIISto the a flection and 01,ligation lhatlinked living descendanls 10 dcad parenls.
Such tOlllbs are eloquent 1'1'001'or 1hc intcllsi( y wilh which Ihc nlOrlll-
.- -- .-
30
I.D
Early Civiliwtian in Chitin
David N. Keightley
ary cult both exploited and stimulated the labol's of the community. The
digging and rcfilling (with rammcd carth) of such a pit alonc, «uitc apart
from the labol' involved in furnishing it with the wooden chambcr, coftin, and costly grave goods like bronzcs and jades, would have taken one
hundred men well over two hundred days to complete. The continual
draining of wealth to provide goods for the dead was the early Chinese
equivalent of conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence; it
stimulated the productive powers of cral'tsmen and laborers by expropriating the fruit of theil' elforts in a culturally rational manner. A system of exchange was evidently involved. Motivated by spiritualized
kinship ties, mortuary taxes on the immediate wealth of the living served
to guarantee the future prosperity of their descendants.
The number of human victims associated with the Shang royal burials
is impressive, as it was undoubtedly intended to be: It may be estimated
that some of the royal four-ramp tombs would have claimecl the lives of
over three hundred sacrificial victims and accompaniers-in-death and
that, over the course of the approximately one hundred and fifty years
in which it was in use, some five thousand victims may have been buried
in the Hsi-pei-kang burial complex; these figures, which do not include
some ten thousand human sacrifices recorded in divinations about the
regular ancestral cult, represent a rate of about thirty-thl'ee victims a
year, or 550 per king. The mortnary victims were drawn from a cross
section of Shang society: elite accompaniers-in-death, placed near the
king and buried whole, sometimes with their own collins, grave goods,
awl even accompaniers-in-cleath; guards, buried whole with their weapons; and prisoners of war, the most numerous group, generally young
mal,es, decapitated or dismembel'ed and buried in the earth fiJI, in the
ramps, or in adjacent sacriticial pits. This last group, the sacrilicial victim~.,outnumbered
the accompaniers-in-death by a ratio of about twenty
to one.
Similar large-scale immolations were not unknown in Mesopotamiafm' example, in the royal cemetery of Ur, where from three to seventyfour attendants accompanied the ruler-but
there the custom was shortlived and virtually unrecorded in texts. Human sacrifice was rarely
practiced in the Greek Bronze Age.? More significantly, there is virtually
no evidence of accompanying-in-death. Elite Greeks were not linked to
each other by ties of obligation and dependency that bound them ill
death as they had presumably been bound in life. In China, by contrast,
7. Thai Achilles, in book 23 ofche Iliad, Init "twelve radiant sons ofTmy" to the sword
at the funcrat of l'atroc\us was morc a sign of his fury than comll\on CUslUm.(Thc (Iuotes
from the Iliad and the OclYJJtyin this chapter are taken 1'1'011\
the translations of Rohert
l'il1.gen,ld, which arc published by Douhlcday.)
Jl
the custom was practiccd for a f;u'longer pcr.jod, continuing to a si~lIificant de~rce in the "mials 01'local rulers and cven elllperors down to thc
Ch'in-Han period allli bcyond, with the numher 01'victims varying I'rol1l
a f(~wto over a hundrcd.
The oracle-bonc inscriptions-with
their records of systematic ofI'erings to dead kings, whose own powers and abilitics t.o intercede with Ti,
thc Lord on High, extended to such fundamcntal areas as weather, climate, and victory in baule-revcalthe
celllral, institutionalized role that
ancestor worship played in the workings of the Shang state. This power
accorded to dead fathers and grandfathers suggests, accordingly, that
Shang lineages were strong and that kinship alIilhitiol1, reinl'orced by religious sanctification, was a powerful force for allegiance and motivation.
It may be s.uppcised that Shang ancestor worship, which promoted the
dcad to higher levels of authority and impcrsonality with the passage of
generations, encouraged the genesis of hierarchical, protobureaucratic .
conceptions and Ihat il enhanced the value of these conceptions as more
secular forms of government replaced thc Bronze Age theocracy.
.
Ancestor
WorshiJ) and ILl CO1l.\/!{/lwnct?J
The Late Shang state emerged by building upon and institutionalizing,
rather than opposing, the ties of afI'ection, obligation, and dependency
indicated by the mortuary practiccs of the Neolithic. The close fit be- .
tween dynastic and religious powcr that resulted had at least three significant consequences.
First, it meant that there was no independent priesthood that might
serve as an alternativc locus of power or criticism; the king, as lineage
head, was his own priest. The heads of all powerfullincages had access
to the indepcndcnt and fricndly religious power of their own ancc~slors
withoutlhe mediation of othcr religious spedalists. Second, it meant that
the way ill which the values of kinship obligation, ancestor worship, and
dynastic servicc rcinforced onc another Icd to an clICluring unitary conception of the state as a religio-familial-political institution that could
embrace, ideally. all aspects of one's allegiance, leaving liule idcological
ground vacant as a base for dissent. Given the totality of the Chinese
state, it is no wonder that the only Eastern Chou "oppositionists" who
left much of an inLCllectuallllark, the 'HlOistsof the Chuang Tzu school,
had to reject conceptions of service and hierarchy. Confucius and his followers could certainly lament contemporary realities, hut they were essentially IIIcliorists working within the value system rather than radical
critics of the systcm itself. II is also no wondcr that rebels against the
state were fre(luently to appeal to the vast world of popular naturc
powers, gods, and Buddhist saviors, who stood outside thc nonnative
politico-religions slmctlll'e 01'the linca~c. Third, it mcant .hat thc Chi-
32
l~'(/rl)' Ci"iliwlirm
David N. Keight/ey
lIese humanism of the Eastern Chou, represented by such great social
lhillkers as Confucius, Mcncius, alld HsUl\ 'I'm, did nol see allY opposition between secular and religious values and was ablc, in Fingarellc's
striking phrasc, to lrcat "thc sccular as sacrcd."" Thc humanism that rcsultcd, therefore, was based on social and kin relations sanctilicd by rcligious assumptions. Ritual and hicrarchical expectations werc applied to
all aspects of a monistic cosmos; just as thcre had been no opposition betwccn kilig (or lincage head) and priest, so thcrc was no tcnsion bctwecn
. thc counterclaims of god and man, between a Zeus and a Promctheus.
The optimism of the Chinese lradition, which has alrcady been notcd,
can be understood as both producing and being rcinforced by this fundamental sense of harmonious collaboration. Thcrc was, once again, no
sense of immanent moral paradox or conllict.
IJt:lllh
ill Chill(/'
JJ
(1-1'Uullro/J/mllalic
Onc striking rcalurc or thc carly Chillese wrillt'll l'(~coJ'(1is ils view of
death as nnproblt~matic, Ikalh was silllply nol Ihe issue it was for Ill('
ancient Mesopotamians 01'the audent Greeks, Nowherc, for example, in
the ancient Chinesc record docs one lind the mythical claim, ronnd ill
Mesopotamian texts, that dcath existed prior to the creation or both Ihe
ulliversc and man. Nowherc docs Ollt~(illt! tllc angry and anguished
voicc or a Gilgamesll. horrilied by the dealh 01' I!:nkidu and by I<:nkidu's
dcpressing account or the life to comc:
the house where olle who goes ill lIever cOllies oUI agaill,
lhe road thal, if' olle takcs it, OIiC IIcver willes back.
Ihe hOllse lhal, if' olle lives lhere, OIiC lIevcr sees light,
the place where they live on dusl, Iheir I<JOd is lIIud.
..........................
DEATH AND THE HIRTH OF CIVILIZATION
-"
0
Ncxt I allempt to integratc carly Chinese mortuary practices with other
aspects of the culture, considering how the mcaning of one set of customs may be morc richly understood when sccn in thc context of others,
how onc set or assumptions about thc human condition was rcinrorced
by, and would have reinforced, others.
Death and Continuity
Shang burial customs helpcd to deline what it was to bc a rulcr (or a retainer). The wealth, lhe dependents, and the victims accompanying the
kit~g into the next world demonstrated thaI his supcrior status (and lhe
infcrior status of his retainers) would be unchanged after dcath. This
vi~w of death as a continuity rather than a new begiilnin.g had alrcady
bcen implied by the grave goods and mortuary customs of the Chinese
NJolithic. Death olfered none of thc escape, nonc of thc psychic mobi!ity'olfercd by thc mystery religions of thc Ncar East or by Christianity ilself with its visi()n of a redcmptivc death and rcbirth as "in Abraham's
bosom." In early China death provided an effectivc opportunity ror sur-.
vivors to validate the central valucs of the culture. No dcad Chinese king
would have been permitted thc lament made by Achilles in book II of
thc Iliall-"Uetter, I say, to brcak sod as a farm handl for somc country
man, on iron rations,/lhan lord it over all the exhaustcd dead"-for
such an admission would have undermined the respect and obedience
owed to thc dead elites and thus to their living descendants. Once a kiIig,
always a king; death could not changc that.
8. Herbcrl Fiugarc(\c, Co,rflldl": Tile Seclliar al Sacred (Ncw York: Harpcr, 1972). Anyonc rcading Ihis provocalivc book should also rcad Ilu: dClailcd critiquc provided ill
Schwa I'll., The World of '/'hought ill Allciellt Cllilla.
-------
My body, lhal ~avt: your hearLjoy 10 touch.
vermin eitl il up like old dothes.
My hody, lhal gavc YOUI'hearljoy lo touch,
Is Iilied wilh dirl!
There
is noallciellt
Chinese
mylh, like that or the Gardell
accounts ror the "inventiOli" of death or thallreals
of' Eden, Ihat
dealh as some lIaw ill
the divine plan. There arc no visits to, or descriptions
or, the realm or
thc dead that would comparc with the descriptions
we hav(~ or Ihe Nethcrworld for the Mcsopotamians
or or Hades I(JI' tile Greeks. Nowhere do
wc find the epic concerns of thc Iliad and Orly.mJ)',which lilens on Ihe
manner of dcath, the ritual trcatment of the dead, and the unhappy fate
of thc shades after death and which express so powerrully thc Iragic
(once again the word recurs) poignancy that death confers on the 11lIman condition. Nowhere do we lind a philosophical discourse, lik<~Phlto's
Plwcd{},that is devoted 1.0Ihe nature or death alld Ihe souL'" The very
silence of thc Chinese texts about such lIIaU<TSsuggests a remarkahle
Chinese ability to emphasize life over deal h. Ancestor worship and the
endurancc of the lineage served 10 rendcr the loss of the individnal
morc palatilule. Indecd, these practiccs would have served 10 promole,
as thcy werc promotcd hy, a conception of the illdividual and his role
(Iuite dill'ercnt from thaI. held by Ihe Mesopotamians
and Greeks.
9. Johll Gal'dllcr alld .Iohll Maier, IraIlS., (;;/gnmrsh: '/""'11.11,,11'11
frO/1/tltr S;/l-irt/;-IIIIII;'III;
Vers;oll(New York: Knopf, 198<1),lablcl vii, colllllln iv, labl(~1xii, CCIlolIlIIiI'. /78.26:,.
10. Thc riposlcs ami allcl~dolcs1,bOnidcalh I'olllldill Ihe (;11//(1111:'/'llt
IIIcl'ely willi nil
lhis poinl. Chllall!: '1'7.11is 111'!:lIillltfor a 1I01l11llln1111
vicw of dcalh pl'cdsdy beGlIlSe hI' i.s
arRuiliR for a nllllhuman vicw of life, He is, in lhl:se passages, IC5Scom'cruet! about death
ilseU'llmn wilh Ihe inslilllliolls mul V11hll'sthallhe dvili1.ed Chillcse had (kveil/pc«lln deal
with il. Ulllike 1'lalO. h«' dcals wilh dCalh as a sndalprohlelll,
1101" philnsophic,,1 (111(',hcc;IIIS(~,in his view. 51)('i(~lyilscl!' is Ihe pl'<lhlelll. I lis ..h('('1'1'1I1
1'('I'('pl"lIn~ of dealh Illighl w(.11
have filled I'hl\o wilh ellvy.
34
....
....
Datlirl N, Keightley
Morality and the AbsenceofTheodicy
Thc grcat mythic themes in China were not dying and death but social
ordcr and social morality; therc is no Chincsc cquivalcntto the hcroic
and adversarial universe of Gilgamcsh or Inanna, Achilles or Hector.
One is impressed and attracted by the general harmony that pcrvades
thc I'elations of the Chinese to their gods. For example, although thcre
had been a Hood, dimly described, its main function was to provide the
sage emperor Ya with a sphere for his labors in political geography,
delineating the borders for thc various regions of China. The famous
saying, recorded in the Tso elman, "But for Yii we should have bcen
fishes," pays tribute to his having made the world habitable; the myth
does not address thc issuc of why thc flood occmred. Thcre is, in fact, a
characteristic lack of theodicy in early Chinese culture, its fundamcntal
optimism seeming to render unnecessary any explanations lor the presence of evil.
.
There was no sense in early Chinese mythology that the gods werc
malevolent, that they resented human success, that they might conspire
to destroy man, or that man was becoming too numerous and too tiresomc, themes that are all present in Mesopotamian and Greek myth and
in the Old Testamcnt. Just as there was no Prometheus, 11cither was
there any Zeus. Given this lack of divine animus, of immanent man-god
hostility, it was natural that death in China should not have been regarded as ill1affront to mOrLalsto thc degree that it was in Mcsopotamia
and Greecc; rather, it was part of thc inevitable and harmonious order.
In a kin-based society where the royal ancestors were in Heaven, there
was liLLlediscord bctween god and men. There was little need, in short,
for ii,Chinese Gilgamesh or a Chinese Job, asking why a man who has
done'~no wrong should die 01'suil'er. The issue, when it did arisc, as in
thc c~lsesof Po Yi and Shu Ch'i (note 4, this chapter) 01' of Confucius
himself, who was shunned by the.rulel's of his ilge, was usually conceived
in terms of employment, rcward, and rccognition rathel' than suffering
or destruction. Even in his moving letter to Jen An in which the great
historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien, who had been punished by Emperor Wu of the
Han, laments his castration, his regrets are characteristically collched not
in terms of his own loss but in -terms of his having failcd to scrve the
emperor and his colleagues effectively."
.
Death, the Individual, unci the SufJernatural
Attitudes toward death depend on cultural conceptions of what has bcen
lost. Just as the biller reactions to dcath in the cases of the Gilga11leshand
II. Thc IcltCI' is lranslalcd in I\nl'lon W:l\son, S..,..."lI Cl,'irn: Gra"t/fIiJ/l/rian oI China
(NcIY York: Columbia Universily Press, 1958),57--67.
Early GiTlilizaliul/ ill Chil/a
35
the Greek cpics, for example, may be related to strong conceptions of
personal roles in the two culturcs, so may thc quictcr, mOl'c accepting
responses of the carly Chinese, who werc less anguishcd mctaphysically
by dcath, bc relatcd to their decmphasis on individual heroic action.
Thc lack of cmphasis on thc individualnHiy also bc scen in the I'calm
of thc supcl'l\atural. By contrast with the Mcsopotamians and Grceks,
for whommisforlunc and defeat stenllncd fromlhc harassment and disordcrly intcrf'crcncc of individual gods likc Enki and Ishta.. ()J"Zeus ami
Aphrodite, the Shang Chinesc presumably would havc (~xI)laill<~d
such
events in terms of impropcr sacrifices and dissatislied ancestors, Those
anccstors would have been mollified not by thc particularistic pleas of
humans 01'bY.~ITaticintervcntions and divinc favoritism but by orclcrcd
sacrificcs whoseclIicacy was tcstcd in advance through divinalion and
ofl'ered in accordance with thc status of the ancestors responsiblc, Given
this protobureaucratic attitude toward the supernatural, it was entirely
natural that death itself would also bc treated in a morc maucr-of-fact,
more impersonal manner.
The Chincsc of the Western Chou, whose Mandatc of \-lcavcn doctrine moralized the political cultUl"c,explaincd misf()rlllnes and defcats
in terms of immoral behavior; somc thinkers of thc I-:astern Chou, by
contrast, adoptcd thc impcrsonal cycles of yin-yaup;amI "Iive-phasc" thcory. No mallcr which of thesc cxplanations onc turns to, the Shang aud
Chou elites lived in a l1Iorc ordercd, more "rational" wor!<rof hlrge, general fon:cs thaI implemcnted thc will of hierarchically ordered anceslors
or "Hcaven," on the one hand, or that were incarnatcd in natural cycles,
on the othel', By contrast to the Mcsopotamian or Greck dcities, Chinese
ancestral spirits were remarkably dcpersonalized, a point to whidl 1 re- .
tUl'l\ later.
O,-iKills (md Eschatology
The absence of origins myths until relatively late in the Chincsc record
was also sUI'ely relatcd to conceptions of lifc and death. 1 would suggcst
that conceptions of creation cx nihilo are related to and stimulatcd by a
radical, nihilistk view of death itself. Cultures that are less anxious about
eschatology, slIch as that of ancicnt China, arc Icss likely to be concerned
about their origins; culturcs that arc morc worried about final destiniltions, such as those of Mesopotamia and Grcece, arc morc likely to devote attention to the question of whcnce they came, Thc Grcek cOI1<:crn
with <Iucstions of origins, "first causcs," ami "first principlcs" is well
known. In China, where idcntity was conceived as biological and social,
the question or origins was (?hcn onc of genealogy and history. A hierarchy of ancestors leading back to a dimly perceived f(>lInelingancestor or
ancestress was answer enough because it satisficd the kinds of questions
that were bcing asked.
36
David N. Keighlley
l~(lrly CiviliZll/ioll ill Chiua
Critical Distance
....
IV
The "openness" of Greek socicty, whic.:hwas coming into existence
during the Archaic period (ca. 7()0-179 II.G.),has been called "its IIlOSt
precious single legacy," serving to cncourage both "the intellectual
spcculations of the few and individual freedom among the many."12 The
characteristic Greek readincss to qucstion and complain ahout thc human condition-whether
that queslioning was religious,' mctaphysical,
01"political-may bc related to the marked dilfcrence thaI distinguished
mortals [rom immorLals in Greek legend. This diswnce allowed the
Greeks to take a stance more critical than that permittcd a Chinesc worshiping his ancestors, who were merely ex-humans, not radically ditlerent beings." A strong, hierarchical, lineage system docs not cncourage
children to criticize parents or descendants to criticize spiritualized ancestors; it also does not encourage the pursuit of radical innovations. I
would not deny that, as Nathan Sivin notes in Chapter 7 o[ this volume
and as Joseph Needham's extensive work has revealcd," Chinese cnlfLsmen and technologists have b~en among the most inventivc in the world.
The point is, however, that such innovators wcrc gcncrally not rewarded
with or stimulated by commensurate social prestigc.
For the early Chinese, as lor their impcrial desccndants, it was the
past that was normative. The Greeks, like most traditional cultures, certainly revered the past; yet they succeeded in a situation that M.I. Finlcy
has rcl'erred to as one of "compulsory originality" in producing a series
of unprecedented cultural innovations.I!>The past wasaccorded greater
respect by the Chinese because the past was, through the lineage, the int~grated source of biological, religious, and political.identity. This great
r~spect helps explain the lesser emphasis placed on iUlli.vl.dualcrcativity
~u;d innovation; cmulation of dead ancestors was all the originality req¥ired. Such an environment encouraged what might almost be called a
Sl}irit of "compulsory unoriginality." Once again we cncounter the
strcngth of the lineage in early Chinese culture-alrcady
sccn in thc
morluary evidence and the cult of ancestor worship-as onc of its most
12. Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: 71,e IIge of Ex/'elill/tIIl (lIcrkelcy: Univcrsityor
Calirornia Prcss, Ig80), 161.
13. Scc Vcrmcnlc, IIs/JeclsoJ Dealh. 125. on thc way in which Ihc cpic pcrmillcd thc
Greeks 10 laugh at and even despise their gods. Jasper Crillin has madc a relatcd poinl. For
Ihe Grceks thc "world niakes 'less scnsc throngh moral selr-cxmninalion"-which
would
havc been Ihe Chinesc approach-"Ihan
through recognilion or Ihe gull' that separates
morlal men rrom thc serenc supcriority and shining gaze or lhc innnorial gods" ("From
Killer 10Thinker," New YorkReuiewoJ Book! 32. no. II [27 June Ig851: 32).
14. Joscph Necdham. Sciencealld Ciui/isalioll ill Chilla, 7 vols. projectcd (Cambridge:
'
University
Press. 1954 -).
M.I. Finley, 'l1,e Allcielll Creel,,: All 11I1,."Il"e/;OIIIn 71,.;", !.iJe allll'1111l11ght (New York:
Cambridge
'5.
Viking. '964).23.
distinctive featurcs. lLis no
statecraft and socialthcory
221 II.C.)of the "hundred
lineages of the Spring and
pearing from the sccnc.
J7
accidcntthat the greatest innovations in early
appeared in the Warring States period (111:1schools," the age whcn the v;reat aristocratic
I\ulllmn period (7'1.1-'179 H.C.)were disap-
AI':~TI1ETICS AND STYI.E
/ngmiucdllcJs
Characteristically, there is no visual image or even textual description of
any early Chinese ruler or dcity to compare with Ihc ililages and descriptions of particular \'IIlers, heroes, and gods wc have ["rom Mcsopotamia
and Greece. There is no Chincsc cquivalent to the hronze head, which
may depict King Sargon thc Grcat, no Chinese version of a heroic, lifesize, naked bronze Poseidon. Inthc Neolithic, the Shang. and the Weslern Chou the iconographic tradiLion was, with few exceptions, profoundly nonnaturalistic. Gombrich's formula, "making comes before
matching," 16 was not only true of the designs paintcd on Chincse Neolithic pots but continued to bc t\'llC until I'clalivcly laic ill the Bronze
Age. Whatever the so-called monster masks on the Shang a\l(l Chou
bronzes (see, for example, figure 11.3 in Chaplcr I I) represented-and
it is by no means clear that they were intended 10 "match" any natural
animal-they
were primarily magico-aeslhelic (~xpressions of de.~ign,
symmetry. amI all almost diclatorial order.
This concern with general order rather than particular dcscriptiollmahifestcd in the carly aesthetics, social rituals, and philosophy of early
China-may also he.seen, to return to onc of our earlier themes, in n~presentations of death. No early Chincse text provides vivid, ulllIinching
details like the worm crawling out of the dead L':nkidu's nose in the
Gilgalllc.~hor the brains bursting 1'1'0111
a mOrlalthrust and running.along
the spearhead in hook 17 of the Iliad. The relaLive unconcern with material details can be seen as a furthCJ' expression of the "epistemological
optimism" referred to earlier, the willingness to embrace ideas that were
more dependent on social custom and general category than on rigorous
analysis and precise description.
Both aesthetically and socially, the Chinesc did notm<lnil"cst what has
been called "thc Grecks' personifying instinct," that illstinct thai rendered Greek myths so rich in personalities a\1(1thus so un-Chinese." Indeed, if one word had to be used to desuibe carly Chinese aesthctic, and
16. E. H. GOJllbrich, A,.t flllllllhuioll: II SllIdy ill lite 1'.I)'dlOllIgy
IIf l'iclo,.;all1e/m'.lellllllirlll
(Oxrord: l'hahlnn. I!ln). !I!I'
17. L. R. I'anlt'li. C;,.,.,.kI/ero CIlIt.I'(/IlIlldras '1II1I1/"".'ali')'(O"f",.d: Oxf",.d Ullivc,.,iIY
l'ress, 1!J2I), 3!i!1.
38
David N. Keighlley
even philosophical, expression, I would suggest "ingnlinedness." By ingrainedness I mean the willingness to concentrate on the symbolic meaning of an event, usually moral or emotional and frequently expressive of
some normative order, rather than to express, or derive comfort or insight from, its existential qualities for their own sake. Such ingraincdncss
has nothing to do with abstJ'actions or with the ideal forms of Phlto's dialogues. It is in the Chinese case entirely immanent. The patterns, symbols, messages, rules, and so on arc cntirely within rcality; thcy do not
transcend rcality metaphysically but merely rcnder its existential details
of minor imporlance. As Girardot has writtcn of Chincsc myths,
Mythicmaterials andthclI1cs havc cntcrcd illto Chincsc litcralUrc as a scries or cxtremely abstmct, and essentiallystatic, models [or organizing and
.
evaluating human life.
Mythicthemes in early Chinese literalllre, in other words, often seem to
be reduced to their inner "logical"code 01'implicit cosmologicalstructure
of binary yin-yml[classilication.'.
.....
w
Chinese ingrainedness, then, stands in sharp contrast to the passionate
Archaic Greek attention to individual detail for its own existential sake,
thc recognition of the quirky, ironic, indifferent, nonsymbolic, existential,
nonessential nature of reality, the "outgazing bent of mind that sees
things exactly, each for itself, and seems innocent of the idea that thought
discerps and colors reality." These traits arc absent in the eady Chinese
texts that have come down to us. John Finley has referred to this Archaic
Greek auiwde as that of "the Heroic Mind"; his account is worth quoting
in full for the contrasting light it throws on the Chinese evidence.
~hen in the sixth book or the lliadl-lector hrielly returns to Troy. . . and
niects his wife and inl:\IIt son atlhe Rale al1l( reachcs (lilt 10 takc thc hoy in
hi~ arms, the child draws back [J'ightcncd at his fathcr's bronze arll1or amI
h~lmet with horsehair crest; whereupon Hcctor laughs, lakcs 011' the
h~lmet, and lays it all-shining on the ground. In so deeply felt a scene
sUl'ely no one but Homer would have paused to note lhat helmet still shining beside the human figul'es. It is as if in whatevel' circumstances it too
kccps its particular being, which docs nol changc becausc people are sad
or happy but remains what it is, one of the innumerable lixcd cntitics.that
comprise the world. Similarly in the heroic poems ships remain swift,
18. Norman J. Girardol, "Behaving Cosll1ogonicallyill Early'Iaoism," in Cosmogony
and
EIhir.alOrder: New S/lIdie.. in Compara/ive E/hics, co. Robin W, Lovin and Frank E. Reynolds
(ChicaRo: University of Chicago Press, 1!l8G), 7" Girardot also refers \() Sarah Alhlll\indgment (n,e Heir anrl/"e Sage: DYlltIJ/icLegmd ill Eady C"i"a ISan Francisco: Chinese Mate,.;:lls Center, '98, J, .8) lhat "in using myth in political and philosophical argnmcntation, the
Chinese writer operated at a highc;r level of abstraction and with greater self-consciollSness
than is normally associated with mythical thought. He did not narrate legend but abstracted from it."
.
Early Citlilizatioll ill Chilla
39
bronzc sharp, thc sky starry, rivcrs cddying. Though hcrocs light and dic,
everything in the outllung world keeps its fit and nalive character."
There are no comparable scencs, no "shining helmets," in early Chinese litcraturc. Evcn in the /loot, of SOIIKS.
(Shih chillg), whcrc early Chincse lyricism is most prominent, thc general supersedes thc particular,
and nature is pregnant with allcgorical or symbolic mcaning, usually
moral. There are love poems but no great lovcrs. Nature is not independcnt but participates inman's moral and el1lotional cosmology; its mle is
to express human concerns. To put thc maLLcranother way, early Chinese texts, like early Chincsc hl'Onze designs, rcveal marks of what, to a
Greek artist, would have secmedlikc scverc cditing, in which particular'
detail had becn sacrificcd to abstract order. Eithcr thel'(~nevcr was a Chinese equivalent.QJ' the Heroic Mi~d or it has Icn no reflcction; in either
case the contrast WWIthe Classical Greeks, who were so deeply inspired
by the epics of the Archaic period, is significant.
The Heroic: Mind is superficially reminiscent of Ihe epistemological
optimism of the early Chinese thinkers. Both forms of thinking revcal
unquestioning acceptance. The differences, however, are fundamental. .
First, the I'leroic Mind accepts existence witho~lt I(lIestion; the epistemologically optimistic mind, by contrast, accepts ideas and formulations. Second, the Hcroic Mind in Finley's analysi~ yields by thc Classical
Age, to what he calls thc "theoretical mind" ami thell the "rational
mind"; what wc may call the "metaphysical optimism" of Ilomer is replaced by the "epistemological pessimism" of I'lalo. No such radical evolution was to take place in China, whose thinkers wen~ to remain consistently satisfied with their cpistemological optimism, an optimism they
would dmracteristicitlly reassert ill thc eventual Confucian response to
Buddhism's nihilistic mctaphysics. This lack of changc, this satisfaction
with early, and .hence ancestral, cultural forms, is a theme to which I
retlll'n.
M eiaph)'sicaland Tecll1lologir:a1
Corrtdales
Although Plato's collcern with ideal forms, which is so radically unChinese in its metaphysical assumptions a/milt a separate, nonimmancllt
realm of pcrfection, is alien to the Homeric view of reality, one can
nevertheless note the way in which it dcrives from thc Homeric empha-.
sis on individual particulars, objects, and persons. When, for example,
Plato employs metaphors of the workshop in discussing such matters, it
19. John II. Finley, Jr., foiJl/rS//I/{r..of Grah "/1,ot/ght(SI:mford: Siallfoni Ulliversity
Press, I!JUG),3, '1,28. Similar obscrvations ahcIIII HCllner's style in the Oely...",may bc found
in "O.lysscns' Scar," the openillg chapl!~r of Jo:rid,Allcrh:u'h's Mi/llf"i,: '1"', IIrflr,.leIlialiol/oJ
1Ifl/lily iI/ We.II"." I.i/rmll/re (1"';III:elllll: I'rilleeloll Ulliversity 1'1'1"', 1!I!i3).
Earl)' CiTliliwliol/ ill Clailla .
'~
'""
~"--
~:::. ~-
~:;
.,.~
-"
.J:>.
:~:
:~
:~
~
~
~
~
~
\
~
~
~
~~~
--
-:::::- .;-
-
~
------
-"-.
-
----...
-"
-"
-".-.
Figure 2.10. Schematic drawing of the piece-mold casting assembly used to cast
a Middle Shang tripod: (1) core, (2) mold sections, (3) completcd bronze vessel.
From Wen Fong, ed., The GrealB1"O1luAge ofChilla: All Exhibitionfromlhe PeoPle's
Republic of China (New York: Metropolitan Museum an~ Knopf, 1980),72.
Drawing by Phyllis WanJ.
41
is the shocmakcr's inabilily lo makc individual and idcntical shocs cach
lime, his inabilily to match lhc idcal conccpLion of a shoc, Lhal conccl'lls
him. Bronze-working in classical Grcecc would havc manifcsLcd the samc
trouhliug variance; each wroughl ol~jecl-such as Achillcs' swordwould have ucenmadc singly and lhus differenlly by a SlIIilh, hammcriug
and heating it illlo an approximation of the ideal I(>nll. Chincse piccemold brom:c castil)g, by conlrasl, permilled no such individual varialiou,
The tedlllological proccss, involving ccramic molds placnl around a celllral core, guarantecd that whclllllohcn bronze was pou red into the space
bctweenlhe mold ami thc slightly parcd down or shrunkcn corc, the inilial chlYmodel would be duplicatcd virillally <~xaclly(Iigurc 2,lo).~IIThis
duplicalion of' models is analogous, inllw tcchnical rcallll, 10 the: clllulatioll of hcroes ami ancestors referrcd lo earlier, just as the Cn:ek tcchniques of smilhy uron7.e produclion arc analogous to (he Greck emphasis on the iudividual hero.
Givellthis conlexl, il is lilling lhallhe problcm of' variance, of thc I:,ilIIrc lo match all abslract ideal, did uot occllr 10 lhc carly Chillt~sc as a
m,~jor theorctical problem, as opposed t.oa pranical Olle, They assumed
lhat individuals werc identilied ami valued iu t(~I"IIIS
or Ihe hUlllall rolcs
they played wilhin the kinship group, "Therc is good governmcnt," said
Confucius, "wheu the hllher is a fathcr alld (he SOli a son" (Al/lIleclJ
12.11). They also assumed, with characleristic optimism, that people
were educable to the good and w<:rc capahle or perrol"llling those roles
adequalely; their cpistemological oplimism did uoL require thcm 10 dcfine oi' analyzc thosc roles, such as that of' rather and SOli,with the rigor
and prccisionthal a I'lalo, more pcssimistic aboul Ihc hUlllau capacity to
know and understand, would havc dcmanded.
'J'/w All.Hmw (if'l)m,//Ilt
The ccutral importance or dramalic perl"ormauces in the Athens of the
(ifth century 1\.C" acted in lhealrical compelitions hcl()\'e audiellces of
somc ()llrleen lhousand citizclls and challellgillg amllampoouiug some
of the most cherished valucs of the statc while lJeilig supported iu part
by public funds, needs no COllllllent herc; lhe absence of such an arlislic
and political form in Chiua is anolher featurc that separatcs Ihc two
cultures.
The auseuce of dramatic confrontation may also he discerned in othcr
areas of Chincse exprcssion. I have already nOled, f'or example, the lack
of narralivc tensiou in the piclorial represclltalions onlhe Eastern Chou
20, Fur a brier iUlrnd",:tiuu 10 pic('c-lI1uld casliu!: a",1 its acsthetic ,'ollsc'I"clin's s.",
Robert W, llagl.,y. "The Ik!:illllillgs or III<:tll"OlI7.CA!:e: The 1':rliwlI ClIlillre !'eriud," ill
71.. Grellt 11mll.. A/If 01'C"illll: All K~/,i"ililllllmllll"r l'rt",I.,',.1I"""Ii/ie II!Chillfl, c<l, Well FOllg
(New York: I\kll"Ol'lIli(;lll MIIS('1I1I1
al\(l Kllupr, J!ltloJ. 7"-7:1.
42
Ul
EartyCillilizalioll ill Ghilla
David N. Keightley
Jill vases (sce figure \!.2). III thc rcalm of expository prosc onc of the
striking differenccs between the writings of the early Chinesc philosophers and Plato is the particularism with which Plato incarnates his argumcnts, describing thc timc, thc place. and thc persons to givc dramatic
force to Socrates' convcrsations. COllfucius's sayings, by contrast, arc
usually divOI-ced from the emotional hudy-burly of debate with keenly
delineated individuals on particular historical occasions. Thel"e is liule
dramatic tension in carly Chillese philosophical texts comparable to the
"tense liveliness," thc "dialectical friction," of Plato's dialogues"l This
successful incarnation of the general in the particulal' charactcrizcs
Grcck art, philosophy, and conceptioqs of the immortals. III China, by
contrast, in art, philosophy, and rcligion thc individual is submergcd in
more general concerns.
This absence of dramatic tension ill both philosophy and art relates to
the Chinese concern with ritualizcd social hierarchy that we see emerging as eady as the oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang and that becomes fully developed in the classical ritual texts of the Eastern Chou
and I-Ian. The Chinese li were canons of status-based, role-rel,ltcd social
decorum, reciprocity, and ethical consideration that operated in the religious, social, and political sphcres; thcy implied by thcir vcry Iwture that
basic social questions had already been resolved in favor of a patriarchal
status quo. The ideals of social behavior were known: "Let the father bc
a father, the son a son"; the only point at issue-so well exemplilicd by
the early Han in the csoteric moral catechisms of the K1l1/g-yang(late
Chou) and Ku-liang (early Han?) commentaries to the SfJling a1/(lAutwnn
Annals, supposedly composed by Confucius-was
how to fit particulalcases to general rulcs.
, Such a socio-moral LaxonOl\lY.cvcntually articulatcd inthc doctrinc of
the "rcctification of tcrms" (cllI?IIg-lI!illg),is both impcrsonal and undl;amatic. Assuming that a familial-style commitmcntto shared valucs is
prcfcrable to a socicty of adversarial relationships, thc promoters of the
[i manifcsted a cast of mind that was unintcrested in logical argumcnt
designed to changc opinions; they prefened instead to appcal in setposition speech,cs to the authority of hallowed books and tradit.ions.
Art and Ancestor Worshi/}
Chinese aesthetic and even' philosophicalunintcrcst
in partiClIlar detail
may also be related to ancestor worship. As Fortcs notes, "Thc ancient
21. '111e phrases are Ihosc of Alvill W. Gouldllcr, EIII,'" 1'1,,111:
C/II,l.IiCII/(;"l'rU ,,"t/I"e
Origi.u of Soci,,/11le0l1(Ncw York: lIasi<:lIooks, 1965), 361, 385. t\VCIIill thc C""II"g 'I'll/.
A. C. Graham notcs thc rarily of "gcnuinc dcbatcs" in which "spokesmen or moral-
ism. . . and of worldlilless . , . arc aUowcdtheir say hcttll'c heinRddeatcd" (CIIIIIlIIg-lzu:
71.. Sel1P./!
[II"'" Chnl,lcr.. IIIlll OllwrWrili,,!:..ji'"", Ih. IllIfll, "C/lUl/"K-IUI"
Il.olldon: Allcn 3:
Unwin, '!l8, I. 231).
43
Greeks appcar to havc had elaboratc culls wnccrncd with bcliefs about
'ghosts and shadcs, but no truc ancestor cult." I-Ic cmphasizcs that "ancestor worship is a I'eprescntation or extension of the authority component in thc jural relatious of successivcgencrations; il is not a duplication, in a supel'llatural idiom, of thc total complcx" of kin or olhcr
relationships. Anccstor worship, in shorL, docs not simply involve belicf
in the dead; it involves bclief about the dcad, who arc conccived in a ccrtain way.22
Following this linc of thought, I propose that an inversc relationship
exists bctween an cmphasis 011hicrarchical roles of authority, whether
for thc living or thc dead, alld thc vagueness with which thc al'tcrlil'c is
conceivcd. The cultures that dcpictthe al'terworld, or evcllthis onc, with
some attcllti;)lll"o'specilic dctail may IIOt nccd. or may do sli preciscly
because thcy do not have, a well-delincd social hicrarchy or anccstral
cull. When the authority of the elders and ancestors functions well in
this world, thcrc is Icss nccd 1,0dcpict the cnvirons of the next. This suggestion-which
may bc relatcd to the earlier discussion of thc impersonality of the dead-would
also help explain thc wcll-known fact that.
although thcrc arc many mythic personages alluded to in ancient China;
thcre is lillic evidencc of a sustained, anccdotalmythology"" In this view
thcre would have been no necd in China for the precision of evcnt and
pcrsonality that we associatc with the art and mythology 01'Mcsopotamia'
and Greece; the "mythological issucs," as it wcrc, would have already
bcen resolvcd by thc invcntion of thc anccstors, who wcrc ancestors precisely because they were not comprchensivc or detailed rcprcsentatil)ns
of pel'sonality and social role. Thc Mcsopotamian and Grcek concern in
uoth religion and art with personality, socialrolc, and th<:chaos of' 1111structlll'ed, adversarial exislencc was rcplaccd in China, if' it had cver
bccn prcsent, by a gcncralized concern with harmonions order and design and with ingraincd and symbolic mcanings.
1I(lI'IIIIIIIY awl Mural
G/lCtltI';";.HI/.
Thc cmphasis on harmony in carly Chinese art, literary expression, and
philosophy-a
corollary to the ahscnce of nitical anel dramatic tension-may also bc related to the decp-seatcd moral and cpistemological
optimism amI confidence alrt:ady noted. This optimism and collfidencc
22. Mcycr Fortcs, "Somc Rcllct,tiunson AnccSlorWorship in Afrk:.," in AJiir.mrS)','/I'III.I
of 111OIIght,cd. M. FUrlcsand G. Dictcrlell (I.ondoll: Oxf d Univcrsity Prcss. 1!I(j!».
125, 133.
23, Dcrk 1I/IIldc. "Mylhs of Alldcnt Chill:'," in M)'I/w/"gic.l "I"'" AI/drill IVllrld. cd.
Samuel Noah Kramcr (Gardcn City, N.Y.: Donhlt,day And,,»', 19(;1), 3(in-7°; Hoddc .
notes th:'1 "thc Kods of ,"",;enl Chin;1 . . , appear vcry ran'ly 01' nOl aI all ill m'l, and :.re
commonly Iit'st'l'ihcd so vaKncly or hridly in the tcxlS Ih:'lllU'ir I",rson:.lily. '"111some,in","
evcn their sex. rcmaills IIncc...:.ill."
\
\
44
I
I
....
0'\
David N. Keightley
could only-and here I speak as a child of the Westcrn tradition-have
been achieved by glossing over, frequenlly by generalizing and classifying, those sharp, ,Iwkward, and frequently nonlwrmonious details that
caught the attcntion of the Grcck artist or philosopher.
One uf the characteristic and non-Chincse featurcs of thc Iliad, for
instance, is thatthc audicncc hears, and has its sympathies engaged by,
both sides of the story, within the walls of Troy as well as without. Similarly, ncither Creon in A1Itilionenor Oedipus in Sophuclcs' trilogy is prescntcd as an unsympathctic or unrcmittingly cvil figut.c. This ambiguity
about what and who is right lies at the essence of the tragic vision; uur
sympathies are not, should not, and cannot all be on one side.
Greek cpics derivc much of thcir complexity and dramatic tension
from the frank recognition that unresulvable conflicts cxist in the world,
that choices are frequently made not between good and evil but betwcen
two goods. By contrast, no early Chinese writings-with, as is so frequently
the casc, the possiblc exception of the Chuang-t,m-take a similarly detached and complex vicw of the human condition. There is no passage in
early Chinese literature analogous to Antigones' wrenching cry, "Ah
Creon, Creon, I Which of us can say what the gods hold wicked?"; the
epistemological optimists of China thought that they could say. Thc vanquished were simply categorized as "ingraincdly" immural ami their
point of view wa.s never presented as worthy of consideration, dramatically or historically. From the Boolt of DIJcWllr.IIl.s
(Shu ching) through
Mcnciu.sand bcyond, last rulcrs of dynastics wcre hy delinilion had and
those who overthrew them, whom we should unquestioningly trust, were
by definition good; there was no sense of a "loyal opposition" as even
con~eivable,let alone desirable or human. Therc are few Trojans in early
Chi:nese literaturc; gencrally, thcrc are only Achaeans, only---v.i.ctors.21
Rl~LlGION, LINEAGE, CITY, AND TRADl':
AncestorWorshiP:TheStrategicCustom
To the extent that it is possible to spcak of one strategic custom or institution in the mix
. of early China's cultural variables-stl'ategic because
.
2'1' Even in SSll-lIIa Ch'ien's detailed portray:.1 of Hsiang Yii-the great antagonist"f
Liu !'ang, who eventually founded the Han dynasty-there
was liule tragic about his defeat, which, if we lake the Grand Historian at his word, was elllirely jmtified: "It was hardly
surprising that the feudal lords revolted against hilll. He boasted and made a show of his
owu achievements. He was obstinate in his own opinious aud did not abide by established
ways. . . . 'It is Heaven: he declared, 'which has destroyed me. . . " Was he not indeed deluded'" (Watson, J/ecol'IlJ,t04). Eveti if Ssu-ma Ch'ien is being ironic here, he in no way
portrays Hsiang Yii with the kind of sympathetic and dramatic detail that Homer accords
Hector. Although Hsiang Yil's nawed characu:r brings destruction, the destruction is not
tmgic because his character is not presented as ,nlmirable.
Early Civilizalioll ill Chilla
45
of its pervasive ability to sanctify all other aspects of life and to legitimatc
and reinfurce the lineag<.:-it would seem to be ancestor worship alld its
socialand puliticalcorollarics involving hierarchy, ritual dcfcrence, ohe(lience, alld rccipmdty. At sOllIe point, pmhahly still inlhe Ncolithic, the
commcmoration of the dcad-a f'cature common I<>many carly cultures,
including thc Greek and Mcsopolatllian-pruhably
bccamc more orderly and articulated in China, taking on ..n idcological and jlll'idical
power of its own. Thc valucs of this ncw anccstor worship would havc
been intimately relatcd to, and could not havc been gcncratcd without,
the existence of strong lineagcs. Thc traditional Chinese ideal uf thc cxtended family in which several generatiuns were to live under onc roof is
only practicahle whcn family mcmbcrs arc traincd to value group harmony abovc pcrsonal independcncc. Indoctrination in the value of hsiao
(filiality or obediencc), whose roots can bc discemed in the sacrifices
made by the Shang kings, if not in thc offcrings placcd ill Ncolithic bu rials (scc figures 2.3 and 2.5), providcd just such a training and socialization. Forming part of a rich vocabulary or familial amI religious dependence and obligation in which evcn rulers would refcr to themselves as a
"small child," presumably stiIlllndcr thc cyc of thei.. dead parcnts, k\iao
was precisely nut thc kiml of lineagc virtuc Ihal would have hcell validatcd by the independcncc and unpredictability of the Mesopotamian
and Grcek gods and hcroes.
III addition to its impact on mortnary practices all(1 its validation of
filiality, anceslOr wmship had important dcmographic consc«(l,Icnccs. 'Ii>
thc cxtent that a cult of the ancestors requires thc procreation uf cultists
to continuc the sacrificcs, thc eschatulogy of death in early China cncouraged population gruwth in a significant way. This sanctification of
postcrity, and espccially of malc progcny, is a conslant thcmc in the
uronzc inscriptions of the WcstCrtI Chou, mallY of which end with a
praycr such as, "For a myriad ycars, may SOI,ISof sons, grandsons of
grandsons, long trcasure and use (this vessel)." The multiplication of
progeny rccllI'sas a thcmc inthc BookOfSO7l1f-\
(Shih citing)ami is givcn its
most articulate emphasis in Mcncius's famous dictum that nothing is
more unlilialthan to fail to pl'Oduce dcscendants. Thc suprcmc obligation to one's anccstors was to becomc an anccslOr oneself.
Thc cOllsidcrablc dcmands of the anccstral cult, visible in thc grave
. goods of both thc Neolithic alld the Bronze Agcs, also served to stimulate the production of material wealth. In social rather than economic
terms, however, the order being "revitalized" by Chinese mortuary cults
was the lineage, the power of senior kin over junior kin, and thc conscrvative and ascriptivc ties of affection, obligation, and eXploitation that
were stronger than life itself.
Belief in ancestors had additional consequences. Although there is no
doubt that thc Shang and Chou Chincsc worshipcd natun~ powers or
..
.------------------
46
Datlitl N, Keiglltley
spirits-rivers, mountains, alld fertility figures like Hou Chi (Prince Millet), the legendary Hncestor of the Chou-the argument thHtthese spirits
had originally been local deities, the ancestors of particular tribes, has
much to recommend it.2' Similarly, there is some evidence that Shang Ti,
the Lord on High, may have once been a progenitor of the' Shang \"Oyal
lineage, And it is clear that the Chou ruler came to regard himself as the
T'ien Tzu, "Son of Heaven," Even though the biological relationships
;H'e murky in many of these cases, the gencml conccption of man's relationship to the spirits of the universe was implicitly genealogical. Rulers
were thought to have a special, quasi-familial relationship to the supreme deity; man was the offspring of the spirits, ancestral and otherwise, Accordingly, there was no sense of H radical difference between
spirits and humans. The spiritual universe was unitary Hnd man's relationship to that universe relied less on personal observation and exploration and more on participation in the social groups that were the primary focus of religious feeling,
-..J
The Ancient Chinese City
Despite its ability to focus and accentuate cultural values, religion is not
an independent vHriable. Because religion operHtes within society ami is
a product of society, we cannot ignore the environment and the economic context that produced the Chinese form of lineage dominance,
The ancient Chinese city is instructive in this regard because it dif1el'ed
significantly from the city found in Mesopotamia or Classical Greece.
Nol only was it visually and aesthetically difI'erent, being bUIlt largely of
rammed earth, timber, thatch, Hnd tile rather than of stone, but its political.composition was diflerent too. Early Chinese cities may be regarded
as' politico-religious embodiments of lineage and dynastic power, centered on a palace-temple complex and existing primarily to serve the
ne~ds of the ruling elites whose aucestors were worshiped thel'c. These
seltlements were characterized by a regulated layout and unitary power
structure in which merchants and artisans, subordinate to the elite lineages, played a relatively minor political role.
In Mesopotamia, by contrast, the sprawling cities grew by ~ccretion
and housed large and diverse populations, Secular powel' and religious
power were clearly distinguished aud often in opposition; the palace was
confronted by countervailing sources of authority as.represented by thc
temple, the military, ptiyate wealth, and merchants. Lineages, in particular, do not seem to luive played the significaot political role they did
in Chinaj. the character of Mesopotamian urbanism appears to have "dissolved" the social and religious strength of the kinship units.
Ancient Chinese cities stand in even sharper contrast to those of Clas25. See David N, Keightley, "Akalsuka Kiyoshi and Ihe Culture of Early China: A
Sludy in Hislorical Melhod," Harvard )ollnlal of Asiatic Slrldies 42 (1982): 291-99.
Early Gilliliwtion
in China
47
sicaI Greece. Greek cities were characterized by their variety or changing
political limns, such as tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. their emphasis on overseas colouization and commerce aud the consequent exposure
to dIe challeuge or other (:ulturaltraditions, theil' reliance on "citizeus,"
who had both rights and duties in the state, thcil' cmcrgiug conceptiou or
equality before the law, their dependence on legal and economic slavelabol' and the corollary discovery of persolHII freedom. In Athens the
lack of any pel'lIHment o!IicialdoJII, the pn~ferell(:e for dil'cn citizcn participiltion in governmcnt-once
more the reliance 011"dirty hauds"rather than on representation and bureaucracy, is particularly notable.
The Eastel'll Chou analogues of the Greek citizens, the /!Ilo-jr.n,"people
of the state" (the statc being conceived primarily as the walled capital itsel!'), may have .~d ccrtain privileges, but they appear to have had no
separate corporate Or legal existence.
Notable also is the absence in China-so puzzling to Marxists inspired
by the Greek case-of the stasis, or social conflict, between "thc few" and
"the many" that was a characteristic feature of the Greck city states. The
rare urban upheavals recorded in the Tso chwm involved factional
struggles among the noble lineages and their supportersj they did not
involve class interests and were not fought over econOluic issucs,2o
This nonplumlistic Chinese urbanism helps 10 explain why the shirt
from kin-based to class-structured society that is associated with the rise
of states in general seems to have taken place Icsswmpletcly in traditional China, whcre the governmcnt at both the dynastic and hun:au-.
cratk level continued to bc marked hy its familialuaturc in terms of both
ideology and personnel. Despite Ihe remarkable commercial activity that
characterized many dties of post-Sung China-Marco
Polo, for example, was astonished by their size amI wcalth-merchanls
in China did
not achieve the kind of political, legal, and economic indcpcndence that
they did in the West. This is a distinction of fundamental importance
whosedeep and ancicnl roots are partly to be found in a politicalsysteJII
that gave kinship tics and their political extensiolls priority ovel' commercial and legal ones.
THE Ul:1'lMATE QUESTION
The ultimate question is, Why did early China develop in these partiClIlar ways? Why did its values and cultural style differ from those of the
ancient Near East or ancient Greece? Speculation is templing,
26. See, for example, the sl\'ll!mlcs illlhe slate of Wei ill 170 11.11.
(James l.e~~e, traIlS.,
Tht Chillt.lt CltlJsir.s,vol. 5, 'J1lt CIa'IIIIn'c", wilh llat ./so CIaUrI![Oxli)l"(l: Oxford University
Press, 18721,85(;-57): Ihe palace workcrs, or rclmivcly hi!:h slaWs Ilu:msdvcs, provided
Ihe manpowel', nlllthe mlltivalion, fill"Ihe n:vllil of the I(n::II olli.:crs. The;,'role is ill some
ways analogous IlIlhatllf Ihe assassin-retainers discussed earlier,
48
David
N. Kcightlcy
First, the great abundance of Neolithic sites in China suggests greater
population density than in Mesopotamia and Greece, even at this early
date. If this impression is confirmed by subsequent excavations and by
statistical analysis, we may conclude that Chiuese experience would have
been more "peopled" and that such "peopling" is congruent with a less
individualistic, more group-oriented social ethic.
Second, one can speculate that the Chinese environment, which encouraged such population growth, together with the population growth
itself, helped to set the basic mood of the culLure. II' one can reiaLc Ihe
trusting and self-conlident mood of the ancient Egyptians to the benevolence of the Nile valley, and the pessimism and anxiety of the ancient
. Mesopotamiansor
00
ancient Greeks to the comparative harshness and un-
certainty of their environment, then one may argue lIiat the comparatively favorable Neolithic climate in China would have encouraged a
characteristic optimism about the human condition. The agrarian nature of the civilization also suggests that the characteristic dependence
on superiors was related to the inability to move away from coercive
leaders once one's labor had been invested in clearing the land and
rendering it fertile.
Third, the non pluralistic nature of early Chinese culture is a trait of
great significance for which we should try to account. 1 have noted the
relatively undifferentiated character of the early cities. We may further
8loLethe lack of significant foreign invasions and the absence of any pluralistic national traditions; the challenging linguistic and cultural contrastthat the markedly different Sumerian and Akkadian traditions presented to the inhabita11lSof early Mesopotamia, for example, was simply
not; present for the early Chinese litc.-ati. Also, to the degree that the
tnl~ing activities of mcrchants and the value placed o.Qthem in Mesopotamia and Greece can be eXplained by their rclat1vely-;Csource-poor
hin~erlands, then private merchants wOllld have been less powerful in
China because they would have been less needed. In this case geography
may have played a role. Because the major rivers in north and central
China-the
Yellow, the Huai, and thc Yangtzc-now from west to east
rather than along a north-south axis, trade, to the extent that it followed
the river valleys, would have gcnerally been between regions in thc same
latitude whose crops and othcr natural products would have been similar; the distinctive ecogeographical zoncs in China are those of north
and south, not east and west.
In this view the market economy would not have had the strategic
value in China that it had in other parts of the world. A significanL proportion of Chinese trade in early historical times, in fact, seems to have
been tribute trade-reciprocal
or redistributive in character, political in
function, and dealing in high-cost, luxury itcms reserved for the clites,
who controlled the merchants by sumptuary regulations and by co-
~~~~~~-----------------
liarly Git,ilillllinll ill Ghill/L
'19
opting thcm as necessary into the administrative burcaucracy,27 The lack
of an inland sca like Lhc Mcditerranean, the absencc of rocky shores atl(1
good harbors along much of (hc north and ccntral China coast, the absencc of Jm~jortrading partucrs across the China Sea 10 provide cnll ural
as well as economic stimuli, atl(1 the prcscnce of deserls :nHlmonnlains
separaling north China frolll CenLral Asia, would have fnrther (~nCOllraged the noncommercial, agrarian bias of the early Chincst~ dly and
state and Ihe self-confidence of its isolalcd, indigcnolls culllln~,
Thcse considcrations, which arc hasically geographi\:, suggesl. thai char- .
actcristically Chinese formulaLions of propCrly and lcgal Malus would
have developed in a culturc where economic power was primarily agrarian powcr. Although there is 110early cvidcnce 10 sllpport Karl Willfogel's'view of an agronmnagcrial despotism I'llllning the staLc'sessel'.lial
water-control works, one can ncvcrtheless sce thaLwealth in the early
state would have dcpendcd less on control of lalJ(.l-'-there was probahly
a surplus-and
more on control of a labor force that could dcaI' that
land and make iL productivc. Social control-originally
mOLivated and
legitimatcd by religious and kinship tics-rather
than technological or
military control, would have been thc key to polilical success, Access to
lincage support, ancestral power, and divinalory reassunlllcc would
have bcen more important and more inheritable Ihan mere claims on
unpeopled, and Lhus unworkable, propcrly. The prohlelll, as revealed
by King Hui of Liang near thc slart of the MI!/II:ill.1
(I,A.:\) in a conversation that is purp°rlcd to havc occurrcd 1:;1.:1\!OII.C., was how 10 aUract
peoplc to scrve a rulcr and his slaLe: "I do noL find Ihat there is any
prince who cxerLs his mind as 1 do. And yet the pcople of the ncighboring kingdollls do not.dccrease, nor do my people incn:asc. Ilow is this?"
This problelll was olle of thc m,~ior conccrns of Ihc Eastcrn Chou 'philosophers. It is worth recalling that the kind of bronze-casting industr)'
that the Shang clites patronized ali<I that expressed both their military
and their religious power had dependcd on the abiliLyto mobilize lahor
on a largc industrial scale.2KThcse early paLterns of bchavim' and Icgitimation suhsequcntly made possible the larger waLer-colILrol pn~jecLsof
imperial times; it was not the projects Lhat created Ihe pattcms,
27. Thesc spcculations nccd to he treated with Gllltion 'cu' HI I.,asl two 1"(':I50ns.I'irsi.
lhe Inu(idonal COllfucian hias ag:linsl Inulc has lIIealll thai cOlluucrciat aClivity has nol
becn wcll recordcd io Ihc early tCXIS,Second, Ihe kiods 01"arcimcologiGl1 ledmi(lucs Ihal
would cn:lblc liS 10 "finller-print" the soun:es 01"POlS:mdj;ul.,s', f~JI'(:xalllpl\~, hav\~1101yel
been applied 10 Ihe Chilll~se cvidcllt:c. For hoih r.,a50IIS III(' ('ollllll('rdal role 01",,;u'ly rilks
ill China and thc kiuds 01"exchange nctworks thallinkcd Ihcm to oue anolher and to other
regions of China slill rell1ainlo be explored,
.
28. Ursnla Marl.ins Franklin, "The lIeginnin!(s of Melalhlr!(y in China: A COlllparali,'e
Approach," in 1'11,Grftl[ /lnmle Ag. a/Chilla: A SYIII!m.';IIIII,
cd. (;eorgc KIIW;,)'allla (!.os Angelcs: Los Angeles COllnly MnseulII 01"Arl, I!III;I), !H-!l!J'
- -- - - - - - - -
---
50
\
1..0
..-,
,.,
v
w w..'w.,
David N. Keightlcy
Early GilliliwlimJ in Chiull
Spcculations of this sort encourage us to seek for still earlier, more
"ccological," morc geopolitical, morc material cxplanations ror thc origins of Chincsc culture. They do not, however, satisl;IClOrilycxplain why
early Chincse culture took thc prccise forms that it did. That qucstion, in
fact, unless we narrow its scope, is unanswerable because cultures are to
a large extcnt self-producing, the products of a virtually infinite combination of interacting factors. Many of these factors are mental and
many of thcm are unidentifiable in the archaeological or early historical
record. To put the mallcr anothcr way, with thc cxccption of thc most
basic precultural factors, such as climate amI geogr;Iphy, which can only
provide the most general of answers, there is nothing but dependent
variables. It is truer to what we undcrstand of cultural dcveloPlllcntand truer, perhaps, to Chinese than to traditional Western approachcs
to explanation-to
think in terms of the gradual coevolution of many
factors rather than of a few prime movers.29
Because we cannot explain "cverything," universal laws of development with a specificity sufficienuo explain the genesis of Chinese, or any
other, culture must elude us. Nevertheless, we can, as I have attempted
to do, suggest some significant and charaderistic features of early Chinese culture whose interrelationships wcre strong and whose subsequcnt
infiuence on the civilization of imperial China was large.
3.
4.
5.
6.
CONCLUSION
What then do we mean by "Chinese" from thc Neolithic to the early imperial age in the I-Ian? Impressionistic though any allempt to define a
worldvicw or cultural style must bc, it may bc suggcstcd that "Chincse"
refcrrcd ill part to a culturaLtradition pcrmcatcd b-y_thcfollowing fcatures (listcd, on the basis of the above discussion, in lloorder of causal
pfiority):
I. Hicrarchical social distinctions-as revealed by opulent Late Neolithic burials (see figures 2.3 and 2.7), by thc high status of the
Bronze Age clitcs both in this life and in the next, and by the human sacrifices demanded, both in blood and in obligation, by those
clites.
2. Massivc
mobilization
..""'V""'-"'"
of labor-as
revealed
by the carly
Bronze
Age city walls, the royal Shang tombs (see figure 2.9), the industrial
29. On Ihe cO.'I'clalive or "organismic" Chinese view of Ihe world in which "concept;ons
are nol subsumcd uncleI' one anolher, bul placed side by side in a /'lIlIcl7I,and Ihings inlluence one anolher nol by acls of mechanical causalion, but by a kind of 'indtlcIJlnce,'" sce
Joseph Needham,with the researchassistanceof WangLing, ScieucelIuli Citlili'litioll ill
CM/Ia, vol. 2, Hislory of StiClllific 7'/wlIghl (Cambridge: Cambridge Universily Press. J956).
280-81.
7.
51
scale of Shang bronze-casting (see figurc 2.10), and thc largc-scale
public works, such as thc long walls and tombs of impcrial times.
An cmphasis on thc group rathcr than thc individual-cxprcssed
in thc impersonality and gcncrality or artislic and litcrary rcprcscntation (see figure 2.2) and gcnerated and validatcd by a religion
of ancestor worship that stressed the continuity of thc lineage and
defined the individual in terms of his role and status in the systcm
of sacrifice and dcscent.
All cmphasis on ritual in all dimcnsions of life-scen in Ncolithic
mortuary cults (sec ligures 2.5 and 2.7), ill thc cmphasis Oil ritual
practice rcvealcd by the oraclc-bone inscriptions of the Shang, and
in the classical cult trcatises of thc Eastern Chou and I-Ian.
An emphasis on formal boundaries and models-as rcvealed by
the constraints involved in rammcd-earth construclion, by thc use
of molds in Neolithic ceramic technology and in the brOIl7.Ctechnology that evolved from it (see figurc 2.10). by thc dictatorial design system of the bronze decor (sce figure II.g), by the use of models in both bronze technology and social philosophy, and by the
great strcss on social discipline and order in ethics allli cosmology.
An ethic of scrvicc, obligation, aud emulation-consider thc burials of accompaniers-in-death and human victims in Neolithic (scc
figure 2.8) and Shang times, the elevation (!f sagc cmperors and
culturc herocs who werc gencrally administrators rathcr than
actors, the motivations of Ssu-ma Ch'icn's assassin-rctaincrs, and
the obligations and unqucstioning confidencc Ihat thc princely,
man might cngendcr. The endurant,;c of this cthic is dramatically:
exprcsscd by thc army or somc scvcn Ihollsalld lil'c-sized tcrracolta soldicrs, buricd ca. 210 lI.e., proud and conli(_lenl.as Ih(:y ,1<:companied thc First Empcror or China in dealh(ligurc 2.1 I).
Lillie scnscof tragedy or irony-witncss
thc cvident bclief, wcll
devdoped CVCIIill the Ncolithic. in thc continuity of somc form or
life aftcr dcath. Witness, too, the gCllcral success and uncomplicated goodness of legcndary hcroes and the undcrslanding of humall action as ~traightl(>nvard in its consc«Iwnccs. Confucian optimism about thc human condition was Inainlaincd cvcn in thc li\Cc
of Confucius's own failure to obtain the political succcsses that hc
nceded to jnstify his missi(?n. The optimism, both moral and epistemological, WilSiI miltter of decp faith rather than of shallow
expcricm:e.
This list is by 110means exhauslivc, but I mil proposing that particular features such as thesc, combincd in Ihc ways I have descrihed,
help to dcfinc what we mean hy Chincsc IiII' Ihe early pcl'iod. It must hc
strcsscd
Ihat olher
scholars
cOllld well cmphasizc
difh:n:nl
kalllr('s
or
Early Civilizalion
IV
0
Figure 2.11. Part of the seven-dlOusand-man army of ten'a-cotta figures buried
with the First Emperor or China, ca. 210 D.C.From Ch'ill Shih HUllllg ling/ling-IIIII
'Yltllg(Pcking: Wcn-wu Ch'u-pan-shc, 1\111:1),
no. 7.
.
in China.
53
the culture-such
as the inllucnce or millct amI rice a!{riculture, the acceptance of n monistic cosmolo!-:y,(he inllilellce of a logographic wriling
systcm, thc natllrc or early historiowaphy, Ihc rolc or shamanism, and
Conrucian conceptions of benevolence and good goveJ'l\menL As I indicatcd at thc start, I do not foclls on the l~asteJ'l\ Chou philosophcrs not
only becausc they have already been studied cxtensively by Western
scholars~o but also becausc my main concerns arc "prephi1osophical"; I
allemptto I'elate legcnd, history, aesthctics, ;111<1
political practice to the
cultUl'e or the Neolithic-to-l3ronzc-Al{c transition. My analysis, accordingly, is neither dc!initive nor comprehcnsive; it docs not propose to explain "cvcrything."
Furthcrmore, in making cilltural comparisons, we shoilid gencrally
think il1tcnns of emphasis 01'nuancc, not ausolute distinctions. I do not
claim that the ancient Chincsc had no sense of individual heroism, that
no leader ever did things 1'01'himself, that death was not a sourcc of tcrror, that the early Chinese ignorcd details, 01'that merchants played no'
role. But if one imagincs a series or axes on which individualism, personal involveincnt, attention to detail, anguish at thc death of loved
ones, scrvice to the group, and so on could be plotted, one would lind
that thc Chincse rcsponses differed to a signilicant dcgree from those or
other scminal civilizations.
Finally-to rcturn to a caution raiscd at the starLo(' this chaptcr-l
would remark that the very nature of culLural cOlllparison, which involves moving ('rolll thc ('amiliaI' clI!lure to the Uli('arlliliar Olle, resllils ill
a rhetoric .that seems critical of the "target" culture, which is dcscrihed
as deficient in ccrtain features. But should such features have heen
presc~ll? Is what has been called Ihe Greek "'usl 10 allJlihilale" all raCtive?~' Are gods \vlm masquerade as SlVallS10 rape ,hdr viclims? I\re
sons who overthrow their rathel's? What we may regal'll as lhe goud ami
the bad features of any culture are inextricahly link~(1. 1\11great dvili- ,
zations have their costs as well as Iheir belldits. aJ\(1 it would be illstruclive-indecd,
iLis essential if full coltural ullderstilfldillg is to be
achieved-to rewrite this chapter rrollll.he Chinese point of view, stressing and sceking to cxplain all the features Lhat early Greek culture, for
exam pic, lacked. The most nOI.ablcof these would surely include the elllphasis tlniL lIJany early Chincse thinkcrs. placed on alLruism, benevoIcnce, social harllJony, and a concern with human relaLiuns rather than
abstJ'act principles.
.
The cultural traditions established in the Neolithic and the Brollze
3°. Thc 111051rccclil Wl1IprehClI5ivc sludy is lhal or Schwarl7., TIre
Alldelll Chilltl.
,
3 J. Eli S,lg;III, 11/r 1.1/.1//0 Allllilli/tl/.:
Cllltllre (New York: I'sychohislory
I'ress.
WoritlofT/wlIgllt
'.
A I,...\,rllltlmtl/'yl;r. SIllily o{Vil/lrller
I!I7!1).
ill Allcim/
ill
G",'r/,
54
N
.....
David N. Keiglztlcy
Ages of China were ancestrallo all that followed, continuing to exerl
their influence down to recent, if not contemporary, timcs. Il could be
argucd-as
thc discussion about the cxtensivc ramilications of :lIIccstor
worship has suggested-that
the Chinese were relatively slow to desacrilize their world. Ancient social practices tied to the lineage continued -to be attended with powerful religious qualities throughout imperial times. A major question-in
our own case as well as that of the
Chinese-is to what degree will the older, dceply seatcd traditions help
or hindcr the search for new solutions? Reccnt claims that "traditional
Chinese cultural values may be conducive to the economic life typical of
the modern epoch" suggest that the answer is by no means a forcgone
conclusion.3~ The combative individualism of the Wcst may yet pl'Ove
more costly than the harmonious social humanism of China. To address
a {Juestion such as this, surely. is one of the reasons we study history and
why it is ilnpoltant to understand thc past as clearly as we can. As Ssu-ma
Ch'ien \Y1'otesome two thousand years ago, "He who does not forget the
past is master of the prescnt." When wc considcr George Santayana's
more ncgative formulation that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it;" Ssu-ma Ch'ien was the more optimistic. But that
would havc been charactcristic. And how appropriate that his should
have been a confidence in the virtues of thc past.
32. John C. H. Fei, "The Succcss of Chinese Culturc as Economic Nutricnt.
China Review 36. no. 7 (July '986):43.
. . ,'. Free
~