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The Bellows Analogy in Laozi V and Warring States Macrobiotic Hygiene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Donald Harper
Donald Harper*
Affiliation:
Deptartment of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ 85721
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Abstract

The bamboo-slip medical manuscript entitled Yinshu (Pulling Book) from Zhangjiashan tomb 247, Hubei (burial dated ca. mid-second cen¬tury B.C.), includes a passage that uses the analogy of the bellows attested in received literature in Laozi V. In Yinshu the analogy is placed at the head of a macrobiotic technique. This article discusses the technique and argues that the bellows analogy most likely developed as part of the Warring States medical tradition of macrobiotic hygiene; that is, the bellows analogy in Laozi V was borrowed from medicine.

張家山247漢墓 (公元前二世紀中期墓葬) 出土的竹簡醫書《引書》有一段提到״天地猶棄籥״的比喩.傳世文獻中以棄籥爲喩首見於《老子》第五章.在《引書》中, 棄籥的比喩是置一養生術之前. 在本文中, 筆者探討了《引書》的養生方法,並且推斷以棄籥爲噙極可能源於戰國醫學的養生傳統而後爲《老子》所借用.

Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 20 , 1995 , pp. 381 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1995

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References

1. The second Zhangjiashan medical manuscript is entitled Maishu 脈書(Vessel book). Details concerning the discovery and contents of both manuscripts are discussed in my book Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (forthcoming in the Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series), Prolegomena, Section One (Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts), “Other Excavated Manuscripts Related to Medicine.” A simplified-graph transcription of Yinshu appears in zhenglizu, Zhangjiashan Han jian, “Zhangjiashan Han jian Yinshu shiwen” 張家山漢簡引書釋文, Wenwu 文 物 1990.10, 82–86Google Scholar; a simplified-graph transcription of Maishu appears in Jiangling Zhangjiashan Han jian zhengli xiaozu, ”Jiangling Zhangjiashan Han jian Maishu shi-wen” 江陵張家山漢簡脈書釋文, Wenwu 1989.7, 72–74Google Scholar. My transcription of passages from Yinshu and Maishu is based on these transcriptions, replacing the simplified graphs with standard full graphs. A photographic reproduction of the original Zhang-jiashan manuscripts has not yet been published. Photographic reproduction and a full-graph transcription of all Mawangdui medical manuscripts appear in Mawangdui Han mu boshu zhengli xiaozu, Mawangdui Han mu boshu 馬王堆漢墓帛書, vol. 4 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1985)Google Scholar. This book is the basis for my complete translation of the Mawangdui medical manuscripts in Early Chinese Medical Literature.

For a brief survey of the Mawangdui macrobiotic texts, see Harper, Donald, “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of the Second Century B.C. “ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47 (1987), 545–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have written at length on the nature of macrobiotic hygiene in the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui medical manuscripts in Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Four (Macrobiotic Hygiene).

2. “Yinshu shiwen,” 86.

3. The graph printed in “Yinshu shiwen” is 建 and is not identified. I hesitate to offer an opinion without having consulted the original manuscript. I only suspect that the graph in question is rfa達based on the forms of that graph recorded in Hanyu dazidian zixingzu, Qin Han Wei Jin zhuanli zixingbiao 秦漢魏晉家隸字形表(Chengdu: Sichuan cishu chubanshe, 1986), 113Google Scholar.

4. Most received editions of Laozi write yan 言 “speech.” Both Mawangdui editions write wen 聞 “hear,” i.e. “learning, erudition” (yanjiushi, Guojia wenwuju guwenxian, Mawangdui Han mu boshu, vol. 1 [Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1980, 115Google Scholar). The “Xiang'er” 想爾 commentary also writes wen (Zongyi, Rao 饒宗既 Laozi Xiang'erzhu jiaozheng 老子想爾注校證 [Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991], 8Google Scholar).

5. The “Xiang'er'” and “Heshang gong” 河上公 commentaries are indicative of Han period interpretation of the Laozi comment. According to the “Heshang gong” commentary, Daode zhenjing zhu 道德眞經註 (Daozang 道藏 ed., no. 682 in the Harvard-Yenching Index to the Taoist Canon, Daozang zimu yinde 道藏子目弓得 [Peking, 1936]), 1.5a: “(It) is not as good as guarding virtue on the inside, nurturing essence and spirit, caring for vapor, and being chary with speech.” And the “Xiang'er” commentary: “Having much knowledge of what is insubstantial and decorative, and not knowing to guard the way (dao 道)and perfect the body—when longevity reaches the end, exhaustion is automatic. … It is not as good as studying life and guarding the way of inner harmony” (Zongyi, Rao, Laozi Xiang'er zhu, 8Google Scholar). It is worth noting that in both commentaries yue 籥is understood to refer to a bamboo flute (which is paired with the bellows bag as a second “hollow” instrument) rather than to the tube of the bellows. See n. 10 below for uses of Laozi V and the term tuoyue “bellows bag and tube” in the later religious Daoist tradition of macrobiotic hygiene.

6. To be sure, the philosophy of the Laozi itself embraces macrobiotic hygiene, and the presence of cultivation techniques in certain paragraphs is manifest. My point is that Warring States macrobiotic hygiene did not arise from Laozi, and that the cen-trality of Laozi to Warring States macrobiotic hygiene is arguable. Several examples of Mawangdui techniques using metaphorical language are discussed in Harper, “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China.” See Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Four (Macrobiotic Hygiene), for a full discussion of the nature of this macrobiotic literature in comparison to the Laozi.

7. Suwen 素問(Sibu beiyao ed.), 61, 16.6b.

8. Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋 (Zhuzijkheng ed.), “Dechong fu” 德充符, 97. In Zhuang-zi “numinous cavity” is where the body's essence and spirit are lodged. I surmise that it designates the chest region; some commentaries identify it more narrowly with the heart. The same term occurs in Huainanzi 淮南子 (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), 2.25. Although fu is associated with the liufu 六腑 “six cavities” (including the intestines, stomach, and bladder), it is also applied broadly to various “spaces” inside the body (see Suwen 17, 5-1a-b, for a list of physiological fu which are not the liufu). It is not impossible that “numinous cavity” designates the heart in Zhuangzi (in physiological theory the heart is classified as a zang M “depot”), but probably because the heart is located in the chest. Xuan “dark” and ling “numinous” are both used in the metaphor for saliva in the Mawangdui macrobiotic texts, either xuanzun 玄尊 “dark winepot” or iingzun 靈尊 “numinous winepot” (see Harper, , “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China,” 550–51Google Scholar), which strengthens the plausibility of my xuanfu/lingfu equation for the Yinshu passage.

9. Miao 繆 connotes threads that “wind around” or are “wound together.” For Han examples of this meaning, see Xinshu 新書 (Sibu beiyao ed.), 4.8a (describing tears that envelop the body “like a winding cord” 繆維), and 6.7a.

10. My understanding of the technique and the metaphorical language is based on the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui macrobiotic texts. I should note that the bellows analogy in Laozi V was incorporated into religious Daoist macrobiotic theory and practice, and that the significance of the bellows bag and tube appears to represent a later application rather than a continuation of early macrobiotic hygiene as reflected in Yinshu. The Xuanjian daoyinfa 玄鑑導弓ί法, cited in Yunji cficjian 雲发七籤 (Daozang ed., no. 1026 in the Η arvard-Yenching Index to the Taoist Canon), 36.2a, refers gener-ically to Laozi V to establish a canonical basis for daoyin practices. Of greater interest is the Wuchengzi 務成子 commentary (Tang period) to the Huangting waijing jing 黄庭外景經 (ca. third century A.D.) line “Heaven seven, earth three; revolving they guard one another” (Yunji cjicjian, 12.40b): “Heaven seven, earth three is the bellows bag and tube — contract the nose, pull the earth vapor, and what lies above becomes rare. Thus they revolve and guard one another.” While not explicitly naming physiological correlates for the bellows bag and tube, the Wuchengzi commentary gives evidence of a nose-breathing technique to unite heaven and earth — a technique that the commentary links to the bellows bag and tube (which are the space between heaven and earth in Laozi V). Similarly, the Jindan wenda 金丹問答, in Yangsheng bilu 養生秘錄 (Daozang ed., no. 579 in the Harvard-Yenching Index to the Taoist Canon), 1.30a-b, glosses the compound tuoyue (including the two denotations of yue as “flute” and “bellows tube”), quotes the Laozi V bellows analogy, and then quotes from a work on breath cultivation in which the “function of the bellows bag and tube” is equated with breathing techniques to cultivate the vapor of heaven and earth. Yangsheng bilu, 1.10a, additionally indicates the existence of a physiological bellows bag and tube between the two kidneys (I am grateful to Dr. Catherine Despeiax for referring me to the Yangsheng bilu). I regard the lack of later attestation of bellows bag/abdomen and tube/anus correlations as a sign of their obsolescence, not as refutation of my identifications in the Yinshu passage.

11. “Maishu shiwen,” 74.

12. The same analogy occurs in Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), “Jin-shu” 盡數, 3.26. In Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Four (Macrobiotic Hygiene), “Philosophy and Macrobiotic Hygiene,” I argue that the “Jinshu” essay reflects the influence of medical literature on philosophical literature, and that the analogy is probably original to medical literature.

13. The text assigned the title “Shiwen” 十問 (Ten questions) states: “When blood and vapor ought to move yet do not move, this is called the calamity of blockage” (Ma-wangdui Han mu boshu, vol. 4, 149-50; in my translation in Early Chinese Medical Literature the sentence occurs in MSVI.A.8).

14. “Yinshu shiwen,” 85. The development of the concept of mai 'Vessels” in Warring States medicine and its importance in macrobiotic hygiene is discussed in Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Three (Medical Ideas and Practices), “Physiology.”

15. In “Shiwen” the question is asked: “What do people lose so that their facial complexion is coarse and dun, blackened and dark green? What do people obtain so that the skin's webbed pattern is smooth and lustrous, freshly white and glowing?” (Ma-wangdui Han mu boshu, vol. 4, 145Google Scholar; Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, MSVI.A.2).

16. “Yinshu shiwen,” 86.

17. For discussion of anal constriction in later macrobiotic hygiene, in particular in sexual cultivation, see Wile, Douglas, Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women's Solo Meditation Texts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 59Google Scholar.

18. Mawangdui Han mu boshu, vol. 4, 164Google Scholar; Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, MSVII.B.7.

19. I interpret the phrase “press it down” to mean that pressure is applied by means of anal constriction to force vapor to flow toward its destination inside the body. The “it” is, then, vapor.

20. Mawangdui Han mu boshu, vol. 4, 149Google Scholar; Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, MSVI.A7 (Appendix, no. 6).

21. This identification of bao is supported by Suwen 37, 10.10a; and 48, 13.8a. The same type of internal organ figures in religious Daoist hygiene. For additional discussion of my identification, with text references, see Early Chinese Medical Literature, MSVI.A.7. Reconstructions of Old Chinese are based on Li Fang-kuei's system as represented in Schuessler, Axel, A Dictionary of Early Zhou Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

22. Ling, Li and McMahon, Keith, “The Contents and Terminology of the Mawang-dui Texts on the Arts of the Bedchamber,” Early China 17 (1992), 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar, make the association between the “Shiwen” technique and later bunao. At present the earliest attestation of bunao is in the “Xiang7er” commentary (Zongyi, Rao, Laozi Xiang'er zhu, 11Google Scholar).

23. As a sidelight to the role of the anus in early Chinese macrobiotic hygiene I would note its importance in early Indian physiological theory and in Yoga. According to the five-fold classification of “bodily winds” in physiology, the wind apäna is located in the anus. Thus yogic breath cultivation exploits the anus (see Zysk, Kenneth, “The Science of Respiration and the Doctrine of the Bodily Winds in Ancient India,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 [1993], 207–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar). A brief account of physiological feats involving the anus and sphincter muscles in Yoga is given in Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, part 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 269Google Scholar. The uses of the anus in the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui macrobiotic texts do not appear to be related to Indian physiology or to Yoga.

The possibility of cross-fertilization between Indian and Chinese macrobiotic hy־ giene continues to excite many scholars who maintain an interest in these matters. I remain unconvinced by Victor Mair's evidence for “a close relationship between the Tao Te Ching and the Bhagavad Gïtâ,” and I find his arguments for the absorption of Indian Yoga into Daoism equally suspect (Mair, , Tao Te Ching [New York: Bantam Books, 1990], 140–48 and 155–60Google Scholar). To be sure, the first millennium B.c. saw the development in India of theories and practices related to respiration and macrobiotic techniques, all transmitted orally, and ideas did travel between the two civilizations. But now that the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui texts are documenting a Chinese macrobiotic literature — a written literature that probably began to circulate in the fourth Century B.c., although the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui texts are more likely to be third to early second century B.C. — comparisons of seemingly resonant Laozi passages to supposed antecedents in Indian tradition are insufficient evidence. If the physiological and macrobiotic ideas in the Chinese texts can be shown to have arisen in a Chinese context, which I believe is the case with the bellows analogy and much else in the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui macrobiotic texts, the argument for borrowing from India grows weaker; if cross-fertilization occurred, Indian ideas arrived in an intellectual climate already prepared for them.

24. “Yinshu shiwen,” 84. The association of Yin with the physical body and with the processes of physical decay accounts for the emphasis on cultivating Yin (one dénotation for which is genitals) in the Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui macrobiotic texts; see Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Four (Macrobiotic Hygiene), “Body and Spirit.”

25. Lesser abdomen (shaofu 少腹) designates the part of the abdomen below the navel.

26. “Yinshu shiwen,” 84.

27. It is clear from the Mawangdui macrobiotic texts that the metaphorical image of the body and its actual anatomy were fused in cultivation techniques, hence my conflation of the bellows technique in the third Yinshu text with the two exercises in the second Yinshu text is an accurate representation.

28. The question of the relationship between Warring States physicians and philosophers is examined in Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, Prolegomena, Section Two (Medicine, Medical Literature, Medical Men), “Recipes, Techniques, Calculations, Arts,” and “Readership and Transmission”; and Section Four (Macrobiotic Hygiene), “Intellectual Background” and “Philosophy and Macrobiotic Hygiene.”