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INTRODUCING THE *WU ZE YOU XING TU MANUSCRIPT FROM MAWANGDUI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2020

Luke Waring
Luke Waring*
Affiliation:
Luke Waring, 康路華, Stanford University; email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The *Wu ze you xing tu 物則有形圖 silk manuscript was discovered inside a lacquer case in Mawangdui Tomb 3. This little-known manuscript of unusual design contains a philosophical text on the relationships between things (wu 物), forms (xing 形), names (ming 名), and speech (yan 言), and the text is arranged on the surface of the silk in the form of a densely clustered spiral within a ring inside a square. The writing on the manuscript is also accompanied by colors and shapes that represent a domed Heaven (tian 天) above a square Earth (di 地). Since it was first catalogued in 2004, just a few studies of the *Wu ze you xing tu have been published in Chinese, and the manuscript is almost entirely absent from Western scholarship. This article aims to remedy this situation by providing a detailed description of the manuscript, transcriptions and translations of its contents, a consideration of its philosophical context, and an analysis of its design. In the process, I show that this silk document functioned not just as a convenient surface or carrier for an important philosophical text, but as a material artifact in its own right, one that was designed to have a powerful impact on its viewers, readers, and users, forcing them to move their eyes and bodies in ways that reinforced its central philosophical message.

提要

提要

《物則有形圖》出自馬王堆三號墓出土漆匣。這篇鮮為人知且設計奇異的帛圖，將討論物、形、名、言四者關係的哲學文本，自内而外地編排在一個密緻螺旋形—環形—方形圖式中。與帛書文字相伴的還有兩個上色的圖形，分別代表天圓、地方。自《物則有形圖》在2004年第一次公開亮相以來，除少數中文研究之外，西方學界對其研究尚處於空白階段。有鑒於此，本文試圖對這篇文獻的情況提供一個具體的描述，對其內容進行全文迻錄和翻譯，並探索其哲學互文性和視覺設計上的特點。考慮到這篇帛書在視覺設計上迫使其觀眾、讀者及使用者移動他們的視線和身體，以加強該文本所表達的核心哲學觀點，我主張應將《物則有形圖》視為具有獨特意涵的工藝品，而不僅僅是承載哲學文本的簡單材料和物質載體。

Keywords

Mawangduisilk manuscriptsvisualitycosmology馬王堆帛書視覺性宇宙論
Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 43 , September 2020 , pp. 123 - 160
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Copyright © The Society for the Study of Early China and Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

Part of the research for this article was presented at the 2019 meeting of the Society for the Study of Early China in Denver, Colorado. I would like to thank the participants who provided helpful feedback during that meeting, as well as the two anonymous readers for their comments and corrections. All remaining errors are my own.

References

1. The manuscript was apparently originally untitled, and the current designation was assigned by scholars on the basis of the four-character phrase wu ze you xing 物則有形 (“things have forms”) that appears in the text of the manuscript. See below for a discussion of possible alternative titles. The convention observed in this article of placing an asterisk before the title of excavated texts and manuscripts that were originally untitled, or whose title is otherwise unknown, has been adopted from Rudolf Pfister via Matthias Richter. See Richter, Matthias L., The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 20.

2. The term wu 物 also encompasses living things such as people and animals. Probably for this reason, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann has translated the title as “Beings and Things do Have a Form.” See Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Vera, “Mapless Mapping: Did the Maps of the Shan hai jing Ever Exist?,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, ed. Bray, Francesca, Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Vera, and Métailié, Georges (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 262Google Scholar. See also the translation “All Things Have Forms” in Cao, Feng, Daoism in Early China: Huang-Lao Thought in Light of Excavated Texts, trans. Serle, Callisto, Small, Sharon Y., and Keller, Jeffrey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 122CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The manuscript is also briefly mentioned (with its title left untranslated) in Ling, Li, “The Zidanku Silk Manuscripts,” in Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China: The Daybook Manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin, and Han, ed. Harper, Donald and Kalinowski, Marc (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 262Google Scholar, n. 48.

3. For overviews of the debates about the identity of the occupant of Tomb 3, see Fu Juyou 傅舉有, “Mawangdui Hanmu muzhuren shi shei—Mawangdui Hanmu muzhu yantao sishi nian huigu” 馬王堆漢墓墓主人是誰—馬王堆漢墓墓主研討四十年回顧, in Jinian Mawangdui Hanmu fajue sishi zhounian guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji 紀念馬王堆漢墓發掘四十週年國際學術研討會論文集, ed. Hunan sheng bowuguan (Changsha: Yuelu, 2016), 5–7, and Huang Zhanyue 黃展岳, “Ye tan Mawangdui san hao mu muzhu shi shei” 也談馬王堆三號墓墓主是誰, 8–10 in the same volume. The discovery of a damaged seal that appears to bear the graphs Li and Xi would seem to confirm Li Xi as the tomb occupant. See Chen Songchang 陳松長, “Mawangdui san hao muzhu de zai renshi” 馬王堆三號墓主的再認識, Wenwu 2003.8, 56–59, 66. For Li Xi’s dates, see Shi ji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959) 19.978 and Han shu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 16.618.

4. Scientific analysis of the bones in Tomb 3 places the tomb occupant at thirty to forty years of age. See Hunan sheng bowuguan and Hunan sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, eds., Changsha Mawangdui er, san hao Hanmu: di yi juan, tianye kaogu fajue baogao 長沙馬王堆二, 三號漢墓: 第一卷, 田野考古發掘報告 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2004), 265–67 (hereafter cited as Baogao).

5. For descriptions of the lacquer case and its contents, see Baogao, 87–88, 155; Chen Songchang, Boshu shihua 帛書史話 (Beijing: Zhongguo dabaike quanshu, 2012), 95; and Hunan sheng bowuguan and Fudan daxue chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu zhongxin, eds., Changsha Mawangdui Hanmu jianbo jicheng 長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成, vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2014), 3 (hereafter cited as Jicheng). This cache did not include the tomb inventory (qiance 遣冊) manuscript made from bamboo and wood that was found separately in the northern end of the western compartment of the outer coffin.

6. See Baogao, 90, where, unlike most of the other manuscripts from Mawangdui, the *Wu ze you xing tu is not assigned to one of the six bibliographic categories from the “Yiwen zhi” 藝文志 (Treatise on Arts and Literature) chapter of the Hanshu, but is listed in the “other” (qita 其他) category.

7. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 馬王堆帛書「物則有形」圖初探, Wenwu 2006.6, 82–87, 98. This essay was later reprinted in Chen’s Jianbo yanjiu wengao 簡帛研究文稿 (Beijing: Xianzhuang, 2008), 349–60.

8. Cao Feng 曹鋒, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie” 馬王堆「物則有形」圓圈內文字新解, in Guwenzixue lungao 古文字學論稿, ed. Zhang Guangyu 張光裕 and Huang Dekuan 黃德寬 (Hefei: Anhui daxue, 2008), 421–28. This essay was also published online at www.guoxue.com/magzine/xuedeng/xd008/xd008_10.htm, as part of the 2008 issue of Xuedeng 學燈 (accessed on April 2, 2020). A revised version was subsequently printed under the title “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie”《馬王堆帛書 「物則有形」圖試解》, in Cao’s Chudi chutu wenxian yu Xian-Qin sixiang yanjiu 楚地出土文獻與先秦思想研究 (Taipei: Taiwan shufang, 2010), 32–45. This version was later republished under the same title in Cao’s Jinnian chutu Huang-Lao sixiang wenxian yanjiu 近年出土黄老思想文獻研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue, 2015), 442–54.

9. Dong Shan 董珊, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo” 馬王堆帛書「物則有形」圖與道家應物學說, Wenshi 2012.2, 31–40.

10. Huang Ru-xuan 黃儒宣, ‘Rishu’ tuxiang yanjiu「日書」圖像研究 (Shanghai: Zhongxi, 2013), 101–2.

11. See Jicheng, vol. 1, 167–70 for the color photographs and vol. 4, 217–21 for Dong Shan’s introduction and annotated transcriptions. Dong’s introduction is based on his 2012 article cited above. Jicheng, vol. 4, 217 reproduces the drawing as originally published in Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 40.

12. As we will see, it is important to observe a distinction between text and manuscript in order to grasp the various ways in which documents like the *Wu ze you xing tu articulated and transmitted powerful messages using non- or extra-linguistic visual strategies.

13. Cosmology is a broad term that has been used in different ways, and precise definitions vary. For a recent definition of cosmology as “the study of the ordering principles of the universe, whether in regard to space, time, matter, energy, karma, cyclic rebirth, or otherwise,” see Eric Huntington, Creating the Universe: Depictions of the Cosmos in Himalayan Buddhism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), 9. See also the definition of cosmos as “the world or universe as an ordered and harmonious system” in the Oxford English Dictionary at “cosmos, n.1,” OED Online. March 2020. Oxford University Press.

14. We cannot be sure when the manuscript was manufactured, nor when the text on it was originally formulated, with 168 b.c.e. (the date when Li Xi was buried) serving as the only terminus ante quem. Many of the Mawangdui silk texts were evidently copied during the Qin 秦 dynasty (221–206 b.c.e.) judging by their script style and the observance (or lack thereof) of taboos. However, given the calligraphic style of the writing on the manuscript (see below), the text was likely copied in the early Western Han.

15. Measurements given in different publications vary slightly. These figures are taken from Jicheng, vol. 1, 3. Compare the measurements given in Baogao, 155 (59 cm in length, 37.5 cm in width, and 21 cm in height) and Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul, 1998), 15 (60 cm in length, 30 cm in width, 20 cm in height).

16. See Baogao, 156 for a black and white drawing of the case and its compartments, and plate 77 for a black and white photograph. A color photograph of the case appears at Noble Tombs at Mawangdui: Art and Life of the Changsha Kingdom, Third Century BCE to First Century CE 馬王堆漢墓: 古長沙國的藝術和生活 (Changsha: Yuelu, 2008), 87, a bilingual exhibition volume published by the Hunan Provincial Museum.

17. The juan 絹 silk used for the Mawangdui manuscripts was manufactured by weaving thin strands of silk together tightly in a plain (pingwen 平紋) or tabby formation, its lightness and durability making it particularly suitable for use as a writing surface. See Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu de chaoben tezheng” 馬王堆帛書的抄本特徵, Hunan daxue xuebao 21.5 (2007), 21–22 and Chen Songchang, Boshu shihua, 5. See also Zhang Xiancheng 張顯成, Jianbo wenxianxue tonglun 簡帛文獻學通論 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 109–10.

18. This muddy stack of manuscripts measured roughly 22 cm long, 16 cm wide, and 8 cm thick. See Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘kongbai ye’ ji xiangguan wenti” 馬王堆帛書“空白頁”及相關問題, Wenwu 2008.5, 75.

19. Dong Shan follows this reconstruction in both his 2012 essay and his contribution to the 2014 publication of the Mawangdui manuscripts cited above.

20. Chen Jian 陳劍, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu” 馬王堆帛書‘印文,’ 空白頁和襯頁及折疊情況綜述, in Jinian Mawangdui Hanmu fajue sishi zhounian guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji, ed. Hunan sheng bowuguan, 303 improves upon the previous estimate of the manuscript’s dimensions of 24 cm by 20 cm offered by Chen Songchang and followed by Dong Shan.

21. See Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 31–32. According to the reconstruction of the two silk manuscripts that carry the *Wushi’er bingfang text completed first by Kosoto Hiroshi 小曾戶等, Hasebe Eiichi 長谷部英一, and Machi Senjuro 町泉壽郎, and later confirmed by Hirose Kunio 廣瀨薰雄, the two manuscripts were placed back to back with the writing on each manuscript facing outwards. Then, the first silk manuscript, which was facing upwards, was folded in on itself by folding the second silk manuscript, which was underneath and facing downwards, upwards along the horizontal access. The manuscript was then folded concertina (jingzhezhuang de xingshi 經折裝的形式) or so-called “accordion style.” See Kosoto Hiroshi, Hasebe Eiichi, and Machi Senjuro, Gojūni byōhō 五十二病方 (Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 2007), iii–x; Hirose Kunio, “‘Wushi’er bingfang’ de chongxin zhengli yu yanjiu” 《五十二病方》的重新整理與研究, Wenshi 2012.2, 44; Jicheng, vol. 5, 213–14; and Chen Jian’s comments cited in Jicheng, vol. 4, 217–18. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 31 notes that some of the imprints on the left-hand side of the top half of the manuscript allow us to supply graphs for the missing text on the left-hand side of the bottom half of the silk. Dong further notes that while there are also imprints on the right-hand side of the top half of the manuscript, these are less helpful for reconstructing missing portions of text since the right-hand sections of the bottom half of the silk remain relatively intact.

22. See Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 303.

23. See Jicheng, vol. 5, 217 and Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 285–87, 303–4.

24. Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 304.

25. The writing on each of the *Wushi’er bingfang manuscripts was done in two registers. The first register consisted of columns of text extending vertically from the top edge of the manuscript to the mid-section of the silk. These vertical columns were arranged side by side so that the writing filled up the entire top half of the silk. The second register consisted of columns of text arranged in mirror image to the first register. Thus, whichever register of text was being read, the manuscripts would have needed to be oriented such that the columns in the register in question could be read vertically from top to bottom, not from right to left.

26. Indeed, Chen notes that most of the half-width (banfu 半幅) silk manuscripts from Mawangdui (i.e., those with a width of ca. 24 cm) were folded from left to right rather than from top to bottom. However, the orientation of the writing that appears in a vertical column parallel to the right edge of the manuscript as currently oriented follows the vertical warp thread of the silk, which is consistent with the way writing was done on most of the half-width manuscripts from Mawangdui. See Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 304.

27. For a similar observation with regard to the famous Warring States Chu silk manuscript, see Li, “The Zidanku Silk Manuscripts,” 261.

28. Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 315 offers a reconstruction of the sequence in which some of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts were placed inside the case based on imprints, concluding that there was apparently no thematic or generic connection between adjacent manuscripts in the stack. However, as the reports provided by some of those who carried out this work make clear, the lack of a systematic, properly documented procedure for removing silk leaves from the muddy manuscript stack has forever closed off the possibility of accurately reconstructing the sequence in which the manuscripts were placed inside the case. For interviews with some of the people involved, see Hunan sheng bowuguan, ed., Mawangdui Hanmu fajue yu wenwu zhengli baohu qinlizhe fangtan lu 馬王堆漢墓發掘與文物整理保護親歷者訪談錄 (Changsha: Hunan renmin, 2014). I would like to thank one of the anonymous readers of this article for bringing this volume to my attention.

29. Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 302, 305.

30. There is a small red ink spot located at the top of the manuscript outside the line used to form the red square that encompasses the first two layers of text. Though it is impossible to exclude definitively the possibility that this mark originally formed part of the manuscript’s design, it seems more likely that the spot was produced by ink dripping from the brush used to draw the red square.

31. All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. However, my translations of the contents of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript have benefitted greatly from the suggestions made by the two anonymous readers of this article. The translations of the second and third layers of text on the manuscript reflect the text as it is currently orientated in the official publications (see above).

32. Characters in parentheses are used to note the word the preceding graph is being used to write. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 82–83, contends that the graph gan 淦 is being used to write gan 榦 (tree trunk), which he believes is an abbreviated form of the term henggan 恆榦 (the eternal trunk), a binome that appears in some of the texts on the *Laozi B 老子乙本 manuscript from Mawangdui. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 423–24 offers an alternative interpretation of the word written by this graph as yin 陰 (shade or darkness). Cheng Shaoxuan 程少軒 also follows this reading; see the citation at Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 32, n. 4. More recently Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 32–33, has argued convincingly on phonological and intertextual grounds that the graph in fact writes gan 感 (to stimulate, move, or rouse). Dong points out that the graphic components 金 (as it appears in 淦) and 咸 (as it appears in 感) were phonetically close, with the hexagram equivalent to 咸 in the transmitted version of the Zhou Yi 周易 (Book of Changes) written as 欽 in the Mawangdui version of that text, and the binome 咸池 twice written as 淦池 on the *Yinyang wuxing A 陰陽五行甲 (Yin and Yang and the Five Phases, manuscript A) from Mawangdui. William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart offer Old Chinese reconstructions for 金 *k(r)[əə]m and 咸 *[g]ʕr[əə]m in Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction, version 1.1 (2014) available at http://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/BaxterSagartOCbyMandarinMC2014-09-20.pdf (accessed on March 24, 2020).

33. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 423 argues that this graph, left untranscribed by Chen Songchang, is xu 虛 (emptiness) based on graphic resemblance and the connection between xu and yin (see n. 32 above). However, Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 33, identifies the graph as shei 誰, which he argues is being used to write tui 推 (to push), consistent with usage in some of the other Mawangdui manuscripts.

34. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 83, reads li 李 as writing li 理 (pattern, order, principle), citing an instance of similar usage in the *Jiu zhu 九主 text from Mawangdui (see below). Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 423–24, agrees with Chen’s reading and cites further examples of such usage among the Mawangdui manuscripts. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 33, provides yet more examples and glosses the graph’s meaning in this context as equivalent to daoli 道理 (principle).

35. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 34, acknowledges that the graphs bu 不 and shei 誰 in the second sentence of this passage are rather hard to decipher. However, the visible components of these twographs appear to match the forms used to write them elsewhere on the manuscript.

36. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 34, associates this use of ganzhi 感至 with the phrase gan hu zhi 感忽至 as it appears in the “Jingcheng” 精城 (Pure Sincerity) chapter of the Wenzi 文子 (Wang Liqi 王利器, Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義 [Beijing: Zhonghua, 2000], 98) and the “Miucheng” 繆稱 (Erroneous Designations) chapter of the Huainanzi 淮南子 (He Ning 何寧, Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋 [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1998], 713). For the problems involved in interpreting this latter chapter title, see n. 60 below.

37. The meaning of this section is rather unclear. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 83, citing the glosses of the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字, asserts that ru 入 (lit. “to enter”) is functionally equivalent to nei 內 (lit. “inside,” “internal”), which he contrasts with the graph wai 外 (lit. “outside,” “external”) that appears later in the passage. Citing the “Tianxia” 天下 (All Under Heaven) chapter of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (“That which is so ultimately large as to have nothing outside it is called the great unity; that which is so ultimately small as to have nothing inside it is called the small unity” 至大無外, 謂之大一; 至小無內, 謂之小一) (Wang Xianqian 王先謙 and Liu Wu 劉武, Zhuangzi jijie, Zhuangzi jijie neipian buzheng 莊子集解 莊子集解內篇補正 [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987], 296), Chen interprets this passage to mean that if one’s responses are harmoniously matched when stimulated there will be no “inside,” and if one investigates, understands, but ultimately forgets external forms (see below) there will be no “outside.” However, Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie,” 37, states that Chen’s argument about ru being equivalent to nei in opposition to wai is illogical. Instead, Cao cites a passage from the first “Xinshu” 心術 (Techniques of the Mind) chapter of the Guanzi 管子 to support his argument that the passage explains the workings of yin; that is, one should always react harmoniously rather than acting assertively or proactively. Cao thus understands ru here to mean something like “forced entry.” Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 34 agrees with Cao that ru is not functionally equivalent to nei. However, Dong understands this passage about ru and wai to mean that when the heart responds harmoniously to what rouses it, what enters from outside does not continue to dwell in the heart. In other words, Dong argues (citing a passage from the “Miucheng” chapter of the Huainanzi [Huainanzi jishi, 10.721]), the heart is made complete or satisfied by itself and not as a result from interaction with external things.

38. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 83, states that cai 蔡 is a “mistranscription” (exie 訛寫) of cha 察, citing a similar instance in the *Shiwen 十問 (Ten Questions) medical text from Mawangdui.

39. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 83, acknowledges that the graph jie 解 sometimes appears as a variant for xie 懈 (in the sense of xiedai 懈怠, “lazy”), and that such usage is observed elsewhere in the Mawangdui manuscripts. However, Chen argues that the binome chajie 察解 should be understood here in its basic sense of “inspect and analyze” (jicha fenxi 稽察分析).

40. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie,” 37–38, acknowledges that the meaning of this passage is somewhat unclear, but observes that there are many statements in the transmitted literature about the need to “forget” (wang 忘) external (wai 外) things or preoccupations. Certainly, Cao contends, the object of the forgetting in this passage is that which is external. Cao cites examples from the “Daoying” 道應 (Responses of the Way) chapter of the Huainanzi, which talks about “obtaining the refined essence and forgetting the crude dross, examining what is internal and forgetting what is external” (得其精而忘其粗, 在其內而忘其外) (Huainanzi jishi, 862), and the “Waiwu” 外物 (External Things) chapter of the Zhuangzi, which famously talks about the need to forget words (yan 言) once the sense (yi 意) has been obtained (de 得), just as men focus on the fish and the hares rather than the traps and snares used to catch them (Zhuangzi jijie, 244). Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 34, understands this section to mean that we should examine and understand the external things that stimulate our heart, and then forget them. In this way, according to Dong’s reading of the passage, there will be no external thing that we cannot properly understand. Though words and names are not actually listed as one of these “externals,” it is likely, given the other layers of text on the manuscript (see below), that they were one of the intended referents. Indeed, this theme is treated elsewhere in the Mawangdui corpus: the Shiliu jing 十六經 (Sixteen Canons) text on the *Laozi B manuscript, for example, addresses the need to “examine names and investigate forms” (shen ming cha xing 審名察形); see Jicheng, vol. 4, 172.

41. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 82, supplies xing 行 for this missing graph, an argument refuted by Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 424, who claims that it is in fact xu 虛 (see n. 33 above). Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 35, and Jicheng, vol. 4, 220–21, however, note that the first graph in this four-character phrase is almost certainly bu 不, since this sequence of graphs appears also in the manuscript’s central spiral of text.

42. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 424, notes that there appears to be a second graph accompanying ying 𤻮, and that this graph has a different orientation. While Cao thinks it strange that Chen Songchang makes no mention of this additional graph, Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie,” 38–39, mentions that, after consulting with Chen, they have concluded that this additional graph is in fact an imprint.

43. One of the anonymous readers of this article even suggests that this phrase would be a more fitting title for the manuscript than its current designation, four characters that seem to have been selected more or less at random from the text. Thereadability of the four-character phrase (with the first character likely intended to appear either in the Northern or Eastern cardinal positions) could be used to support either the published orientation of the manuscript or an orientation achieved by rotating the manuscript ninety degrees counterclockwise (see above).

44. Many of the texts discussed below are examined in Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan”; Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie”; Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tushijie”; and Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo.”

45. Zhuangzi jijie, 133. The same phrase (gan er hou ying 感而後應) appears in the first “Xinshu” chapter of the Guanzi. See Li Xiangfeng 黎翔鳳, Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 776.

46. Huainanzi jishi, 64–65.

47. Huainanzi jishi, 522–23.

48. Wenzi shuyi, 368. Though the transmitted Wenzi likely postdates the Han, recent archaeological finds show that at least some of its contents were known already in late Western Han. For a recent study of both the excavated and transmitted versions of the text, see Paul van Els, The Wenzi: Creativity and Intertextuality in Early Chinese Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2018).

49. The “Cheng” 稱 (“Declarations”) text on the *Laozi B manuscript from Mawangdui, for example, states that “the dao is without beginnings, but has responses” 道無始而有應. See Jicheng, vol. 4, 127.

50. The text in this portion of the manuscript features black dots in-between certain characters, which are used to divide the text into clauses. The dots are represented in my transcription by a full stop in bold (“.”).

51. Context tells us that this missing graph should be wei 為. Characters and dots in square brackets are used to note which characters or dots were likely written on the missing or damaged portions of silk, indicated by a □ symbol in the case of missing characters.

52. Lou Yulie 樓宇烈, Laozi daodejing zhu jiaoshi 老子道德經注校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2008), 6.

53. Laozi daodejing zhu jiaoshi, 120.

54. Laozi daodejing zhu jiaoshi, 147.

55. Laozi daodejing zhu jiaoshi, 181–82.

56. Zhuangzi jijie, 195.

57. Zhuangzi jijie, 246.

58. Guanzi jiaozhu, 771.

59. Guanzi jiaozhu, 783.

60. The precise meaning of this chapter title is unclear. For a discussion of the various interpretations of this title, and a rendering of it as mou cheng (“Profound Precepts”), see John S. Major, Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth, trans. and eds., The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 342–43.

61. Huainanzi jishi, 718.

62. Again, the *Laozi B manuscript furnishes us with more examples. The Shiliu jing, for example, expresses a concern for the proper relationship between speech (yan) and action (xing) (Jicheng, vol. 4, 169–70), while the Jingfa 經法 (Constancy of Laws) warns that speech (yan) that does harm (hai 害) is untrustworthy (bu xin 不信) (Jicheng, vol. 4, 127). Surely the most famous articulation of the idea that language (whether spoken or written) might not transmit ideas fully is to be found in the Xici 繫辭 (Appended Phrases) commentary to the Zhou Yi, which quotes Kongzi 孔子 as saying that “Writing does not exhaust [the meaning that resides in] words, and words do not exhaust [the meaning that resides in] thoughts. This being so, is it the case that the thoughts of the sages cannot be perceived?” The Master [i.e., Kongzi] said, “Sages set up figures (xiang 象) in order to exhaust thoughts and established the hexagrams (gua 卦) in order to capture exhaustively the real circumstances and the false” 書不盡言, 言不盡意. 然則聖人之意, 其不可見乎.」子曰:「聖人立象以盡意, 設卦以盡情偽. See Li Daoping 李道平, Zhouyi jijie zuanshu 周易集結纂疏 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 609.

63. In this section of the manuscript, single horizontal black marks (represented in my transcription by a hyphen [“-”]) are used to mark divisions within the text. Two horizontal lines arranged one over the other are also used in this portion of text to indicate that the last graph in the previous clause is to be repeated as the first graph in the following clause, which is left unwritten. Thus, 物則有言=則可言 is equivalent to 物則有言, 言則可言. In my transcription I have rendered these reduplication marks using ‘equals’ signs (“=”).

64. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 31 notes that we can supply zi 自 as the last missing graph before the reduplication mark in this line based on the imprint of this passage made in the top left-hand corner of the manuscript.

65. Though its precise meaning in this passage is unclear, Chen Jian notes that the term fen 分 (division, separation, allotment) appears numerous times in the Zhuangzi. See Chen Jian’s personal communication to Dong Shan cited at Jicheng, vol. 4, 220, n. 2 (the second note for the last register of text). One of the reviewers of this article suggests that the occurrence of fen 分 in the same passage as ming 名 could have something to do with the allotment (fen) of titles (ming). Unfortunately, the manuscript is too damaged here for us to speculate further.

66. Jicheng, vol. 4, 127.

67. Jicheng, vol. 4, 147.

68. Jicheng, vol. 4, 141. Hirose Kunio notes that, judging by the context, the first bu 不 in this passage seems to be a copyist’s error. See Jicheng, vol. 4, 142, n. 31 for Hirose’s comments.

69. Jicheng, vol. 4, 175.

70. “Material existence emerges from space; life emerges from material existence; sounds emerge from life; speech emerges from sounds; names emerge from speech, endeavors emerge from names” 有出於域,生出於有,音出於生,言出於音,名出於言, 事出於名. Translation taken from Erica F. Brindley, Paul R. Goldin, and Esther S. Klein, “A Philosophical Translation of the Heng Xian,” Dao 12.2 (2013), 148. For a detailed discussion of all the possible ways of understanding the manuscript’s title, see 146, n.2 in that article.

71. Guanzi jiaozhu, 764, 771.

72. Guanzi jiaozhu, 776.

73. Guanzi jiaozhu, 778–79.

74. Guanzi jiaozhu, 789.

75. To say that things innately have forms, names, and ways of speaking about them is not, however, necessarily to say that these attributes are fixed and unchanging. Indeed, Jane Geaney has argued that early Chinese thinkers thought of names not as individual units that gained meaning from their relation to other units in a closed, abstract system of “language,” but rather as entities that gained their meaning in relation to extralinguistic phenomena in a world susceptible to change. See Geaney, Language as Bodily Practice in Early China: A Chinese Grammatology (Albany: SUNY Press, 2018), 56–62.

76. For a recent overview of the early Chinese philosophical topos that posits an incongruity between names and their referents (shi 實 or xing 形), see Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Hans-Rudolf Kantor, and Hans-Georg Moeller, “Incongruent Names: A Theme in the History of Chinese Philosophy,” Dao 17.3 (2018), 305–30. See also Jane Geaney, On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002); Geaney, “Grounding ‘Language’ in the Senses: What the Eyes and Ears Reveal About Ming 名 (Names) in Early Chinese Texts,” Philosophy East and West 60.2 (2010), 251–93; and Geaney, Language as Bodily Practice in Early China.

77. Though the term ganying does not appear in the Huainanzi itself, the idea that a ruler must emulate a sage’s ability to respond naturally and harmoniously to external stimuli is frequently raised throughout the text. See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 210. I thank one of the anonymous readers of this article for underscoring the relationship between these two texts.

78. Wolfgang Behr, “Placed into the Right Position—Etymological Notes on Tú 圖 and Congeners,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China, ed. Bray et al., 109–34, provides an overview of the shifting meanings of the term tu in early China from the Western Zhou 西周 (c. 1046–771 b.c.e.) onwards. In Warring States and Han times, the term tu could also refer to maps.

79. See Francesca Bray, “Introduction: The Powers of Tu,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China, ed. Bray et al., 2. See also 6–13 in that piece for a handy overview of the state of the field of studies related to tu documents.

80. Bray, “Introduction: The Powers of Tu,” 2–3. Similarly, Guolong Lai has translated tu as “diagram” based on the definition in Merriam-Webster: “a graphic design that explains rather than represents; especially a drawing that shows arrangement and relations (as of parts).” See Guolong Lai, “The Diagram of the Mourning System from Mawangdui,” Early China 28 (2003), 44, n. 4.

81. Bray, “Introduction: The Powers of Tu,” 4; emphasis in original. See also Donald Harper, “Communication by Design: Two Silk Manuscripts of Diagrams (Tu) From Mawangdui Tomb Three,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China, ed. Bray et al., 172–73, and Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, “Spatial Composition of Ancient Chinese Texts (Preliminary Remarks),” in History of Science, History of Text, ed. Karine Chemla (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004), 3–47.

82. For detailed studies of how writing grew only gradually to prominence over the course of early Chinese history, see Michael Nylan, “Calligraphy: The Sacred Test and Text of Culture,” in Character & Context in Chinese Calligraphy, ed. Cary Liu and Dora Ching (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1999), 17–77; Martin Kern, “Feature: Writing and Authority in Early China, by Mark Edward Lewis,” China Review International 7.2 (2000), 336–76; Nylan, “Textual Authority in Pre-Han and Han,” Early China 25 (2000), 205–58; and Kern, “Ritual, Text, and the Formation of the Canon: Historical Transitions of Wen in Early China,” T’oung Pao 87.1–3 (2001), 43–91.

83. The three *Xingde manuscripts (A, B, and C) all contain texts and diagrams related to ritual divination. See Jicheng, vol. 1, 210–37 for color photographs of the manuscripts and vol. 5, 1–149 for detailed introductions and annotated transcriptions of their contents. See also Marc Kalinowski, “The Xingde 刑德Texts from Mawangdui,” trans. Phyllis Brooks, Early China 23/24 (1998–99), 125–202, and Kalinowski, “Time, Space, and Orientation: Figurative Representations of the Sexagenary Cycle in Ancient and Medieval China,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China, ed. Bray et al., 137–68.

84. The *Yinyang wuxing A 陰陽五行甲 (Yin and Yang and the Five Phases, manuscript A) and *Yinyang wuxing B also contain texts and charts related to ritual divination, and there is extensive overlap between the textual and graphic units on these manuscripts and those on the three *Xingde manuscripts. See Jicheng, vol. 1, 238–81 for color photographs of the *Yinyang wuxing A manuscript and vol. 2, 1–16 for color photographs of the *Yinyang wuxing B. For introductions and annotated transcriptions, see Jicheng, vol. 5, 1–149.

85. See Jicheng, vol. 2, 138–40 for color photographs of this chart. For an introduction and transcriptions of the manuscript as a whole, see vol. 6, 93–102. For a translation of the manuscript, see Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 372–83.

86. For color photographs of the manuscript, see Jicheng, vol. 1, 70–73. For an introduction and annotated transcriptions, see vol. 3, 163–66. For a detailed study of the manuscript in English, see Lai, “The Diagram of the Mourning System from Mawangdui.” For the different interpretations of the manuscript and how it relates to mourning procedures and familial structures, see also Cao Xuequn 曹學群, “Mawangdui Hanmu Sangfu tu jianlun” 馬王堆漢墓喪服圖簡論, Hunan kaogu xuekan 6 (1994), 225–29; Hu Pingsheng 胡平生, “Mawangdui boshu sangzhi tu suo ji sangfu zhidu kaolun” 馬王堆帛書喪制圖所記喪服制度考論, Hunan sheng bowuguan guankan 1 (2004), 178–80; Fan Zhijun 范志軍, “Handai boshu he huaxiangshi zhong suo jian sangfu tu yu xingsang tu” 漢代帛書和畫像石中所見喪服圖與行喪圖, Wenbo 2006.3, 85–87; Fan Zhijun and Jia Xuelan 賈學嵐, “Mawangdui Hanmu ‘Sangfu tu’ zai renshi” 馬王堆漢墓《喪服圖》再認識, Zhongyuan wenwu 2006.3, 68–72; Wang Hui 王卉, “Mawangdui Hanmu ‘Sangfu tu’ yanjiu shuping” 馬王堆漢墓「喪服圖」研究述評, Hunan sheng bowuguan guankan 4 (2007), 51–55; Cheng Shaoxuan 程少軒, “Mawangdui Hanmu ‘Sangfu tu’ xintan” 馬王堆漢墓《喪服圖》新探, Chutu wenxian yu guwenzi yanjiu 6 (2015), 621–32; Hu Pingsheng, “Zai lun Mawangdui Hanmu boshu ‘Sangfu tu’” 再論馬王堆漢墓帛書《喪服圖》in Jinian Mawangdui Hanmu fajue sishi zhounian guoji xueshu yantaohui wenji, ed. Hunan sheng bowuguan, 373–83; and Lai Guolong 來國龍, “Mawangdui ‘Sangfu tu’ xukao” 馬王堆《喪服圖》續考, published online at the website of the “Center of Bamboo Silk Manuscripts of Wuhan University” 武漢大學簡帛研究中心 (www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=2634) (accessed on April 2, 2020).

87. For a detailed discussion of these manuscripts and their iconographic features, see Luke Waring, “Writing and Materiality in the Three Han Dynasty Tombs at Mawangdui,” Ph.D. dissertation (Princeton University, 2019), 325–47.

88. This belief would later come to be known as the “vaulted heaven theory” (gaitian shuo 蓋天說).

89. Zhuangzi jijie, 272. The title of this chapter may also be read as “Shuojian,” or “Discourse on Sword-Fighting.”

90. Xu Weiyu 許維遹, Lüshi chunqiu jishi 呂氏春秋集釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2009), 78 (“Yuan dao” 圜道 3.1), 703 (“Xuyi” 序意).

91. Huainanzi jishi, 169, 1050.

92. Qian Baocong, 錢寶琮, ed., Suanjing shishu 算經十書, vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1963), 22. See also Huang Ru-xuan, ‘Rishu’ tuxiang yanjiu, 99–102. The “Wenyan” 文言 (Patterned Words) commentary to the “Kun” 坤 hexagram in the Zhou Yi also states that “Heaven is black and the Earth is yellow” (tian xuan er di huang 天玄而地黃). See Zhouyi jijie zuanshu, 2.94. For a discussion of the use and significance of colors in early China, see Hans van Ess, “Symbolism and Meaning of Colours in Early Chinese Sources,” in The Polychromy of Antique Sculptures and the Terracotta Army of the First Chinese Emperor: Studies on Materials, Painting Techniques, and Conservation, International Conference in Xi’an, Shaanxi History Museum, March 22–28, 1999, ed. Wu Yongqi, Zhang Tinghao, Michael Petzet, Erwin Emmerling, and Catharina Blänsdorf (Munich: Bayerisches Lanesamt für Denkmalpflege, 2001), 67–72; Guolong Lai, “Colors and Color Symbolism in Early Chinese Ritual Art: Red and Black and the Formation of the Five Colors System,” in Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, ed. Mary M. Dusenbury (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 25–43; and Victoria Bogushevskaya, “Ancient Chinese ‘Five Colors’ Theory: What Does Its Semantic Analysis Reveal?,” in Essays in Global Color History: Interpreting the Ancient Spectrum, ed. Rachael B. Goldman (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016), 225–44.

93. See Jicheng, vol. 5, 5, n. 1 (line 1) and Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 309.

94. For discussions of the texts on the *Laozi B manuscript that have been associated (not unproblematically) with Huanglao (lit., Yellow Emperor 黃帝and Laozi) thought, see Tu Wei-ming, “The ‘Thought of Huang-Lao’: A Reflection on the Lao Tzu and Huang Ti Texts in the Silk Manuscripts of Ma-wang-tui,” Journal of Asian Studies 39 (1979–80), 95–110; Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭, “Mawangdui Laozi jiayiben juanqianhou yishu” 馬王堆老子甲乙本卷前後佚書, Zhongguo zhexue yanjiu 2 (1980), 68–84 and Qiu Xigui, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Laozi’ yiben juanqian gu yishu bing fei ‘Huangdi sijing’” 馬王堆帛書《老子》乙本卷前古佚書並非《黃帝四經》,” Daojia wenhua yanjiu 3 (1993), 249–55; R. P. Peerenboom, Law and Morality in Ancient China: The Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993); Hans van Ess, “The Meaning of Huang-Lao in Shiji and Hanshu,” Études Chinoises 12.2 (1993), 161–77; Robin D. S. Yates, Five Lost Classics: Tao, Huanglao, and Yin-Yang in Han China (New York: Ballentine Books, 1997); and Leo S. Chang and Yu Feng, The Four Political Treatises of the Yellow Emperor: Original Mawangdui Texts with Complete English Translations and an Introduction (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998). For overviews of xingming philosophy, see John Makeham, “The Legalist Concept of Hsing-Ming: An Example of the Contribution of Archaeological Evidence to the Re-Interpretation of Transmitted Texts,” Monumenta Serica 39 (1990–91), 87–114 and Hans Georg Möller, “The Chinese Theory of Forms and Names (xingming zhi xue) and Its Relation to a ‘Philosophy of Signs,’” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 24.2 (1997), 179–208.

95. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 84–87. Chen argues that the manuscript belongs or was subordinate to (fushu 附屬) the texts on the *Laozi B manuscript, and he makes a similar claim about the *Jiu zhu tu manuscript from Mawangdui, which survives only in fragments (see below).

96. The *Tianwen qixiang zazhan manuscript contains text and illustrations related to divinations carried out on the basis of observations of astrological and meteorological phenomena. See Jicheng, vol. 1, 203–9 for color photographs of the manuscript and Jicheng, vol. 4, 245–90 for an introduction and annotated transcriptions of its contents. For a study in English, see Harper, “Communication by Design.”

97. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 86–87. As stated earlier (see n. 32 above), Chen believes that the central message of this portion of text relates to the idea of a “constant trunk” (henggan), and he argues that the function of this trunk is equivalent to the nothingness of the dao. Thus, Chen believes that the central spiral of text must be a representation of qi since (according to Chen) there was a widespread belief that qi and dao helped constitute each other in their formation of the cosmos.

98. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 86–87.

99. Cao is surely correct when he concludes that the manuscript was deliberately designed to make the text’s philosophical message more easily digestible, and that its cosmological iconography would have been widely recognizable in early Western Han. See Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie,” 43–44.

100. For a study and translation of the two “Xinshu” chapters of the Guanzi, as well as the “Neiye” 內業 (Inner Cultivation) and “Baixin” chapters with which they are associated, see W. Allyn Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 15–97.

101. See Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 423, 425–28. Lin Zhipeng 林志鵬 apparently argued something similar in a conference paper entitled “‘Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu kaolun—jianshuo ‘He guanzi’ ‘Yexing’” 《馬王地帛書“物則有形”圖考論—兼說〈鶡冠子〉“夜行”》 presented at an international conference on pre-Qin texts and excavated documents held at National Taiwan University in December 2008. See the citation and discussion of Lin’s unpublished paper at Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 32.

102. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 427–28.

103. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu shijie,” 44–45.

104. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 37. In addition to the texts already cited, Dong also cites a number of passages from the Guanzi (mainly from the “Xinshu” chapters, as well as the “Neiye” chapters), the “Yuandao” chapter of the Huainanzi, and the “Ziran” chapter of the Wenzi in support of his argument. See Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 38–39.

105. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 37.

106. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 37. In support of his argument, Dong notes that the “Tianlun” 天論 (Discourse on Heaven) chapter of the Xunzi 荀子 states that “the heart resides in the central void and thereby regulates the five faculties, it is called the lord of Heaven” 心居中虛以治五官, 夫是之謂天君. See Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie 荀子集解 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1988), 309.

107. Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 36–37. Dong argues that a similar concern for the relationship between words and things, with the process proceeding from “fullness” (shi) to “emptiness” (xu), can be found in the looted Hengxian manuscript from the Shanghai Museum corpus and the “Huanliu” 環流 (Circular Flow) chapter of the Heguanzi 鶡冠子 (The Pheasant Cap Master).

108. Indeed, since a spiral is never truly closed off from what exists outside it, it is the ideal shape for representing a heart that responds harmoniously to external stimuli.

109. See Li, “The Zidanku Silk Manuscripts,” 261–63. For the *Zhengshi zhi chang manuscript, see Jingzhou diqu bowuguan, “Jiangling Wangjiatai 15 hao Qinmu” 江陵王家台15號秦墓 [authored by Liu Deyin 劉德銀], Wenwu 1995.1, 37–43 and Wang Mingqin 王明欽, “Wangjiatai Qinmu zhujian gaishu” 王家臺秦墓竹簡概述, in Xinchu jianbo yanjiu: xinchu jianbo guoji xueshu yantaohui wenji 新出簡帛研究: 新出簡帛國際學術研討會文集, ed. Ai Lan 艾蘭 (Sarah Allan) and Xing Wen 邢文 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2004), 39–43.

110. Lillian Tseng has speculated that it may have been thought that the cosmologically potent design and material form of Han diviner’s boards (see below) contributed to the efficacy of the divinations they were used to carry out through the harnessing of cosmic power. See Tseng, Picturing Heaven in Early China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 49.

111. For a color photograph of this board, see Hubei sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, Jingmen shi bowuguan, and Xiang Jing gaosu gonglu kaogu dui, eds., Jingmen Zuozhong Chumu 荊門左冢楚墓 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2006), color plate 43; see 179–85 in this volume for an analysis of the board and transcriptions of its contents. For a comparison of the different transcriptions and interpretations that have been proposed by scholars to explain the characters on the board, see Zhu Xiaoxue 朱曉雪, “Zuozhong qiju wenzi huishi” 左塚漆梮文字匯釋 published online on November 10, 2009, at http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn/Web/Show/970 (accessed on April 2, 2020).

112. The diagram takes the form of calendrical notations arranged inside a series of concentric circles, and the gameplay involves navigating the ups and downs of an official career. The game is also accompanied by an explanatory text. For images and an analysis of the game, see Luke Habberstad, Forming the Early Chinese Court: Rituals, Spaces, Roles (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), 3–7.

113. For a study of the relationships between gambling and divination in early China, see Mark Edward Lewis, “Dicing and Divination in Early China,” Sino-Platonic Papers 121 (2002), 1–22. See also Armin Selbitschka, “A Tricky Game: A Re-Evaluation of Liubo 六博 Based on Archaeological and Textual Evidence,” Oriens Extremus 55 (2016), 105–66.

114. I would like to thank one of the anonymous readers of this article for encouraging me to examine the connections between these two manuscripts.

115. Wang Mingqin, “Wangjiatai Qinmu zhujian gaishu,” 41.

116. For this kind of image see Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 103–7.

117. Indeed, writing as linguistic code and writing as evocative image are often so tightly intertwined that some have even questioned the distinction between writing and images as entirely separate modes of representation or communication. See, for example, Elizabeth Hill Boone, “Introduction: Writing and Recording Knowledge,” in Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, ed. Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994), 3–26. See also H. G. Fischer, L’écriture et l’art de l’Égypte ancienne: Quatre leçons sur la paléographie et l’épigraphie pharaoniques (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1986), 24–50; the essays in Mariëlle Hageman and Marco Mostert, eds., Reading Images and Texts: Medieval Images and Texts as Forms of Communication. Papers from the Third Utrecht Symposium on Medieval Literacy, Utrecht, 7–9 December 2000 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005); the essays in Zahra Newby and Ruth Leader-Newby, eds., Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Vincent Debiais, Messages de pierre: La lecture des inscriptions dans la communication médiévale (XIIIe–XIVe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 93–161; Margaret A. Jackson, “The Mediated Image: Reflections on Semasiographic Notation in the Ancient Americas,” in Agency in Ancient Writing, ed. Joshua Englehardt (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2012), 21–23; and the essays in Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Jeffrey F. Hamburger, eds., Sign and Design: Script as Image in Cross-Cultural Perspective (300–1600 CE) (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2016).

118. Joanna Rapti has discussed how certain medieval Armenian inscriptions were so ornate as to divert attention away from linguistic decoding towards contemplation of the overall visual force of the composition and its divine message. See Joanna Rapti, “Displaying the Word: Words as Visual Signs in the Armenian Architectural Decoration of the Monastery of Noravank (14th Century),” in Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, ed. Anthony Eastmond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 200. See also Sheila Blair, “Legibility vs. Decoration in Islamic Epigraphy: The Case of Interlacing,” in World Art: Themes of Unity in Diversity, Acts of the XXVIth International Congress of the History of Art, ed. Irving Lavin (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 329–31.

119. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 84–85. For a discussion of diviner’s boards, see Donald J. Harper, “The Han Cosmic Board (Shih 式),” Early China 4 (1978–79), 1–10; Christopher Cullen, “Some Further Points on the Shih,” Early China 6 (1980–81), 31–46; Sarah Allan, “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian,” T’oung Pao 89.4–5 (2003), 246–53; Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, “Spatial Composition of Ancient Chinese Texts”; and Tseng, Picturing Heaven in Early China, 47–49. For discussions of the relationships between diviner’s boards and excavated manuscripts, see Huang Ru-xuan, ‘Rishu’ tuxiang yanjiu, 28–61 and Li, “The Zidanku Silk Manuscripts,” 271–73.

120. Huang Ru-xuan, ‘Rishu’ tuxiang yanjiu, 101–8. Li Ling 李零, Zhongguo fangshu kao 中國方書考 (Beijing: Dongfang, 2000), 89–176 discusses the relationships between diviner’s boards, diviner’s diagrams, and early Chinese theories of the cosmos.

121. Jessica Rawson, for example, has noted that images of the intangible or the invisible (such as Heaven [tian 天] or qi) have a particular power to determine the way people think about their subjects. See Jessica Rawson, “The Power of Images: The Model Universe of the First Emperor and its Legacy,” Historical Research 75.188 (2002), 125. See also Eugene Y. Wang, “Time in Early Chinese Art,” in A Companion to Chinese Art, ed. Martin Powers and Katherine R. Tsiang (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 212–14. Eric Huntington has demonstrated, in the context of Himalayan Buddhism, how a diverse range of cosmological images helped Buddhists in the region think not just about cosmology but also with it, as a way of engaging with a wide range of religious and cultural phenomena. See Huntington, Creating the Universe, esp., 235.

122. The manuscript thus represents a powerful example of “kinetic subversion,” a term coined by Claude Gandelman to describe the illocutionary power of inscriptions to force their readers to move their eyes and bodies in certain ways. See Claude Gandelman, “By Way of Introduction: Inscriptions as Subversion,” Visible Language 23.2–3 (1989), 145–46. For a study of how “image acts,” adapted from the model of “speech acts,” make things happen in the world, see Horst Bredekamp, Image Acts: A Systematic Approach to Visual Agency, translated, edited, and adapted by Elizabeth Clegg (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018). For J. L. Austin’s notion of performative speech acts, see Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). Recently, Jonathan Hay has offered a reminder that, though the question of what images do may appear to be a contemporary concern, in fact in most cultures throughout history images were understood to operate not simply in space but also in time. See Jonathan Hay, “The Worldly Eye,” in What Images Do, ed. Jan Bäcklund, Henrik Oxvig, Michael Renner, and Martin Søberg (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019), 113–43, esp., 121.

123. See Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, ed., Shuihudi Qinmu zhujan 睡虎地秦墓竹簡 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1990), (plates) 79–86 for black and white photographs of the *Wei li zhi dao slips and (transcriptions) 165–76 for annotated transcriptions of its contents. For a comparison of the contents of the *Zhengshi zhi chang and *Wei li zhi dao manuscripts, see Wang Mingqin, “Wangjiatai Qinmu zhujian gaishu.”

124. Chen Songchang, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu chutan,” 87. See Jicheng, vol. 4, 107–8 for an introduction and transcriptions of the *Jiu zhu tu manuscript. For color photographs, see Jicheng, vol. 1, 118–19.

125. Chen Jian, “Mawangdui boshu ‘yinwen,’ kongbai ye he chenye ji zhedie qingkuang zongshu,” 305 estimates that the manuscript originally measured 24 cm in width and that it had been folded once from top to bottom, or perhaps rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and folded from left to right, before it was placed inside the lacquer case.

126. The *Jiu zhu text on the *Laozi A manuscript is translated in Yates, Five Lost Classics.

127. See Shi ji, 3.94 for the nine types of ruler and the comment that “in total there were nine types, and a chart that depicted their forms” (fan jiu pin, tu hua qi xing 凡九品,圖畫其形).

128. See Jicheng, vol. 4, 107.

129. Chen Songchang, “Boshu ‘Jiu zhu tu canpian’ lüekao” 帛書「九主圖殘片」略考, Wenwu 2007.4, 80–81.

130. See n. 95 above.

131. Cao Feng, “Mawangdui ‘Wu ze you xing’ yuanquan nei wenzi xinjie,” 423.

132. It should be pointed out that, a certain degree of philosophical overlap notwithstanding, the text on the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript does not appear on any of the other Mawangdui manuscripts, making it hard to support the claim that it is an illustration per se of any of those works.

133. For the argument that many of the transmitted texts from early China were originally arranged in a non-linear format, see Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, “Spatial Composition of Ancient Chinese Texts.”

134. Indeed, the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was designed simultaneously to inculcate correctly calibrated modes of perception, bodily movements, and language use, all of which were decidedly ethical concerns in early China. See Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early China (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Michael Nylan, “Beliefs about Seeing: Optics and Moral Technologies in Early China,” Asia Major (3rd ser.) 21.1 (2008), 89–132; and Sarah A. Mattice, “On ‘Rectifying’ Rectification: Reconsidering Zhengming in Light of Confucian Role Ethics,” Asian Philosophy 20 (2010), 247–60.

135. Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament, esp. 5, 40–41. Grabar thus moves beyond the definition proposed by Ernst Gombrich, who understood ornament as playing a significant role in framing, filling, or linking surfaces that existed and functioned independently of ornamentation. See E. H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (London: Phaidon Press, 2006). See also Margaret W. Conkey, “Style, Design, and Function,” in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. Christopher Tilley, Webb Keane, Susan Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer (London: Sage, 2006), 355–72; Andrew Morrall, “Ornament as Evidence,” in History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, ed. Karen Harvey (London: Routledge, 2009), 47–66; and Jonathan Hay, Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010). For discussions of ornament and decoration in the context of early China, see Jessica Rawson, “Late Shang Bronze Design: Meaning and Purpose,” in The Problem of Meaning in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes, ed. Roderick Whitfield (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1993), 67–95; Robert W. Bagley, “Meaning and Explanation,” 34–55 in the same volume; and Rawson, “Cosmological Systems as Sources of Art, Ornament and Design,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 72 (2000), 133–89.

136. For wen as a set of multifaceted, multimedia visual and material practices, rather than merely writing, see Kern, “Ritual, Text, and the Formation of the Canon.”

137. For this reason, I fully support Diane O’Donoghue’s assertion that “[i]f writing and art-making are not, in fact, irreconcilable functions, then our expectations of their respective resources could be expanded.” See O’Donoghue, Diane M., “Critical Distance: Replacing the Practice of Chinese Art History,” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 2.1 (2000), 337Google Scholar. Indeed, Claude Gandelman has noted that while when reading words we begin by attending to the signifier, through which we next gain access to the signified, in the case of painted images this relationship is reversed, and we are confronted from the beginning with “the overwhelming presence of the signified.” As a result, Gandelman notes, “[w]ords in paintings pose the question of the primacy of language or, conversely, of the primary of images.” See Gandelman, “By Way of Introduction,” 142–43. Similarly, Tim Ingold has pointed out that, unlike most images, painted writing is as real as the thing it represents. See Ingold, Tim, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description (London: Routledge, 2011), 182–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

138. Similarly, Baines, John, Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 285Google Scholar has noted that in Ancient Egypt writing and “pictorial representation” were used to complement each other as mutually reinforcing domains of communication, each with their own strengths and particular uses.

139. See Carruthers, Mary, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 275, 309–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Clanchy, M. T., From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066–1307 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 174–77Google Scholar, who notes that colors, shapes, and layouts were often used to make texts easier to memorize. On this point, see also Gaur, Albertine, Literacy and the Politics of Writing (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2000), 153Google Scholar.

140. Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 337.

141. For a brief discussion of the dialectical relationship between art and culture, see Norman Bryson’s introduction in Bal, Mieke, Looking In: The Art of Viewing (NewYork: Routledge, 2001), 1–2Google Scholar. Ultimately, artifacts like the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript encourage us to wonder, with Tim Ingold, if “drawings or paintings [are] of things in the world, or … like things in the world, in the sense that we have to find our ways through and among them, inhabiting them as we do the world itself?” See Tim Ingold, Being Alive, 197.