Divining Bureaucracy: Divination Manuals as Technology and the Standardization of Efficacy in Early China by Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Asian Languages and Cultures) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Miranda D. Brown, Chair Assistant Professor Benjamin Brose Associate Professor Christian de Pee Associate Professor Guolong Lai, University of Florida Professor Donald S. Lopez Jr. © Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer 2014 DEDICATION         For Jayme For Elizabeth For Ima and Abba                       ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS   As spring slowly finds its way to Philadelphia, I find myself at the end of my graduate career. The past seven years have been transformative in many ways, and I am humbled and grateful to the people whose support and encouragement brought me to this point. I wish to thank my advisor, Miranda Brown, for her endless support and advice at the University of Michigan and beyond. It is she who inspired me to expand my work into early medical texts, and it is she who trained me. I am also profoundly grateful to Christian de Pee and his support. He and I first met in 2003, when I was a senior at Brooklyn College, and he inspired me to continue my education over the next eleven years. There are a number of excellent scholars in the Asian Languages and Cultures department at the University of Michigan to whom I owe gratitude: Donald Lopez, Benjamin Brose, Shuen-fu Lin, Bill Baxter, Deirdre de la Cruz, David Rolston, and Varuni Bhatia, thank you. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support for research, dissertation writing, and language training in Taipei, Beijing, and Ann Arbor: The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the Center for Chinese Studies, and Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan provided the majority of my funding. A generous Fulbright IIE grant provided me with the opportunity to spend a year at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. I owe many scholars outside of the University of Michigan my sincere appreciation: Guolong Lai at the University of Florida, Luo Xinhui at Beijing Normal University, Andrew Meyer at Brooklyn College, and Ethan Harkness at New York University. In no particular order, thank you to my friends and colleagues all over the world, whose kindness, patience, and encouragement pushed me forward. Erika Kuever, Kate Monaghan, Brigid Vance, Annah Bender, John Whitefoot, Katie Whitefoot, Candice Haddad, Jarod Kelly, Joseph Leach, Martino Dibeltulo, Joel Tannenbaum, Heidi Saman, Juliette Genevaz, Menghsin Cindy Horng, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski, Cat Cassel, Cameron Moore, Meredith Schweig, Brian Vivier, and Molly Des Jardin. Thank you. To my parents Sara Reguer and Raphael Fodde: your advice, support, and love provided me with the emotional sustenance necessary to feed my intellect. To my sister, Elizabeth, your constant encouragement and love is always invaluable. Thank you. Finally, thank you Jayme Guokas, a true partner in every sense of the word, for your love and support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS   DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF APPENDICES vii CHAPTERS I. Introduction 1 Introduction Definitions and Further Discussion 6 Bureaucracy and the State in Early China 14 Divination: Historical Roots in Ancient China 19 Excavated Materials: A Brief Overview 22 Previous Interpretations of Divination 25 Medicine, Illness, and Healing in early China 26 Chapter Plan and Organization 29 II. Dream Divination as Technique in Early China and Connections to Early Chinese Medicine 35 Introduction 35 Sources: Transmitted and Excavated 37 Dreams in a “Religious” or “Occult” Framework 44 Dream Divination as Technology: a Comparative Analysis with the Canon of the Yellow Emperor 46 Conclusions 56 III. The Yinwan Manuals: An Example of Technological Manuals in the Han 58 Introduction 58 The Yinwan Manuals and Daybooks 61 The Yinwan Manuals 65 Comparisons to the Dream Divination Book 78 Conclusions 83 IV. Early Medical Manuals and Demonic Illness Etiology: A Comparison between Shuihudi’s Demonic Accusations and Dunhuang’s Book on the Occurrence of Illness (P. 2856 R° columns 23-81) 86 Introduction 86 Background and Context for the Dunhuang Mogao Caves 88 iv Secondary Scholarship on P. 2856 R° 89 Demons and Illness 91 Talismans and Healing 94 Shuihudi’s Demonic Accusations (Jie) Text and the Quest for Health 104 The Book on Occurrence of Illness (2856 R°) and Methods of Healing 111 Comparisons and Conclusions 116 V. Conclusions 119 APPENDICES 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY 139   v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Tortoise and Rain divination, Yinwan Tomb 6 69 2 Liubo Board divination, Yinwan Tomb 6 72 3 Reconstructed drawing of the TLV design and sexagenary cycle from the liubo divination board 74 4 Medical Talisman, zi day 100 5 Medical Talisman, chou day 100 6 Talisman and Text from P. 2856 R°, Dunhuang 103 vi LIST OF APPENDICES   Appendix I: Yuelu Academy Dream Divination Book 123 Appendix II: Yinwan Divination Manuals 128 1. Supernatural Tortoise Divination 128 2. Rain Divination 129 3. Bo Pattern Divination 129 4. Acceptable Times for Punishment and Virtue 131 5. Auspcious/Inauspcious Travel Path 133   Appendix III: P. 2856 R° columns 23-81 135 vii Chapter I: Introduction Introduction: For upper and lower echelons of society in early China, divination held an important place as a means for advising one’s present and future. Divination manuals discovered in archaeological digs of the 20th century and in recent years provide us with a glimpse into the ways in which early Chinese thinkers divined and viewed the divination process. The authors of divination manuals dating to early China (c. 220 B.C.E.-c. 400 C.E.) treated divination as a technology to gain access to hidden empirical knowledge. By transcribing this knowledge in cosmological language and through the use of diagrams, the authors of these manuals attempted to standardize knowledge for capable readers. The manuals thereby mark a crucial departure from ancient China (c. 1600-c. 300 B.C.E.), when divination authority was invested in privileged individuals, whose skills were monopolized by the wealthy and powerful. The standardization of divinatory techniques and hidden knowledge in these manuals fits the context of bureaucratic expertise and the expanding scope of influence of written culture in the early imperial period. Using an historical approach, I argue that the knowledge recorded in divination manuals points to a view of divination as a perfectible technique for the discovery of practical knowledge. I carefully differentiate such information from the imagined perspective of the manual authors and the manual users. When considering the historical and cultural specifics of the Chinese context, the term “divination” has a number of definitions, typically either involving deities 1 and other-worldly powers, or excluding such powers and focusing instead on humanity’s relationship with the cosmos. Divination was used throughout the ancient world as a means for understanding one’s place in the cosmos and attempting to change one’s future. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, divination is the practice of obtaining information about things in the future ordinarily removed from regular perception by consulting informants other than humans.1 Scholars of divination in China amend this definition by differentiating between “prognostication” and “divination” as the former is concerned only with the future, while “divination” is also concerned with the past and present.2 Lisa Raphals’ definition of divination as gleaned from material in the History of the Han (Hanshu 漢書, dating to the first century C.E.) is very explicit: [Divination] may, but need not, involve interaction with a god or other extra- human contact. Divine contact may be indirect, mediated by a system of signs requiring interpretation, for example, when questions are put to signs present in nature, but perceptible only to those with appropriate gifts. Or divination may rely entirely on a hermeneutic system of signs with no divine agent implied.3 Raphals recognizes that what is termed “divination” may or may not include contact with deities and also comprises of multiple methods and practices. In discussing divination as a perfectible technique, I refer to “the practical abilities that allow a person to effectively perform easily and efficiently a given                                                                                                                 1 James Hastings ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume IV: Confirmation—Drama (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955), 775. 2 See Lisa Raphals, “Divination in the Han Shu Bibilographic Treatise,” Early China 32 (2008-2009): 47-48. The Chinese terms for “divination” also vary, sometimes based on the method used (such as 龜卜guibu or 龜筮 guishi for divination by means of a tortoise). The Chinese term zhan 占 means “to practice divination” and is usually paired with bu 卜 (“to foretell,” “to predict”), creating a verb-object. 3 Ibid. 2