鶡冠子‘Pheasant-Cap Master’ Héguan Zî and the ‘End of History’

Marnix St.J. Wells 20071. The Message and its Context.........................................................................12. Héguan Zî, the man and his times..................................................................23. Textual History.............................................................................................. 44. Structure and Integrity...................................................................................55. Motivation..................................................................................................... 86. The ‘Nine Augusts’.......................................................................................97. ‘The End of History’.................................................................................... 118. Conclusion................................................................................................... 13Bibliography.................................................................................................... 14

1. The Message and its ContextAs one of China’s philosophy’s most neglected texts, standing outside recognised schools, Héguan Zî has now been generally acquitted of long-standing charges of forgery (first brought by Liû Zongyuán of Táng). Though still widely ignored, it has begun to arouse interest for its affinities to excavated early texts. Graham saw in it ‘blocks’ of Legalism, Yangism and Primitivism.1 Defoort only pointed out errors in Graham’s Legalist blocks. However both failed to detect that Héguan Zî (xii)’s lines that parallel Zhuang Zî or Jiâ Yì’s Owl Rhapsody are used in a quite different, ‘positivist’ sense. Defoort concludes with a similarly unwarranted negative reading of ‘Worthies of the Age’ (xvi): “his manifesto of political opposition contains not any impulse to revolutionary action but only a passive defence of the most reasonable decision for the unheeded adviser to take: stay away from politics.” Certainly this was no call to arms, yet neither was it passive resignation. Héguan Zî’s Sage puts substance before show. Like the good doctor of this chapter, and in the very words ascribed to King Wûling in BC 307 by the histories, he works on ‘what has not yet taken shape’ (wèixíng).2

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Peter Opitz 1993, in his paper “The Birth of ‘History’”, distinguishes three types of historical conception in ancient China. First, is the Confucian mandate theory in which Heaven appoints virtuous rulers to found dynasties and destroys dynasties whose rulers have become evil. Second, is the decline from a primeval ‘Golden Age’ theory espoused by Lâo Zî’s Dàodé Jing. Third is the cyclical theory of the Five Actions (wû-xíng, ‘five elements’), ascribed to Zou Yàn (c. BC 300), in which Water was adopted as their sign by imperial Qín (BC 221).

The last two ideologies have parallels in Graeco-Roman tradition, while the first recalls the warnings of Old Testament prophets. I will argue that Héguan Zî, named from the ‘Pheasant-Cap Master’ combines the first two types. He is at once moralising and utopian, Confucian and Laoist. He differs from Confucius in placing meritocracy before the hereditary principle, and from Zhuang Zî in seeing the utopia as an imminently realisable political goal not just in an internalised mystic state. Unlike Zou Yàn, Héguan Zî rejects the ascendancy of any one of the Five Actions. Rather than a continuing cycle, he anticipates a new ‘millennium’ in which true values will be restored under a Sage. Evidently, the ‘First Emperor’ of Qín, whose harsh legalism Héguan Zî critcises, was also to see himslf as founder of a new everlasting order.

Pheasant-Cap Master and his disciple Páng Zî preached with acute awareness to rulers on the eve of destruction by Qín. Pheasant-Cap Master accepts the need for arms, yet rejects militarism as much as defeatism. His universalist vision of unity, as Angus Graham pointed out, is inadvertently the best exposition from classical China of Chad Hansen’s controversial ‘mass-noun hypothesis’.3 Héguan Zî conceives of past and present, the individual and all humanity as a pre-existent totality, variously divisible, but inherently and ultimately one, and so knowable. He reconciles a foundational Law and with the Way immanent in the natural world, anticipating the Mâwángdui ‘HuángLâo’ texts of Dàofâ ‘the Way’s Law’. Reasoning from the perceived pattern in nature and history, he foretells the future, not by divination or revelation, but by deduction.

2. Héguan Zî, the man and his times‘Pheasant-Cap Master’, Héguan Zî, is the title of a mysterious figure, known almost entirely from the book that bears his name. Ban Gù (d. 92 AD) with his daughter Zhao compiled the Later Hàn History. Its biography section identifies Héguan Zî as a mountain hermit of the southern kingdom of Chû. Pheasant-Cap Master’s alleged origin in Chû receives support by its apparent quotations from Lâo Zî (iii), allegedly from Chû, and its use of Chû administrative titles (ix). On the other hand, it details the governmental system attributed to Guân Zî (d. BC 645) and cites Sun Zî’s Arms’ Law (‘Art of War’) from Qí (Shandong).

Two Héguan Zî chapters (i; xvi) have a connection with Zhào’s northern neighbour Yàn. In BC 316-314 King Kuài of Yàn actually adopted the legendary precedent of the ideal ruler, endorsed by Héguan Zî, of abdicating to the most worthy, in this case his premier Zîzhi. The resulting anarchy led to invasion by Qí and the death of both. A new king Zhao (r. BC 311-249) restored the state and received advice on recruitment of worthies ecoed by Héguan Zî: i4

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King Wûlíng (r. BC 325-299) ‘Martial Spirit’ of Zhào, whose name entitles Héguan Zî’s closing chapter xix, harboured similar ideals. In 318, spurning ‘name without substance’, he declined to take the title ‘king’, which five fellow rulers had just assumed. In 317 he joined with Hán and Wèi in an failed attack on Qín, which reportedly cost 80,000 heads. He abdicated in 299 to enthrone his second son Hé as king, while taking for himself the title of Master Father (zhûfù), somewhat in the manner which Lyû Bùwéi was to adopt as guardian (zhòngfù) during the youth of the future ‘First Emperor’ of Qín. Despite hearing of the virtue of its ruler, Wûlíng overthrew Zhongshan in 296 and enfiefed his first son Zhang there as king of Dài. Yet Zhang was dissatisfied and revolted, leading in 295 to the death of both.5

King Wûlíng is best known to history for a tailoring revolution in BC 307. This stemmed from his personal initiative, against tradition and in the face of widespread ridicule, for the wearing of trousers, ‘Hun dress’, by his mounted archers. This led to great success against the northern tribes.6 Later Hàn History’s “Carriages and Attire” section further attributes adoption of the ‘pheasant-cap’ headdress to him:7

The pheasant is a courageous sort of fowl: when fighting an opponent, it only stops when dead. Hence, King Wûlíng of Zhào used it to distinguish military officers. And Qín spread its use from there.

Thus, in connection with our Pheasant-Cap Master, we may note: First: the cap was for military officers. Thus it appears that the wearing of pheasant

feathers in the cap was a badge of courage. Pheasant tail-feathers today continue to adorn heads of military heroes and heroines in Chinese opera.

Second: it was instituted by King Wûlíng. Third, this pheasant cap, like the trousers, was subsequently adopted by the Qín, and later

Hàn, imperial army.

These three points confirm affiliations of ‘Pheasant-Cap Master’ with the a) military, b) with Zhào (centred on Hándan, Hébêi) and indirectly c) with Qín (based in Xiányáng, Shânxi). In Héguan Zî itself, all interlocutors mentioned, namely ‘Páng Zî’, Zhào generals Páng Huàn (c.300 BC) and Páng Xuan (d. 241 BC?) and two kings of Zhào show interest in military matters:

vii-ix, xiv-xv: Héguan Zî is questioned by Páng Zî;xvi: King Diàoxiang (r. BC 244-236) questions general Páng Xuan, who in BC 242, routed Yàn and captured its general Jù Xin (cf. xii). The following year, 241, Páng Xuan led an army of Zhào, with Chû, Wèi and Yàn, in a joint attack on Qín, but was annihilated. xix: King Wûlíng (r. BC 325-299; d.295) of Zhào questions Páng Huàn.

Héguan Zî then appears to represent a Zhào tradition of the Páng family, starting from the late fourth century BC. Páng was evidently a military clan of Wèi and Zhào (approximating to Hénán, and Shanxi). According to Wèi Annals, in 341 BC Wèi attacked Zhào, who requested aid from Qí (Shandong). Shen, crown prince of Wèi, is met at Wàihuáng by one Xú Zî who

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claims to have an ‘one hundred battles, one hundred victories technique’ [cf. Sun Zî: iii]. Xú persuades Shen to take sole command. Shen falls into the ambush of Qí strategist Sun Bin at Mâlíng, is taken prisoner, and his general Páng Juan killed. Sun Bin was allegedly a scion of strategist Sun Zî Wû (ca. BC 500). The Sun Zî quote in Héguan Zî xix is precisely that of Xú Zî to Shen crown prince of Wèi in BC 341.8

It seems probable that Páng Juan was a forebear of strategists Páng Huàn, and later still Páng Xuan. Páng Huàn’s military expertise is revealed in his xix dialogue with King Wûlíng to whom he expounds Sun Zî: Arms’ Laws. Páng Huàn is surely the ‘Páng Zî’ who questions Héguan Zî in chapters vii-ix, xiv-xv. Héguan Zî then represents the in-house Páng clan tradition attempting to preserve and implement the teachings of Pheasant Cap Master.

3. Textual HistoryThe Héguan Zî went unrecorded in early Hàn until the notice in Liú Xin’s Seven Summaries, presented to the emperor in 6 BC.9 Perhaps not coincidentally, this was during the period of turmoil leading up to Wáng Mâng’s radical revolution, and proclamation of the short-lived ‘New’ Xin dynasty in AD 8, whose utopian ideals found an echo in Héguan Zî. Liú Xin lists the work under two different categories: as ‘HuángLâo’ Daoist, and also as militarist under ‘Arms: Expedient Counsels’. Hànshu: xxx bibliography lists it under ‘Daoist’, and a lost work entitled Páng Xuan which our nineteen chapter text may incorporate, under ‘Alliance Brokers’ and ‘Expedient Counsels’.10

The text’s dual nature is evidenced in the circumstances of its preservation. The Daoist Canon of 1445 contains a complete though largely unedited version, which apparently preserves two archaic ‘jù’ punctuation indicators (iv; xviii), with commentary by Lù Diàn (1042-1102) of Northern Sòng.11 Fully punctuated excerpts from chapters i., ii. and xvi. are independently conserved in Qúnshu Zhìyào, the political digest prepared by premier Wèi Zheng (581-643) for Táng founder Tàizû; and from xi. (without ‘sea-gull lover’) in Yônglè Dàdiân, the massive encyclopaedia ordered by Míng dynasty ‘second founder’ Yônglè (r. 1403-1424).

The work received favourable reviews from Liú Xié (c. 500)’s Cultured Minds Carve Dragons: xvii; and (Táng) Hán Yù (768-824), but Liû Zongyuán (773-819) condemned it as a fake because of supposed plagiarism from Jiâ Yì (BC 201-169). Philosophical interest in it revived in the early twentieth century when it attracted attention as a neglected writing with an alternative view of Chinese culture. Marxist historian of philosophy Hóu Wàilú even discerned in v. Circular Flow elements of nascent ‘dialectical materialism’ in its description of the ‘inter-penetration of opposites’ and qì ‘energy’. More recently it has featured in the ‘laws of nature’ in ancient China debate.12

The work’s cosmic vision suggests a mystic message but this is combined with confrontation of practical problems in a turbulent world. Politically, it argues for meritocracy and against the hereditary principle. Such radical ideas, doubtless shunned as subversive by ruling

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orthodoxies, probably helped condemned the writings to obscurity. Yet, unlike Lâo Zî, which contains no names of persons, places or events, Héguan Zî places itself in a defined historical context. From its attributions to dateable people and allusions to specific events, there can be little doubt that it is an authentic composition from a reformist school of the third century BC.

4. Structure and IntegrityIt has been noted that it contains borrowed or shared passages with more famous works, most notably Lâo Zî and Jiâ Yì’s Owl Rhapsody. Unattributed ‘quotations’, or recycling common material, are common in ancient Chinese writings. This is not necessarily evidence of forgery or plagiarism. It may be simply indicative of a shared cultural matrix. Familiar language may be used as a rhetorical device whose significance lies in deliberate variation, or even with completely altered import. The author is known to delight in overturning general assumptions. For example, Héguan Zî constantly redefines conventional terms, injecting into them a more specialized and abstract sense, as with ‘Heaven’ (especially viii, ix, xvii).13

The basic question is: does the work form a coherent whole? My answer is: yes. It comprises several strands but is not a miscellany. It represents attempts to formulate an idealist political program leading to a new age of universal peace and unification. Intelligibility suffers from lack of systematic punctuation, or even sectional divisions within chapters, occasional unfamiliar terminology, manuscript errors or obsolete forms. There may be cases of disordering or loss of paragraphs. Nevertheless, the text is essentially intact and uncorrupt.

Angus Graham 1989b identifies three distinct blocks in the text which he labels A, B, and C.14

He describes these as three ‘lost utopias’: ‘A’ is idealist; ‘B’ legalist; and ‘C’ disillusionment with Law, close to Confucian ‘orthodoxy’, which Graham dates to immediately post-Qín. Yet there is an ironic incongruity in the alleged designing of utopias purely for the past. Surely interest in archaeology has never been merely for its own sake.

Randall Perenboom 1991 divides the chapters into ‘HuángLâo’, non-HuángLâo and eclectic.15

‘HuángLâo’ is a school first documented in the early Hàn. It combined the teachings of Lâo Zî with those of the Yellow Emperor, lost to history until the discovery and 1980 publication of the Mâwángdui tomb, sealed in BC 168, in Húbêi. The HuángLâo school, like these texts, are thought to represent a combination of Form-Name (Xíngmíng) Legalism with Daoism. Such a mixture is also evident in the work of Hán Fei Zî whose writing Qín’s First Emperor admired. It might be more appropriate to characterise Héguan Zî as belonging to the school of Way-Law (Dàofâ), which occurs frquently, rather than to HuángLâo which is nowhere mentioned.

Peerenboom describes the ‘HuángLâo’ concept of law as “foundational naturalism and natural law.” He notes that Héguan Zî contains less Form-Name and yinyáng and more Five Actions (wû-xíng) than the Mâwángdui Yellow Emperor texts.16 Héguan Zî’s preoccupation with names is also allied to Confucian ‘correct naming’. Shared lines or phrases with Lâo Zî and especially lost Yellow Emperor texts strengthens the case for the antiquity of Héguan Zî, yet are far from defining its integral message. Catherine Defoort 1997 concludes: “Despite the

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various possibilities of multiple authorship… the treatise nevertheless seems to speak with one voice…”17

Chapter (i-xix) descriptions and categorisations

Named Interlocutors

Sample Themes and Parallels

i. Wide Selection, BóxuânGraham: A; Legalist rulerPeerenboom: non-HuángLâo

- ‘Royal Axe’; ‘Four Signs’. ‘Duan’ substituted for Qín dynasty taboo ‘zhèng’.18

Jiâ Yì (201-169): Xinshu ii; Zhànguó Cè xxix Yàn; Wén Zî vii, xii. Héguan Zî: xix.

ii. Manifest Hope, ZhùxiGraham: APeerenboom: unproven

- ‘Four Signs’.Jingfâ: Dàofâ.

iii. Night Walking, YèxíngGraham: BPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- ‘Five Governments’.Guân Zî: ii, lxiv; Lâo Zî: xiv, xv, xvii, xxi; Lyûshì Chunqiu: v-ii Dàyùe; Huáinán Zî: vi; Wén Zî: ii.Héguan Zî: ix, xvi, xix.

iv. Heaven’s Model, TianzéGraham: BPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- ‘Nine Augusts’.Dipper Constellation cf. v, xvii.Guân Zî: iv; Xún Zî: xvi, xviii; Jingfâ: Dàofâ; Héguan Zî: v, xvii.

v. Circular Flow, HuánliúPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- Dipper Constellation cf. iv, xvii‘Duan’ substituted for Qín dynasty taboo ‘zhèng’?Lâo Zî: xxv;

vi. The Way’s Correction, DàoduanPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- ‘Duan’ substituted for Qín dynasty taboo ‘zhèng’?Guân Zî: lxiv; Zhuang Zî: xxiv; Jingfâ: Lùn.

vii. Approaching Collapse, JìndiéGraham: man not NaturePeerenboom: non-HuángLâo

Páng Zî, Héguan Zî

‘Prioritise Man and Arms’Criticises appeasement, corruption

viii. Reckoning Myriads, DuòwànGraham: BPeerenboom: HuángLâo

Páng Zî, Héguan Zî

‘Five Governments’; ‘Correct-Names’.Against harsh laws.‘Duan’ substituted for Qín dynasty taboo ‘zhèng’?Jingfâ: Dàofâ; Shíliù-Jing: Wû-zhèng.

ix. Royal Axe, Wángfû Páng Zî, ‘Royal Axe’; ‘Complete Ninth’;

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Graham: APeerenboom: HuángLâo

Héguan Zî ‘18,000 year’ rule.Ministerial titles of Chû: zhûguó, lìngyîn.19

Jingfâ: Dàofâ. Lâo Zî: lix, lxxx;Guân Zî: xx; Guóyû: vi Qí.Héguan Zî: i, iii.

x. Grand Expanse, TàihóngGraham: BPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- ‘Nine Augusts’; ‘Grand Unity’.Jingfâ: Lùn; Shíliù-Jing: Guôtóng; Lâo Zî: xv; Dông Zhòngshu (c.179-c.104): Chunqiu Fánlù xxiii.

xi. Grand Record, TàilùGraham: BPeerenboom: HuángLâo

- ‘Nine Augusts’; ‘Grand Unity’;‘Form-Names’.Lâo Zî: ix, xvii; Héguan Zî: iii, xvi.

xii. A Generation’s Arms, ShìbingGraham: C, ‘disillusionist’Peerenboom: part-HuángLâo

- Suicide of Jù Xin (BC 242)Zhànguó Cè: xiii Qí; Sun Zî: v;Zhuang Zî: ii, viii, xv, xvii, xxiv, xxv, xxxii; Jiâ Yì: ‘Owl Rhapsody’; Shíliù-Jing: Lìmìng, Cheng; Hán Fei Zî: vii, viii. Lâo Zî: lviii; Liè Zî: ii?20

xiii. Complete Knowledge,BèizhìGraham: C ‘Daoist anarchist’Peerenboom: non-HuángLâo

- Mò Zî fragment; Lâo Zî: xxix, lxiv;Zhuang Zî: xxix.

xiv. Arms’ Government, Bingzhèng Graham: ‘rule of man’Peerenboom: non-HuángLâo

Páng Zî, Héguan Zî

Energy and Dynamics (qì, shì)Shíliù-Jing: Bingróng; Guân Zî: xliii; Shangjun Shu: ii.

xv. Study Questions, XuéwènPeerenboom: eclectic

Páng Zî, Héguan Zî

Xún Zî: i.

xvi. A Generation’s Worthies,ShìxiánGraham: militarist; repeat xiiiPeerenboom: non-HuángLâo

Diàoxiang Wáng (r. 244-236),Páng Xuan

Hán Fei Zî: xxi; Lâo Zî: lxxi; xvii.Héguan Zî: iii, xi.

xvii. Heaven’s Expedience, TianquánPeerenboom: part-HuángLâo

- Dipper Constellation c.f. iv, vZhuang Zî: xiv; Shíliù-Jing: Cheng; Guân Zî: v, xlii; Wén Zî: ix.

xviii. Enabling Heaven, Néngtian

- Zhuang Zî: vi; Mèng Zî: ii.

xix. King Wûlíng, Wûlíng WángPeerenboom: part-HuángLâo

Wûlíng Wáng (r. 325-299), Páng Huàn

Against blood-thirsty warSun Zî: i; Guîgû Zî: xiii.Héguan Zî: i, iii.

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5. MotivationHéguan Zî contains one of the longest structured expositions of the world to survive from early China. It ranges over topics as diverse as metaphysics, cosmology, semantics, cognition and perception, morality, dynamics, politics and warfare. It must be asked: what is their motivational driving force? The treatment of these topics in unusual detail, coupled with dire warnings that convey a sense of immediacy and urgency, appears surprising, given the work’s recondite and utopian reputation. I propose that Pheasant Cap Master believed the time was ripe for a reformation that would recreate the utopia of prehistory in the near future.

The key to interpretation of an unknown writing is to ascertain the author’s intent. Knowing this enables a translator, by corresponding application of the principle of sympathy, to discover the alignment of an author’s value judgements and so reach a coherent reading. It is clear from the foregoing that Héguan Zî combines elements that may be called esoteric with those of a more obvious practical nature. This poses the question of purpose.

The winning over of generals from the military family of Zhào to the Master’s thinking, and the interest ascribed to kings, suggests they felt his theories relevant to the crises facing their nation. The most striking features of Pheasant Cap Master, if my reading is correct, is pre-occupation, not with a remote past, but with the imminent future. Strangely, commentators until the present have been intent on interpreting the work soley as an exposition of a mythical past.

The hitherto largely unremarked fact of Pheasant Cap Master’s forward-looking prognostications is easily verified. His work is full of references to knowledge of the future, imminent collapse, fin-de-siècle despair, almost ‘the-end-is-at-hand’. But there is also hope: a messiah-like Complete Ninth, as complement to the primal Five Emperors and Three King dynastic founders, to bring history to a close, by the Mandate of Cicular Flow. Vergil, writing under Augustus, describes the foundation of the Roman empire in terms of cyclical reversion to an Saturnian Age of Gold. Judaic prophecies of the foundation of a New Jerusalem are well known, but the discovery of a ‘War Scroll’, at Qumran by the Dead Sea, shows how real was the expectation in the century after Christ.

Indeed there is nothing exceptional about an ancient obsession with foretelling the future. In China it has been a national obsession from at least the time of the Shang oracle bones, and Zhou millet stalks which entered Confucianism via the Book of Change. Héguan Zî belongs to a separate tradition, distinguished by not referring to Change, but rather to the Dipper constellation, or ‘Waver’ zhaoyáo, whose application to shìpán board divination in the pre-Qín period is attested by archaeology. Sarah Allan has drawn attention to the connection between the Grand Unity tàiyi cult, the Grand Polarity tàijí and the Dipper. She also points out that: “In the Chu cult, the Great One [tàiyi]’s particular function was to protect in warfare.”

Defoort notes its link it to “the polestar as focal point of a concrete pattern of order, an image that is pervasive in the Pheasant Cap Master.”21 This deity figures prominently in Chû Lyrics,

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attributed to Qu Yuán, where the first of Nine Hymns is dedicated to Eastern August Grand Unity. It seems there was also an important shrine to him in Zhào where in BC 305 King Wûlíng of Zhào attacked Zhongshan and captured Huáyáng, the Hengshan Northern Mountain Range shrine of Grand Unity, near Quyáng.22 Grand Unity worship is further related to the myth of the Nine August ones and the Yellow Emperor.

The cult of the Yellow Emperor is first recorded in Guân Zî in relation to Hegemon Duke Huán of Qí (BC 7th century), and evidenced by the great inscribed steles of the ‘Initial August’ Shîhuáng, First Emperor of the Qín dynasty. It is surely no accident that the Yellow Emperor scrolls discovered at Mâwángdui (Húnán) date close to this time. One chapter recounts how the Yellow Emperor restored order by defeating and decapitating the rebel Chiyóu. (Hàn) Simâ Qian (d. c. BC 85) records that Gongsun Qing and other occultist fangshì of Qí advised Hàn ‘Martial’ Emperor Wû (r. BC 140-87) on conducting sacrifical rites on Tàishan and other cardinal mountains. Gongsun Qing affirms: “The lofty of their generation compare in virtue to the Nine Augusts”. Emperor Wû subsequently established shrines in worship of Grand Unity, Tàiyi. That these emperors were attempting to emulate a primeval ‘ancestor’ and his legendary longevity seems undeniable.

Zou Yàn (c. BC 300) at the Jìxià academy of Qí had promoted a theory of dynastic cycles to Five Actions or ‘elements’ which alternately conquered or generated each other. This led Qín to adopt Water as their dynastic sign, to succeed Zhou’s fire. It seems there was a near-universal recognition that Zhou had lost Heaven’s mandate and was about to institute a new order.

Confucius rectification of names called for a restoration of traditional social values, from within the Zhou dynasty’s outmoded feudal heirarchy. His chief critic, Mò Dí (Mò Zî) looked directly to Heaven for the model of a rational meritocracy, in which war and plunder would be replaced by ‘elevation of worthies’ and kings. It is this radical idea, which later found some expression in the public examination system, but not in democratic elections, that inspired in Héguan Zî what Graham described from a Confucian perspective as ‘political heresy’. Héguan Zî’s program for “elevation of worth”, with its criticism of the hereditary principle, an idea rooted in myths of a utopian past when emperors like Yáo and Shùn abdicated to one worthier than themselves.23 Unfortunately the results of abdication, as shown were catastrophic.

6. The ‘Nine Augusts’Like Guân Zî, Héguan Zî rejoices in lists, and organizational schema, both cosmological and socio-political. His vision is of a highly symmetrical, apparently repeating universe. Previous commentators have noted his concern with history, but have failed to realise that this is strongly forward, not backward, looking.

Nine is the key number here, which matches its signifcance in the Change Classic, where it is the supreme male or yáng number, though it does not cite that work. The symbolism of nine as

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ruler is surely reflected also in the ninth chapter of Huaínán Zî: ix Master Technique, translated by Roger Ames as: ‘The Art of Rulership’. ‘Nine’ figures in the present work as the messiah-like future ruler, to complete the historic succession of ‘Nine Augusts’ Jiûhuáng, or particulaly ‘Complete Ninth’ Chéngjiû, written with the auspicious ‘bird’ graph in ix.

Unfortunately, the identity of these nine rulers is not revealed. The Yellow Emperor, extolled by the Huáng-Lâo school, is nowhere mentioned. Nor is the calculation of the Complete Ninth’s ‘eighteen thousand years’ elucidated. If derived from the number nine, it may refer to two periods of nine thousand years, one in the past, the other yet to come. It is a figure greatly in excess of any other seen in pre-Qín history.

It took the correlative Confucian (Hàn) Dông Zhòngshu (c.179-c.104 BC), of (Hébêi) Guângchuan, to explain the term ‘Ninth August’ in terms of honorary titles in ancestral temple ritual. Thus, when a Son of Heaven dies he is honoured as one of the Three Kings, who in time become the Five Emperors, and finally ‘Ninth August’. Zhou honoured Xuanyuán as Yellow Emperor, and his predecessor Divine Farmer as Ninth August.24 In later Hàn, Wáng Chong (27-c.97) in Hénglùn: Yí Hàn praised his ruling dynasty saying: “Auspicious signs responsive to and indicative of Grand Peace were in (Hàn) emperors Xiàomíng and Xiàoxuan’s years double those of the Five Emperors and Three Kings.” Thus they could in this sense each have been said to form a ninth with them.

Héguan Zî: xv. declares the aim or ‘end’ of study is in the ‘Nine Ways’. This presumably means the ways of the Nine Augusts. An eightfold series of Five Emperors and Three Kings is listed in Chapter xii, as in Guân Zî and Dàdài Lîjì. Dông Zhòngshu explains them as including the latest deceased Son of Heaven at the junior end to make the Nine Augusts.25 Yet this is obviously not the interpretation of Héguan Zî. Here rather the series will reach its culmination with the advent of the ‘Grand Superior Complete Ninth’ Tàishàng Chéngjiû whose clan will will reign over the whole world for eighteen thousand years.26

Chapter ix. Royal Axe avers Complete Ninth is ‘illumined in early knowledge’ míng -yú zâoshì. xvii. Heaven’s Expedience admonishes us to know what to expect and anticipate:27

If you search for what you do not know,Seeking its image, you necessarily do not get it.Before appearance there is Form... Preparations are necessarily in advance completed, Cogitations are necessarily early defined.Sûo -sûo -bùzhi, qiú-zhi xiàng-zhê, -zé -bì -fúdé… -Wèixiàn, -ér yôu xíng... Bèi -bì yùjù, lyù -bì zâodìng.

7. ‘The End of History’Pheasant Master believes he has discovered history’s eternal and inexorable dynamic Shì, transcending the transient phenomena, with which the Sage does not concern himself.

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Accordingly, the Sage does not ‘investigate’ things wù: his Dynamic is concentrated in the unity of the Way:

The Sage takes it from Dynamics, and does not search for it by investigation.Dynamics are concentrated and in himself;investigation is dispersed and goes to things. Shèngrén-zhê qû-zhi -yú Shì, -ér -fúsûo -yú chá;Shì-zhê -qí zhuan -ér zàijî-zhê-yê; chá-zhê -qí sàn -ér zhi wù-zhê-yê.

1 Graham 1989: 529; Defoort: 44, 48.2 Shîjì: xliii Zhào Shìjia. Zhànguó Cè: xix 19th year “zhì-zhê dû –yú -wèixíng”, Zhào Cè ii ‘Wûlíng Wáng xiánju’ “zhì-zhê jiàn -yú -wèiméng”.3 Graham 1993: 40.4 Héguan Zî: i ‘Wide Selection’ echoes Zhànguó Cè: xxix. Yàn Cè: Yàn Wáng Kuài jìlì; Yàn Zhaowáng shou pò Yàn-hòu jíwèi: Guo Wêi’scounsel to King Zhao (r. BC 311-279) on the restoration of Yàn following Kuài’s abdication. It has the further line: “An Hegemon with ministers abides”, and places the ‘doomed nation’ with ‘servants’. Cf. Hán Fei xxxv. Graham 1989: 294-296.5 Shîjì: xliii Zhào Shìjia. Zhànguó Cè: xix, Zhào Cè ii ‘Wûlíng Wáng xiánju’ ff; xxxiii Zhongshan Cè: ‘Zhûfù yùfá Zhongshan’.6 Shîjî: xliii Shìjia: Zhào, Wûlíng 19th year. Zhànguó Cè: xix.7 Defoort: 15-16: HòuHàn Shu: zhì: Yúfú-xià 30.3670, tr. Mansvelt Beck, 1990: 252..8 (Hàn) Simâ Qian: Shîjì: xliv Wèi shìjia, Huìwáng 30-nián.9 Defoort: 15.10 Defoort: 36.11 Defoort: 57 takes ‘jù’ punctuation as part of Lù’s commentary; 85 regards Lù’s reading ‘sea-gull lover’ (xiá’ou from Liè Zî: ii) in a discourse on rulership in xi. as doubtful.12 Defoort: 199 ff.13 Defoort: 144 ff.14 Graham 1989b: 5: 18 ‘A’; 522 ‘B’; 527 ‘C’. 15 Peerenboom 1991: 175.16 Peerenboom 1991: 169-170; 185.17 Defoort: 134.18 Graham 1989a: 296 footnote. 19 Graham 1989a: 296 footnote.20 Defoort: 85.21 Allan 2003: 246-253; 277; 273. Defoort: 203.22 (Hàn) Simâ Qian: Shîjì Bênjì Hàn xii Xiàowû ; xxvii Tianguan Shu; xxviii Fengshàn Shu; xliii Zhào: Wûlíng 21-nián. Puett 2002: 160ff ‘The Grand Unity of the Cosmos’. Xún Zî: xii Lùnlî seems to use the expression “return to Grand Unity” in the sense of return to original simplicity.23 Graham 1989a “Two Political Heresies”: 292ff ‘Criticism of hereditary monarchy’. Guân Zî xxvi: Jiè “Humane he is, so he does not make hereditary his kingship; Righteous, so he at seventy he hands over the government (retires).” Xún Zî: xxv 18-27. Lyûshì Chunqiu: lxi Xùyì and Lîjì: ix Lîyùn 7 endorse the concept of Dàtóng, ‘great sharing’ or commonwealth. cf. Allan 1981.24 (Hàn) Dông Zhòngshu: Chunqiu Fánlù: xxiii. San-dài Gâizhì Zhíwén.25 Guân Zî: xxxv Chîmî “So, Documents’ Emperors are eight. Divine Farmer is not among them. Because he had no position, he could be not employed.” Dàdài Lîjì: lxii Wû-dì Dé on antiquity’s five emperors and three kings.26 Héguan Zî: xv. Xuéwèn 8b.27 Héguan Zî: ix. Wángfu 7a; xvii. Tianzé 13a, 14b.

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Reason’s DynamiclîShì is the means to attaining unity. Underlying unity and evidence for a divine plan is deduced from numerical pattern and perceived symmetry in nature and history. Given the grand unity of the universe, the remaining question is simply its divisions. No matter how its parts are arranged their totality will remain the same. The Sage knows their beginning and end. Chapters xi. and xviii. both inform us:28

The Sage Man, after Heaven and Earth, is born, Yet knows Heaven and Earth’s beginning;Before Heaven and Earth dies, Yet knows Heaven and Earth’s end.Shèngrén-zhê, hòu Tiandì, -ér sheng, -ér zhi Tiandì-zhi shî;xian Tiandì, -ér wáng, -ér zhi Tiandì-zhi zhong.

The ideal ruler will recruit men superior to himself as teachers; the worst employ only slaves. Chapter xi announces that worth, not ancestry, is the qualification for kingship. The philosopher will be king:29

So, from the Teacher, make the Son of Heaven; From the next in worth, make the Three Dukes;From the high, make the barons.Exchange surnames to make Kings:Don’t do it by ancestral lineage.Gù, shi wéi Tianzî, cì xián wéi san-gong, gao wéi zhu-hóu. Yìxìng, -ér wéi wáng, -bù -yî zûjí.

By contrast, xiii comes close to advocating revolution when meritocracy is not practised:30

Those generations did not transmit to the worthy,So there was banishment of rulers.-Bî shì -bù chuánxián, -gù yôu fàng jun.

The promotion of worthies was a contentious issue in a feudal world, based on hereditary rights. Shangjun Shu and Hán Fei Zî attack promotion of worthies a threat, linked to the rise of political parties which undermine the absolute authority of the ruler. ‘Worthies’ have a virtue and popularity that make them independent of the ruler. Even Lâo Zî attacks ‘promotion of worthies’ because it causes people to quarrel.31

28 Héguan Zî: xi. Tàilù 22a; xviii. Néngtian 18b-19a.29 Héguan Zî: xi. Tàilù p22b.30 Héguan Zî: xiii. Bèizhi: 6a.31 Hán Fei Zî: xlix. Wû-Dú p56.

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In Héguan Zî: v. like Lyû Clan Spring-Autumns: iii-5. Guân Zî: xxvi., Wén Zî: ix. ideas of abdication in favour of worthies, non-herditary succession, and rulers subject to Law are advocated. 32 With the annexation of conquered kingdoms and the expansion of empire by Qín, the question arose whether to ‘enfief worthies’ fengxián, as urged by Kingdoms’ Precedence in the newly unearthed Mâwángdui scrolls, or incorporate them as districts jùnxiàn into the centralised bureaucracy. Qín chose the latter, while Hàn later attempted a compromise, enfoeffing sons and supporters as ‘Kings’ gradually impelled by disaffections towards centralisation. Jiâ Yì warned Hàn emperors of the danger these ‘Kings’ posed to the Dynamic of imperial unity.

8. ConclusionThe term ‘Daoist’ is first used by Simâ Tán in early Hàn for an adaptive eclectic school which draws on the best of all schools. Subsequently ‘Daoist’ came to be for all indigenous religious cults, i.e. those not overtly Buddhist, and in general often pejoratively for opponents of Scholiast orthodoxy and state Confucianism. In this respect Héguan Zî can be called proto-Daoist, since it shows signs of religious belief but never mentions Confucius or his disciples.

China’s situation in the third century BC invites comparison to that of Greece, shortly before Philip and Alexander of Macedon, when Plato wrote his Republic; or of Renaissance Italy, torn apart by warring city-states and foreign invasion, when Machiavelli wrote Il Principe for a leader, strong enough like the ancient Romans to unite his fractured country. Plato has been called idealist; Machiavelli has become a byword for amorality. Héguan Zî shares their yearning for unity and a just peace, but also a real-politik of practical means to achieving that end that probably made it, like its contemporary and still more ‘machivellian’ Guîgû Zî ‘Demon Valley Master’, a secret book for emperors and kings.

Héguan Zî is not the mere convoluted musings of an other-wordly dreamer, a ‘Daoist’ Diogenes. It is a detailed blueprint of a plan of action, namely a divine imperial take-over of the world by arms, as ordained by a cosmic dynastic cycle. On the other hand, it contains desperate cries for help and active resistance on the eve of destruction by unspeakable Qín whose inhumane methods offend the divine order. Chapter xii may be described as a snap-shot taken in Zhào just before its fall.

32 Héguan Zî: vi. Dàoduan p15bff makes ‘seeking men’ qiúrén the ruler’s priority, urges him to ‘raise up the worthy, use the able’ jûxián, yòngnéng.

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