J. J. M. DE GROOT
Among the numerous methods of divination, which the Chinese have invented, that performed by dissecting written characters may be freely said to be well worthy of special attention. When anyone has recourse to a professor of that art, he is told by this man to take at random a slip of bamboo or a piece of folded paper out of a tube containing several of these, each inscribed with a character. Then, the diviner writes the character drawn on a piece of paper, dissects 1t by writing out separately its different lines and strokes, adds, 1f he thinks fit, a stroke here or a line there, thus making new characters out of the pieces, and finally draws inferences from the same with regard to the question put by the customer. Say, for instance, that the character — <one» is drawn: the professor will then very likely foretell a case of death, as the figure is the last part, the end, of the character Æ «life», and the first of Un «death». Now let us suppose further, that this prediction is not verified by events, and that the man calls on the professor again to demand
an explanation. This wise man may then, perhaps, learn from his
client that he was born in a year, month or day which corresponds with the Ox (one of the twelve animals that, in a fixed series, compose the duodenary cycle by which the almanacs denominate the years, months and days in a perpetual sequence), and exclaim: «If I had known that before, I should have predicted otherwise, for the character 2Æ. «Ox», connected with the one you drew from my tube, makes Æ «life».
Instead of performing their art by means of a store of ready characters, thoroughly studied beforehand in all their component parts, many necromancers of this class operate on any character their customers are pleased to lay before them. Such men are, of course, the wisest of the wise; more than one of them have attained through their position in this respect to high repute, wealth, influence and social standing. It is a rule for customers, who apply to them, to give them characters with a good meaning to dissect. But such characters do not always afford good omens, as the following example shows. À smart client having written down BEN, «abundance, fertility, plenty», the diviner declared he would descend very soon into the grave, because the character represents two trees + upon à hill LU] with sacrificial vessels Ef underneath, in other terms, a grave.
The following amusing legend is widely current among the men of letters in the province of Fuhkien. Once upon a time, the last emperor of the Ming-dynasty ordered a famous necromancer of this class to try his anatomical wits upon the character yu X «friendship». <This predicts that rebellion D'4 will arise», said the sage. «But», exclaimed the emperor, greatly startled by those ill-omened words — «<] mean another yu, vi. # (to have). <This yu>, replied the diviner, «is composed of DAT and H, and represents the Great Ming-dynasty (K Hf) torn into fragments, and in a greatly maïm-
ed and mutilated state». «I do not want this yu either», now said
the quick-witted emperor, «but PE ». «This figure», said the sage, «depicts the high and venerable one (H) without a head, and without anything underneath to support him». At this the sovereign resigned himself. Shortly afterwards he was dethroned by the Tatars, and his dynasty destroyed.
It would be à mistake to suppose that this curious method of divination is by the Chinese considered a mere play. On the contrary, it is cultivated as a most serious art, and omens, obtained from it, are considered not a whit less valuable than those derived from any other branch of necromancy. To understand its position in Chinese society, we should bear in mind the well-stated ethnological fact that spoken words are never clearly distinguished by barbarous and semi-civilized people from the realities which they call to mind. Consequently, it is not at all astonishing to find cleidonomancy, or divination by words fortuitously caught from other people’s lips, as well practised in modern China as it was in ancient Greece, as we had occasion to show in our work on the Yearly Festivals and Customs of the Amoy Chinese, published in the Annales du Musée Guimet, on pages 511 and 512. But written characters call to mind realities as much as spoken words do. Consequently they can, when fortuitously taken from a box or caught from other peoples mind, just as well serve for the purpose of divination.
The practice clearly proves that written signs are in China quite different from mere dead figures. This may account to some extent for the great reverence of which they are the object. It is, indeed, generally known that lettered paper is never carelessly thrown away or trodden upon; that refuse paper and fragments of crockery are carefully collected by societies and private persons for the sole purpose of cleansing and burning the whole assortment and casting
the ashes into the sea or into a river, with a good deal of pomp
and solemnity. Desecration of characters is, in short, a real sin, especially dangerous to the individual who commits it.
In literary language we find the mode of divination, now under our notice, denoted by three different terms: Al +2 «to sound characters», 2 e. to fathom their occult meaning; 4 2 «to dissect, split, break up characters», and %f Æ «to thoroughly examine characters». In the different local languages the practice may, of course, be known by various other terms; in Amoy people call it pok-)1-sù h es BI «to augur from the fatality comprised in written signs» .
In the above-mentioned port the professors of the art are aceustomed to stroll about the streets with a paper lantern, around which slips of paper are pasted with a character written inside; every customer tears off a slip and has it dissected for a few cash. In this way the system is made practicable even for the vast majority of the people, who do not understand in the least the noble art of writing; but, besides, this other great advantage is secured: the wise man thus escapes the difficulty of being called upon to exercise his wits upon characters for which he is unprepared. His colleagues are recruited in the main from the shipwrecked candidates for official degrees in the competitive state-examinations, whose large numbers compose the so-called Literary class of schoolmasters, pettifogsers, soothsayers, geomancers, quackdoctors, etc.
The derivation of omens from dissected characters is in China a custom of very old standing. If we have, indeed, a right to put it on a level with cleidonomancy and to consider, as we have done, both systems as natural outgrowths of one feature common to all uncivilized mankind, its appearance in the very period in which the written language became the common property of the nation is a matter of course, even of necessity. That period may be placed
in the Han-dynasty. And, indeed, it is in the historical books of
that house that we find the practice mentioned for the first time.
Chapter 43 of the Heu-Han-shu 4 Ÿ£ 2 (f° 17 of the Kienlungedition) relates: <Kung-sun Shuh dreamt that somebody said to him: ‘For Jih-szë-tszè-hi the years are twelve’. Starting from his sleep, «he said to his wife: ‘Though this foretells greatness and honour, «the happy years to enjoy it are rather short; do not you think so?’ ‘If, replied the woman, ‘a man hearing of a good thing in the «morning may die without regret in the evening !), how much the «more then may he do so after a dozen years!’.... In the first «year of the Kien-wu-period (A. D. 25), in the fourth month, he «placed himself upon the throne as Son of Heaven»*). And twelve years afterwards he perished on à battle-field, as the same biography also states. The characters Jih-szé-tszè-h À EX - A , which form the nucleus of the story, are the components of À F4 Kung-sun, the surname of our hero.
In chapter 56 of the same historical work ({° 12 of the Kienlungedition) we have another episode of similar kind in a biography of Tshai Meu F< Fe. a contemporary of Kung-sun Shuh. «Soon after «having established himself in Kwang-han, he dreamt that, while «he was sitting in the great hall of his mansion, he perceived «three stalks of grain on the ridge-pole; — he jumped up to seize «them, but only grasped the middle stalk, which thereupon sud- «denly vanished in his hand. When he consulted his Registrar-in- «chief Kwoh-Ho about the matter, this man rose and congratulated
«him, saying: ‘The great hall represents a palace, the ridge-pole
1) À saying attributed to Confucius, and preserved in the Lun-yü, IV, 8.
2) À FR M5 À À 8 CHARXTAR TER Hi. SHHÆH, ME PE WE 9 #7. EST, EN PURE, 2 JE fi MT, A + = Pooo HE Et 1 4 M H & É if XF.
«with grain upon it means the highest emoluments. which pertain «to ministers. You grasped the middle stalk: this intimates that the «middle of the (three) highest dignities in the empire will fall to «your share. The characters grain (6) and to vanish (2F) com- «pose the character ‘official dignity” ( +), and though your «dream makes the grain disappear in your hand, an investiture «with salaried dignities will result from it. If there are any defi- . «ciencies that render you unfit for the ducal dignity, be careful to c«rectify them’ !). Ten months afterwards Meu saw the fulfilment «of this prediction» ?).
We have not been able to find in Chinese books any notices which would show that auguration from dissected characters was practised as a profession before and during the Thang-dynasty. The Poh-mang-so-yen, written about the middle of the tenth century, is, so far as we know, the first work in which professors of that art are dimly alluded to. It relates how a Taoiïst of great age, Tshui Wu-tu #2 HE THE EX by name, and deeply versed in arithmetic, was once called on by a certain Yang Teh-hwui # qi HE, who wished to have his advice with respect to a plan he cherished, namely of travelling to the north, in order to attend a religious festival there. Wu-tu told him to draw characters on the ground; ‘and Teh-hwui drew 1L «north» and Le «thousand», in reference
probably to the thousands whom he expected to flock to the feast.
1) This phrase is quoted from the Shi-king, ode 7 FÆ.
RU REe + REe— RER. Jk DE #5 hf BL XD IN Æ SP EL.
PURE ME DE PA, DK RE 26 EE JE 4 à AE AT K AH 2 EE, x RE 6 LH, K FRERE, a. RE, BE 2 JE HZ. ii 2k FX a
The Taoist combined them into KE «unlucky, untoward», and told his client not to go, which advice was obeyed. Subsequently tidings came that the Taoists had been arrested during the celebration of the ceremonies and had to suffer hardships and miseries of every description !).
As an anatomist of characters nobody ever came up to Shé Shih EN Æ of the Sung-dynasty. He is generally recognized as the patriarch of the art, and even worshipped by the professors as their patron-divinity. By the Yü-kien #5 ff, written in the twelfth century by Shän Tsoh-cheh 1 4Æ LE, we are informed in the 9tb chapter, that he was a native of Shuh #2] or Szè-chwen, whose predictions were all verified afterwards by events. When he had arrived in the then capital of the empire Pien VITE or the present Khai-fung-fu, the emperor Hwui Tsung (A. D. 1101—1125) wrote down the character Hi] «imperial court», and ordered a guest of one of his grandees to take it to Shé Shih for dissection, without telling him, however, that it came from another person. But when the learned man beheld the figure, he prostrated himself before it several times, exclaiming: «This is a character from the asterisms Kwei 4 and Pih Æ£ of the highest heavens, and, consequently, an emblem of the emperor». And thereupon he said: «The character Hi] means the tenth (CE) day (H) of the tenth (Oh) month ( Æ ); this is the emperor’s birthday». — His fame, continues the book, was so great, that he was paid tenthousand pieces of money for every character he analyzed. À certain Tshien Vuen-su £È JC FA asking him to foretell his future from the character Er «to pray, to request», Shé Shih said: «You will be a censor, for the charac-
ter is composed of words ( +) and rebuke (À ) in an unfinished
1) See E 14 ne Fi 5 quoted in the great thesaurus Kin-ku-thu-shu-tsih-chinq,
FF
# ch #5 5 HH ch. 748.
shape». The man was afterwards indeed invested with that high dignity. |
Wonderful performances in the same field are likewise recorded of a certain Cheu Shing Fi] Æ , who lived in the same century. In Hangchow, the capital of Chehkiang-province, a mandarin wrote the character ŸT Hang — the name of the city — down before him for dissection. Cheu-Shing removed the upper point of the second part to the top of the first, and then separated the two halves JU and TÈ. declaring that bad news was in store. Not long afterwards the tidings came that a rebel, Wuh Shuh JL TÈ by name, had made inroads upon the southern parts of the empire !). Another contemporary, not less renowned, was Chang Kiu-wan, DE JU 4. The statesman Tshin Kwei AS *& , ever notorious for the part he played in the struggle of the house of Sung against the Kin-Tatars, is said to have once drawn a single straight line with his fan before him on the floor. The professor, not easily puzzled, augured from it that he would be promoted to a higher dignity. <But I am already highest minister of state and duke, remarked the other, and promotion is therefore impossible for me». À line (=) upon the earth (+) makes king (Æ), replied the
professor; and afterwards Tshin Kwei became indeed a Wang (King) ?).
The above will amply suffice to give a fair idea of the important part which that curious method of foretelling future events has played in Chinese society since the beginning of our era. The most important inference to be drawn from it is, as we said, that
written characters are in China something more than dead figures;
1) Comp. ISA ES É FR , ch. 34, f°. 14. 2) See the ii *E rN AEX Lk quoted in the Kin-ku-thu-shu-tsik ching, he ÿù HE, ch. 748.
they have spirit, life in them, and, as such, are intimately connected with the fate of man, who is so absolutely dependent on everything surrounding him. This fact may explain a number of other curious practices of the people. The custom universally prevails amongst them of writing down characters like M <happiness», TE «salaried offices», — «long life», and other of similar tenor, as well as all sorts of sentences implying good luck and prosperity, on sheets of paper, and of pasting them everywhere in and outside their dwellings, firmly convinced that the good things, represented in that way, will really fall to the share of the inmates. Precious silk coats, embroidered on all sides with the character = «long life» in a great variety of shapes, are presented by dutiful sons to their aged parents, to be worn by them during life for ensuring length of days; after their death they are dressed in it and thus deposed in their graves. The names of two legendary destroyers of evil spirits, Shen-thu Ji} ZÈ and Yuh Lui el a are painted on numerous housedoors to frighten the demons of darkness away; in short, all sorts of characters implying good fortune and enmity to the evil ones are pasted as amulets upon walls in streets and houses and worn on the body. Slips of paper inscribed with such figures are, also, frequently burned, and the ashes taken in tea or water as a medecine. All these customs and many more of the kind have frequently been noticed by travellers and residents in China, but we are not aware that any one has ever suggested to infer from them the important fact, that characters are in China somewhat
more than inanimate combinations of dots and lines.
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