Writers in the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) apparently experienced writing in weaving terms. Such an imaginaire of writing as weaving was probably fully manifested in the first or second century BCE and crystallized in the coining of literary terminologies such as classics (jing), weft-writings (weishu), and literature/texts (wen). Situating the Huainanzi and its intertextual writing practice within this imaginaire enables us to reassess both the Huainanzi's widespread dismissal as a miscellaneous, encyclopedic behemoth in the first half of the twentieth century and its reappreciation over the last few decades. According to the Huainanzi's self-depictions, Liu An and his erudite courtiers apparently created the scripture in such an intertextual way in order to textually mimic the process of weaving. Since the Huainanzi commonly associates weaving with the Way's connective powers, the text's extraordinary design might be the result of a literary attempt to create an efficacious, textual artifact that embodies the Way by incorporating the act of weaving in its textual design.
Thus far, the study of early China and its texts is dominated by originalist approaches that try to excavate the authentic meaning of the classics. In this article, I promote the idea that a shift in focus from the intentions of the authors to the readers’ concrete responses could meaningfully accompany our research on the classics’ “original” meaning. Beyond merely illuminating the cultural and intellectual environments in which the various receptions were produced, such research on the classics’ myriad interpretations could also serve as a postcolonial catalyst, helping us identify field-specific trends and reading strategies that, often unnoticed, impact our understandings of early Chinese texts. In other words, reception history would not only give us insights into the history of early Chinese classics and the variegated worlds they inhabited. It would also help us illuminate and reflect upon the ways we researchers shape and preconfigure our visions of premodern China and its texts.
Thus far, scholarship on early China has mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology. I showcase in this article a methodology called metaphorology that enables us to analyze how discourses developed through the reworking of images. In particular, I reconstruct a discourse on governance and self-cultivational practices as enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter and Huainanzi 9.13. While Mengzi 3A.4 purports that the cultivation of agricultural fields and human bodies are necessary steps in the civilizational process, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter demands a decultivation of the human population and a return to the wilderness. In my reading, Huainanzi 9.13, from the “Arts of Rulership” chapter, amalgamates these two image-based debates with the help of the metaphors of the ruler as an overgrown courtyard and the officials as tilled fields. Hence, I propose that Huainanzi 9.13 creates its integrative vision of governance that promotes both education and decultivation by synthesizing the “Mati” chapter's focus on wilderness and Mengzi 3A.4's concerns with tilling. As a result, I encourage us to engage fully in imagery's role as a central and foundational aspect of early Chinese debate culture rather than a rhetorical side effect of its various discourses.
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