The Construction of Space in Early China

Mark Edwardlewis

Description

This book examines the formation of the Chinese empire through its reorganization and reinterpretation of its basic spatial units: the human body, the household, the city, the region, and the world. The central theme of the book is the way all these forms of ordered space were reshaped by the project of unification and how, at the same time, that unification was constrained and limited by the necessary survival of the units on which it was based. Consequently, as Mark Edward Lewis shows, each level of spatial organization could achieve order and meaning only within an encompassing, superior whole: the body within the household, the household within the lineage and state, the city within the region, and the region within the world empire, while each level still contained within itself the smaller units from which it was formed. The unity that was the empire's highest goal avoided collapse back into the original chaos of nondistinction only by preserving within itself the very divisions on the basis of family or region that it claimed to transcend.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Units of Spatial Order
The Empire and the Reconstruction of Space

1. The Human Body

Discovery of the Body in the Fourth Century b.c.
The Composite Body
Interfaces of the Body
Conclusion

2. The Household

Households as Political Units
Households as Residential Units
Households as Units of Larger Networks
The Household Divided
Household and Tomb
Conclusion

3. Cities and Capitals

The World of the City-States
Cities of the Warring States and Early Empires
Invention of the Imperial Capital
Conclusion

4. Regions and Customs

The Warring States Philosophical Critique of Custom
Custom and Region
Regions and the Great Families
Regional and Local Cults
Rhapsodies on Regions
Conclusion

5. World and Cosmos

Grids and Magic Squares
The Bright Hall and Ruler-Centered Models
Mirrors, Diviner’s Boards, and Other Cosmic Charts
Mountains and World Models
Conclusion

Conclusion

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• East Asian religions
• History of Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791482490
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 14 Mo

Extrait

The Construction of Space in Early China

SUNY series in CP C

Roger T. Ames,editor

THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE

IN EARLY CHINA

Mark Edward Lewis

S t at e U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w Yo r k P r e s s

Published by

SU OF N EW YP, A

© 2006 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Lewis, Mark Edward, 1954– The construction of space in early China / Mark Edward Lewis. p. cm.—(SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6607-8 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-7914-6608-6 (pbk.:alk.paper) 1. Philosophy, Chinese–To 221 B.C. 2. Social groups–China. I. Title. II. Series.

B126.L38 2005 181¢.11—dc22

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Acknowledgments

CONTENTS

Introduction Units of Spatial Order The Empire and the Reconstruction of Space

Chapter One The Human Body Discovery of the Body in the Fourth Century  .  . The Composite Body Interfaces of the Body Conclusion

Chapter Two The Household Households as Political Units Households as Residential Units Households as Units of Larger Networks The Household Divided Household and Tomb Conclusion

Chapter Three Cities and Capitals The World of the City-States Cities of the Warring States and Early Empires Invention of the Imperial Capital Conclusion

vii 1 1 5

13 14 36 61 73

77 78 87 93 104 119 130

135 136 150 169 186

vi

CONTENTS

Chapter Four Regions and Customs The Warring States Philosophical Critique of Custom Custom and Region Regions and the Great Families Regional and Local Cults Rhapsodies on Regions Conclusion

Chapter Five World and Cosmos Grids and Magic Squares The Bright Hall and Ruler-Centered Models Mirrors, Diviner’s Boards, and Other Cosmic Charts Mountains and World Models Conclusion Conclusion Notes

WorksCited

Index

189 192 202 212 229 234 243

245 247 260 273 284 303

307

311

431

471

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My greatest debt is to all the scholars whose research has been incorporated into my own. Their names are listed in the notes and bibliography. I would also like to thank my wife, Kristin Ingrid Fryklund, for all of her work in the preparation of the manuscript.

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INTRODUCTION

U N I T S O F S PAT I A L O R D E R

This book is about the way in which the early Chinese constructed the space they inhabited. Both key terms in the title need explanation. The “space” in question is not the absolute, continuous, empty receptacle of material objects of Newtonian physics, nor Kant’s “form of pure sensible intuition” which is the formal a priori condition for any perception of what is given to the senses 1 as a whole. The notion of “space” here follows Leibniz’s assertion of its rela- tional nature: “I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is. Time is an order of successions. Space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order to things which exist at the same time. . . . I do not say that matter and space are the same thing. I only say, there is no space where there is no matter, and 2 that space in itself is not an absolute reality.” It is the relations between things, relations expressed by such oppositions as inside/outside, center/periphery, or superior/inferior, that defines space. This book examines how this “order of things” evolved in the process of creating a world empire. It studies in the Warring States and early imperial periods the significant units that made up the human world, how they were delimited, and what forms of relations existed between them. As for “construction,” this book examines the units of the human world and their relations as things produced and modified through effort. Cultivat- ing bodies, organizing families, building cities, forming regional networks, and establishing a world empire were allactionsin which the early Chinese imposed order and meaning on their world. Since space in this sense is pro- duced through human actions, it is a useful topic for cross-cultural studies. The manner in which different peoples delimit the units of their world, arrange their locations, represent or rank them, and change them over time 3 has become a major field of anthropological and historical studies. The early Chinese themselves had already developed discourses dealing with the historical construction of ordered human space. These began from the image of a primal state of undifferentiated chaos out of which all objects 1