Muestreo

mind, and politics vis-à-vis the hypothetical and actual crisis of state and society at that time. This departs from previous interpretations of the essay. It also invites reconsideration of Xi Kang’s place in the xuanxue movement. Following Tang Yongtong’s 湯用彤 (1893–1964) infl uential, yet diffi cult and controversial defi nition of xuanxue—with two main currents centering on Wang Bi’s “ontology” of wu 無 (“nothingness”) as the “substance” (benti 本體) of the “ten thousand kinds of things”

(wanwu 萬物) on the one hand,⁵ and Xiang Xiu’s 向秀 (ca. 221–300) and Guo Xiang’s 郭象 (ca. 252–312) emphasis on you 有 (“[there-]being”) and “independent transformation” (duhua 獨化)⁶ on the other—Xi Kang has been relegated to the margins of that tradition. Further, Xi Kang’s belief in the generative forces of heaven (yang) and earth (yin), his strong emphasis on ziran 自然 (“that-which-is-of-itself-what-it-is” or

“self-so”),⁷ his interest in “nurturing life” (yangsheng 養生), immortality, aesthetics, and his alleged antiritualism—as the leader of the iconoclastic

“Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove” (zhulin qixian 竹林七賢)⁸—have been seen as closer to Han cosmology or religious Daoism than to the

“metaphysical” interest of mainstream xuanxue. Finally, Xi Kang is commonly associated with the teaching of “names and principles” (mingli 名理).⁹ This, too, should be reexamined.

Presented in the form of a debate between a “Guest from Qin”

(Qin ke 秦客), who advocates traditional Confucian views of music, and the “Host of Dongye” (Dongye zhuren 東野主人), alias Xi Kang, who refutes them, the SWALL contains perhaps the most insightful analysis of human emotional responses to sound and music written in early medieval China.¹⁰ It anticipates central questions of modern music aesthetics, music psychology, emotion theories, and philosophy of mind. Possibly owing to this fact, the strong sociopolitical message of the work has been largely overlooked. Although it was recognized that the essay deals with more than musical theory or aesthetics,¹¹ it is nonetheless often regarded as a classic on music as an independent art, divorced from morality and politics.¹² It has also been considered in the larger context of nurturing life,¹³ and as a means of philosophical exploration into the Dao beyond the thickets of language.¹⁴ Neverthe-less, it cannot be said that Xi Kang’s contribution to the question of the ideal sage and the emotions as well as his views concerning the

“big questions” of xuanxue—the limits of language, perception, and knowledge, and the metaphysical problems of existence and nature of universals—has been fully acknowledged.

Punning perhaps on He Yan’s thesis that “the sage is without delight or anger, grief or joy” (聖人無喜怒哀樂), the title of Xi Kang’s essay

exploits the etymological and conceptual link between sh_ng 聲 syeng <

*hleŋ, “sound,” and shèng 聖 syengH < *hleŋ-s, “sage.”¹⁵ An in-depth analysis of Xi Kang’s essay strongly suggests a link to the ongoing debate about the emotional makeup of the sage; in other words, it is about not only “sound” but also the “sage’s not having grief and joy.”

Moreover, it reinterprets from a Daoist perspective the set of orthodox concepts and metaphors, which in Confucian thought relates music, mind, the state, and the cosmos to one another.¹⁶ In this transposition, the “sage” (sheng 聖) fi gures as the “harmonious sound” (hesheng 和 聲), and hence as the one who secures free development of all “under-heaven” in accordance with the “ordering principles of ziran” (ziran zhi li 自然之理). Thus defi ned, the “sage” and the “harmonious sound”

become metonymic metaphors of the Dao, mutually completing each other, the one as its embodiment, the other as a blend of its elusive formlessness and namelessness.

In what follows, I begin with a summary of the processes of meta-phorization that underlie the mappings across the domains of music, mind, the state, and the cosmos. Next, I focus on three thematic issues, (1) language, (2) the mind and other minds, and (3) the problem of the one and the many. These issues address indirectly problems of govern-ment, such as deceit in politics through abuse of language, corruption in the recruitment of offi cials, and factionalism. Finally, I consider Xi Kang’s vision of an ordered world, which appears to amalgamate the Confucian vision of music as the art of self-completion with Daoist ziran.¹⁷ Musical perfection, crystallizing in harmony, comes to stand for the idea of an embodiment of ritual and social boundaries so complete that the individual, in effect, is no longer bound by them, but fi nds himself in spontaneous accord with whatever circumstances that may arise.¹⁸

Why Music Matters

Chinese musical thought from an early stage was closely tied to ritual, the individual and collective mind, the state, and the cosmos. Familiar with the arguments of the Confucian canon and other writings, third-century xuanxue thinkers were keenly aware of music’s centrality to these core concerns. In SWALL, the “Guest from Qin” puts forward the traditional, Confucian view of music, very roughly, that it carries the emotions of both the composer and the musician, and imparts these same emotions to the listener to various degrees depending on the listener’s skill or sensitivity. Xi Kang, as the “Host of Dongye,”

argues instead that music does not carry any emotional content and meaning in itself, nor does it cause emotions in others. Rather, music releases emotions that are already present in the listener. Although Xi Kang accepts certain aspects of traditional music theory, a close reading of SWALL shows that he radically challenges some of its key premises, the most fundamental of which is that music is a system of signs, like language, embedded within a network of interconnected sign systems manifested in the yinyang wuxing 陰陽五行 (yin-yang and fi ve phases/

elements) matrix. Xi Kang’s criticism questions the assumed control of the world by “language-and-sign-givers,” who see themselves as being in command. At the heart of his suspicion is the purposeful semanti-zation and metaphorisemanti-zation of music and its concomitant bearings on politics. To appreciate what Xi Kang is trying to do here, it would be helpful to review briefl y the way in which music came to be identifi ed with the state, and how metaphorically music and notes were under-stood as government and government agencies, respectively.

Music is found in every known human culture, past and present. It is incorporated into a vast array of human activities, from religious services to solitary enjoyment. While there are cultural variations, the properties of music are that of sound as perceived in time and processed by people.

So music denotes structured sounds produced directly or indirectly by humans, often varying in pitch, timbre, and rhythm. In Confucian musical thought, “sound” (sheng 聲), “tone” (yin 音), and “music” (yue 樂) signify different stages of refi nement and describe the development of music from nature to culture.¹⁹ The Confucian ideal of music is thoroughly cultural, in both the aesthetic sense of high art and the social sense of a way of life. “Music” in its most advanced form, combining voice, instruments, and dance in a synthesis of the arts, possesses virtue (de 德), and is characterized by a heightened sensitivity to beauty. As music is deemed orderly and pleasant to hear and to see, it was thought to be able to reach and move humans, spirits, and animals alike.²⁰ Most important, in this context, is the assumption of traditional Confucian musical theory that sounds are born in the “human heart (mind)” (renxin 人心).²¹ This establishes a direct link with the “emotions” (qing 情) rooted in the heart (mind) as well.²² Similar to some modern emotion researchers,²³ early Chinese philosophers recognized the presence of emotions not only by observable evidences—e.g., actions, physiological reactions, and people’s statements about them—but also by nonobservable variables, such as subjective emotional experiences, person-environment relationships, and coping and appraisal processes. They recognized, too, the enormous motivational force of the emotions, positive as well as negative, and

knew that emotions presuppose certain sorts of cognitions or have them as their necessary conditions. “Aroused” (“stimulated,” “infl uenced,”

gan 感) by external “things” (“objects,” “entities,” wu 物), the heart (mind) was set in motion. There was the belief that desires and emotions disrupt one’s original tranquil nature. Conceived of as psychophysical energy qi 氣 (“ether,” “pneuma,” “vapor,” “breath,” “air”),²⁴ human beings would waste away their life force if swayed by the myriads of affections. This called for emotion control and restraint, and the sages thus urged moderation. Bridging the “inner” (nei 内) and the “outer”

(wai 外), “breath” in the form of musical sound together with sung poetry became the medium expressive of emotions and states of minds par excellence.²⁵

In the Xunzi 荀子, the metaphorical mapping of music and emotion onto the state and cosmos is particularly well developed. A passage from the “Yue lun” 樂論 (Discourse on Music) chapter makes this explicit:

Music is joy; it is something human feeling certainly cannot avoid.²⁶ Thus, man cannot be without joy, and joy will certainly be expressed in sounds and tones, and take form through movement and rest.

Moreover, it is the way of man that in sounds and tones, movement and rest, [all possible] variations of the path of his nature are fully exhausted. Thus, man cannot be without music, and music cannot be without form. However, if form does not take the proper Dao, then there cannot but be disorder. The former kings disliked such disorder, and thus designed the sounds of the Elegantiae and Hymns to guide [mankind]:²⁷ they made their sounds suffi cient to be joyful without being carried away; made their patterns suffi cient to mark distinctions without seeming to be forced; made their [gestalts in terms of] winding or straight, intricate or simple, fading or full, restraint or advancing suffi cient to stir and set into motion humans’

virtuous hearts (minds), so that depraved and muddy energies would have no place to gain a foothold therein.²⁸ Such was the method of the former kings in establishing their music/joy.

夫樂者，樂也。人情之所必不免也。故人不能無樂，樂則必發於聲音，形於動 靜，而人之道，聲音動靜，性術之變盡是矣。故人不能不樂，樂則不能無形，形 而不為道，則不能無亂。先王惡其亂也，故制雅頌之聲以道之，使其聲足以樂而 不流，使其文足以辨而不諰，使其曲直繁省廉肉節奏，足以感動人之善心，使夫 邪污之氣無由得接焉。是先王立樂之方也。²⁹

Rhetorically effective, Xunzi’s polemic against the Mohist rejection of the Confucian concept of music sets out with a powerful proposition:

“Music is joy.”³⁰ The claim derives its persuasive force from the etymo-logical and conceptual unity suggested by the written character 樂. In Old Chinese, the pronunciation of yuè 樂 ngæwk < *N-lla^wk, “music,”

lè 樂 lak < *lla^wk, “pleasure, to please” (“joy, happiness”), and yào 樂 ngæwH < N-lla^wk-s, “to rejoice,” were quite close. That music ought to be pleasurable seems to be an idea rooted in ancient ritual performance.³¹ The remarkable effects of music are attributed to its morphology, which contains a natural hierarchy that according to this view should exist in society as well. In this hierarchy, all music is based on a prime note, setting the pattern for the other notes. In a political context, the ruler is the prime note, who sets the pattern for his ministers, people, and all human affairs. Musical order implies political order. Conversely, loosing musical order brings about disorder of the state and destruction, as the

“Yue ji” 樂記 (Record of Music) chapter of the Li ji 禮記 notes:

Gong is the ruler;³²shang, the minister; jue, the people, zhi, affairs, yu, things. If these fi ve [notes] are not disorderly, then there are no disarrayed and inharmonious tones. If gong is disorderly, then [music]

is disorganized; the ruler is arrogant. If shang is disorderly, then [the music] is slanted, the ministers are corrupt. If jue is disorderly, then [the music] is depressed, the people are resentful. If zhi is disorderly, then [the music] is grievous, the affairs are overburdening. If yu is disorderly, then [the music] is precarious, the wealth [of the state] is depleted. If these fi ve are all disorderly, and transgress upon each other in turn, this is called dissolute. If it is like this, then the extermination and passing away of the state will occur in no time at all.

宮為君，商為臣，角為民，徵為事，羽為物。五者不亂，則無怗懘之音矣。宮亂則 荒，其君驕。商亂則陂，其官壞。角亂則憂，其民怨。徵亂則哀，其事勤。羽亂則 危，其財匱。五者皆亂，迭相陵，謂之慢。如此，則國之滅亡無日矣。³³

Within this framework, stimuli fi nd constant expressions in specifi c responses, and music/emotion is morally signifi cant; similarly, signs and their meanings in the various domains enjoy a high degree of constancy, a stable relationship governed by yinyang wuxing schemes. Xunzi brings out further the cosmic dimension of this grand edifi ce:

Such are the images (xiang) of [instrumental and vocal] music: the drum [is] vast grandeur; the bell, wholesome fullness; the chime stone, modest control; the large and the small mouth organ, stern harmony;

the guan and the yue fl ute, wild ferocity; the ocarina and chi-fl ute, rising mist; the large zither (se), soothing kindness; the small zither (qin), feminine grace; the singing, clear fulfi llment; and the spirit [i.e.,

the actual though unstated sense or signifi cance] of dance joins with the Dao of Heaven.

聲樂之象：鼓大麗，鐘統實，磬廉制，竽、笙(簫)[肅]和，筦、籥發猛，塤、篪翁 博，瑟易良，琴婦好，歌清盡，舞意天道兼。³⁴

The cosmic dimension of musical instruments makes every performance an eternal testament and tableau of the orderly working of the world under the guidance of the superior man, the sage ruler, who acts like the drum, being the measure-and-rhythm giving conductor of the “cosmic orchestra” which follows along the course he steers:

The drum: is it not the lord of music? Thus, then the drum resembles heaven; the bell resembles earth; the chime stone resembles water; the large and small mouth organ, the guan fl ute and yue fl ute resemble the stars, comets, sun, and moon; the pellet drum and zhu instrument, the leathern chaff drum and ge sounding box, the qiang tambourine and qia sounding box resemble the ten thousand kinds of things.

鼓，其樂之君邪。故鼓似天，鐘似地，磬似水，竽、笙、筦、籥似星辰日月，鞀、

柷、拊、鞷、椌、楬似萬物。³⁵

Thus, true music and its performance, as understood by Xunzi and other Confucian thinkers, are symbols of social and political theory and action. Musical performance refl ects the workings of the cosmos and thus the Dao. The example of the body politic metaphorically signifi ed through the cosmic ballet as the highest elaboration of music alerts us to the fact that the ultimate “meaning and signifi cance” or “idea” (yi 意) of the corporal, moral-emotional artifi ce came to confl ate with the Dao.³⁶ It is by focusing on the micropolitics of music and in particular on the empathic dimensions of intercorporeality surrounding virtuosity that the aesthetic, the political, and the affective are interwoven with the ways in which knowledge associated with society and the state is acquired, transferred, and negotiated. Music, properly devised and controlled by the sage, both represents and expresses the order of the whole and its parts. Its operation and function may be summarized in fi ve major points:

1. Music is suffi cient to “lead along the single Dao” (shuai yi dao 率一 道).³⁷

2. Music creates “great uniformity” (da qi 大齊) and is the “guiding line of equilibrium and harmony” (zhonghe zhi ji 中和之紀).³⁸

3. In music and ritual the Dao of the former kings (xianwang zhi dao 先王之道), synonymous with the sages rulers, fi nds its highest crystallization.³⁹

4. Music “improves the people’s hearts (minds)” (shan minxin 善民心).

It “moves their airs and changes their customs” (yifeng yisu 移風易 俗).⁴⁰

5. Music is controlled by the former kings and translates their frame of mind as an extramusical model into musical “language.”⁴¹

In SWALL, these propositions are generally accepted, with one impor-tant restriction: music is preeminently nonrepresentative. It takes ziran as its essence and pure tonal and dynamic structures without scene, object, or fact. Its being “good” (shan 善) or “bad” (bu shan 不善) rests with that.⁴²

Harmony: Music and Universal Order

Through the integration in a tight-knit network of correlations and signifi cations, intrinsic morphological features of music were projected, by analogy, onto the sociopolitical and moral-emotional realms.

Specifi cally, Xi Kang draws heavily on “harmony” (he 和) as a central descriptive and explanatory concept in delineating key aspects of his thinking. Harmony was a major concern in Warring States thought, politically, morally, and aesthetically. In the Confucian tradition, harmony is recognized as unity in variety and social hierarchy.⁴³ The idea reaches full expression in the dyadic concept of “ritual and music”

(li yue 禮樂).⁴⁴ Ritual is the “order of heaven and earth” (天地之序) and the “differentiation” (bie 別) of the myriad things, whereas music is “ultimate harmony” (jihe 極和)⁴⁵ and has “transformative” (hua 化) power.⁴⁶ While ritual “separates” (yi 異), music “unites” (tong 同).⁴⁷

In Xi Kang, harmony comes as a noun, verb, adjective, and is found in collocations.⁴⁸ Most conspicuous is the term harmonious sound (hesheng 和聲).⁴⁹ The compound occurs possibly fi rst in the Zuo zhuan 左傳 and Guoyu 國語. In both cases a Zhou king is instructed to promote music that fi ts the standard measures and is “harmonious,”

properly balancing small and large notes: “Therefore, the harmonious sound enters the ear and is stored in the heart (mind); when the heart (mind) becomes aware of it, then there is joy” (故和聲入於耳，而藏 於心，心億則樂).⁵⁰ Apart from a proportionate balancing of diverse parameters, and implying a numerical regularity which lies at the basis of such proportionate balancing, in this passage harmony is seen to have a signifi cant positive effect on the mind and body, and a decidedly political fl avor, projecting music on the king’s personal body and the body politic.

Xi Kang’s harmonious sound, however, is a higher-order concept, as we shall see shortly in connection with the problem of the one and the many. At this point, suffi ce it to say that by introducing the notion of

Xi Kang’s harmonious sound, however, is a higher-order concept, as we shall see shortly in connection with the problem of the one and the many. At this point, suffi ce it to say that by introducing the notion of