Introduction
The *Wu ze you xing tu 物則有形圖Footnote 1 (Chart on things having forms)Footnote 2 is a silk manuscript that was discovered in Mawangdui Tomb 3 (Changsha 長沙, Hunan 湖南), which probably belonged to the Western Han 西漢 (202 b.c.e.–9 c.e.) nobleman Li Xi 利豨 (d. 168 b.c.e.).Footnote 3 Li Xi was likely in his early thirties when he died,Footnote 4 and a significant cache of manuscripts, most made of silk but some made of bamboo and/or wood, was found stored inside an unornamented black lacquer case in the eastern compartment of the outer coffin of his tomb.Footnote 5
The *Wu ze you xing tu has received remarkably little scholarly attention since it was first cataloged in print in 2004.Footnote 6 Chen Songchang's 陳松長 was the first study of the manuscript, published in 2006,Footnote 7 and subsequent publications include two essays by Cao Feng 曹鋒 published in 2008 and 2010 respectively,Footnote 8 and a 2012 article by Dong Shan 董珊.Footnote 9 The 2013 publication of Huang Ru-xuan's 黃儒宣 2010 National Taiwan University Ph.D. dissertation also contains a brief treatment of the manuscript.Footnote 10 Full color photographs (Figure 1) and a black and white drawing (Figure 2) of the manuscript, as well as an introduction and annotated transcriptions of its contents, were published as part of the seven-volume publication of the Mawangdui manuscript materials in 2014.Footnote 11 Unfortunately, no studies of this remarkable document are available in English, and the present article aims to fill this lacuna by providing a description of its codicological features, transcriptions and translations of its contents, a consideration of its philosophical context, and a thoroughgoing analysis of its design. In the process, I show that the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was not merely a convenient surface or carrier for recording an important philosophical text but a material artifact in its own right,Footnote 12 one that immersed its readers and users in the cosmological logic of Western Han thought by facilitating multisensory engagement with the patterns and structures of the cosmos,Footnote 13 guiding them in their cultivation of the sensitivity required to perceive patterns and manipulate signs correctly.Footnote 14
Figure 1 Photograph of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript (Jicheng, vol. 1, 167).
Figure 2 Drawing of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript (Dong Shan, “Mawangdui boshu ‘Wu ze you xing’ tu yu Daojia yingwu xueshuo,” 40).
Codicological Features
The two-tier case in which the manuscript was stored inside the coffin is rectangular in shape, measuring roughly 59.8 cm in length, 36.8 cm in width, and 21.2 cm in height.Footnote 15 The upper tier of the case contained some silk ribbons and a bundle of silk textiles, while the bottom tier was divided into five compartments: a long, narrow “through compartment” (tongge 通格) that runs the entire length of the case, and four shorter, wider compartments of different dimensions.Footnote 16 Some of the medical manuscripts made of bamboo and wood, as well as three silk manuscripts, had been rolled for storage inside this through compartment. The rest of the silk manuscripts, including the *Wu ze you xing tu, were found folded and stacked inside the largest of the case's compartments.Footnote 17 This compartment having taken on water, the manuscripts in the stack had become wet and compacted, forming a sort of “muddy brick” (nizhuan 泥磚).Footnote 18
The most recent reconstruction of the manuscript was completed by Chen Songchang and Chen Jian 陳劍.Footnote 19 Although the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript is fairly badly damaged (particularly on its left-hand side), with significant portions of text now missing, enough remains to make the layout of its contents relatively clear. The manuscript originally measured approximately 24 cm square and had been folded in half once before it was placed inside the case,Footnote 20 producing ink imprints (yinwen 印文) of some of the characters on the bottom half of the manuscript on the top half of the silk. In addition, the bottom half of the manuscript also contains imprinted characters (around eleven columns in total) from the second *Wushi'er bingfang 五十二病方 (Recipes for fifty-two ailments) silk manuscript.Footnote 21 As currently oriented, the imprints from the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript are visible beginning in the lower right of the manuscript, extending in vertical columns that run parallel to the manuscript's bottom edge into the lower left of the manuscript.Footnote 22
The portions of text from the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript that have been imprinted onto the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript belong to a section of silk that was on the outside of the manuscript after it was folded for storage. The fact that the orientations of these imprinted graphs have not been reversed or flipped on the surface of the silk means they can only have been formed by the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript being placed on top of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript, with the ink seeping from the outward-facing section of text on the *Wushi'er bingfang through the verso side of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript and onto the recto side.Footnote 23 If the published orientation of the *Wu ze you xing tu is correct, then it was evidently rotated at some point before it was placed inside the case, since the imprints from the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript are oriented perpendicular to the vertical axis of the *Wu ze you xing tu. Chen Jian states that either the *Wu ze you xing tu was first folded from top to bottom and then rotated counterclockwise 90 degrees before it was stored inside the case, with the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript placed on top of it, or the manuscript was folded from left to right after it was rotated.Footnote 24
Of course, it is also possible that the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript and not the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was rotated 90 degrees before it was placed inside the case, thereby creating perpendicular imprints from the *Wushi'er bingfang on the surface of the silk of the lower section of the *Wu ze you xing tu. However, given that the writing on the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript was done in twin-facing sets of vertical columns,Footnote 25 it is far more likely (again, if the published orientation of the manuscript is correct) that the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was rotated before it was placed inside the case. Alternatively, it is possible that whoever folded the manuscript did not consider the published orientation of the manuscript to be the correct one, and simply took the manuscript (which was orientated 90 degrees counterclockwise relative to its published orientation), folded it from left to right, and placed it inside the case.Footnote 26 Indeed, it is possible that because of its design the *Wu ze you xing tu was never intended to be read following a fixed orientation.Footnote 27 Unfortunately, we do not know which manuscripts (if any) were stored on top of or underneath these two manuscripts, only that the *Wushi'er bingfang manuscript seems to have been placed directly on top of the *Wu ze you xing tu. Efforts to reconstruct precisely the way in which the *Wu ze you xing tu was placed inside the case are frustrated by the fact that no reliable records exist of the procedures by which leaves of silk were removed from the muddy, fused stack of manuscripts after it was excavated.Footnote 28
Chen Jian further notes that the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript, like the *Muren zhan 木人占 (Divination using wooden figurines) and *Jiu zhu tu 九主圖 (Chart on the nine rulers) manuscripts (see below), seems to have fragmented along old crease lines that pre-existed those formed when the manuscript was folded for storage inside the case. It seems that the manuscript was originally folded twice from top to bottom before it was folded a further two times from left to right, with the crease lines thereby produced leading to the manuscript's disintegration into sixteen principal fragments.Footnote 29 This would seem to suggest that at least some of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts were routinely folded when not in use above ground. Furthermore, the fact that when folded in this manner the manuscript would have measured just 6 cm square may suggest that it was sometimes stored or carried inside a small space. Certainly, the fact that the central layer of text on the manuscript measures just a few inches wide suggests that the document was not intended for display purposes but to be seen and examined up-close.
The writing on the manuscript was done in black ink in what appears to be an early form of the Han clerical (Hanli 漢隸) script style, with the text displayed in three layers. In the very center of the manuscript is a cluster of text almost entirely intact, with the graphs arranged in a dense spiral. This section of text has to be read starting in the center and proceeding outwards in a clockwise direction. Three characters out of what was almost certainly originally a four-character phrase are arranged at the cardinal points around this central spiral of text. Together, these two sections constitute the first, innermost layer of text. The second layer of text must also be read following a clockwise direction, though roughly half its contents (on the left-hand side) are missing. This portion of text is arranged in a circle around the outside of a ring drawn in blue-green (qing 青) ink that surrounds the first layer of text. The orientation of the graphs is such that the text curves around the outside of the ring. The third and outermost layer of text is displayed within the borders of a square drawn in red ink, with the square surrounding the spiral within a ring.Footnote 30 This square section of text must also be read in a clockwise direction, though it is very badly damaged, and the graphs are displayed such that their vertical axis runs parallel to the lines of the square.
Annotated Translation
As previously stated, the first layer of text on the *Wu ze you xing tu is located at the very center of the manuscript, and the first portion of the text in this layer is arranged in a tightly packed spiral formation that reads as follows:Footnote 31
§ 1 應於淦 (感)，Footnote 32 行於
(誰 = 推)，Footnote 33心之李 (理)Footnote 34 也。 不Footnote 35淦 (感) 无𤻮 (應)， 
(誰 = 推) 无不行。 淦 (感) 至Footnote 36而𤻮 (應)和，非有入Footnote 37也；蔡 (察)Footnote 38 解Footnote 39而忘，Footnote 40 非有外也。
Responding when stimulated, proceeding when pushed, this is the patterning of the heart. Unstimulated, there is no response; when pushed it never fails to proceed. When stimulation arrives and the response harmonizes it is not a case of bringing something inside. Investigating, understanding, and then forgetting, it is not a case of putting something outside.
As previously stated, the second section of the first layer of text takes the form of three graphs (originally surely four) oriented in the cardinal positions around the outside of this central text spiral: “Unstimulated, there is no response” □ (不)Footnote 41 淦 (感) 无𤻮 (應).Footnote 42 Indeed, the fact that this four-character phrase from the central spiral of text is repeated around the outside of the spiral suggests that it may represent the core philosophical message of the manuscript, or at least of this layer of text.Footnote 43
In addition to providing transcriptions and interpretations of the three layers of text on the *Wu ze you xing tu, Chen Songchang, Cao Feng, and Dong Shan have all noticed similarities between the ideas and terminology deployed in the text of the manuscript and the language and philosophical discourse explored in texts from the late Warring States 戰國 (c. 475–221 b.c.e.) and Qin-Han 秦漢 (221 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) eras.Footnote 44 Texts that include similar statements to those found in the central layer of text, which is primarily concerned with responses (ying 應) to external stimuli (gan 感), as well as how to act or proceed (xing 行) when pushed (tui 推), include the “Keyi” 刻意 (Ingrained ideas) chapter of the Zhuangzi, which describes how a sage (shengren 聖人) “responds only when stimulated, moves only when compelled, and rises only when he has no alternative” 感而後應, 迫而後動, 不得已而後起.Footnote 45 Similarly, the “Yuandao” 原道 (Primacy of the way) chapter of the Huainanzi states that a person acting in accordance with the “great dao” (dadao 大道) “responds only when compelled and moves only when stimulated; he is limitlessly faint and profound and changes without form or image. Leisurely, carefree, and fully flexible, he is like an echo responding to objects in the world” 迫則能應, 感則能動, 物 (沕 ?) 穆無窮, 變無形像, 優游委縱, 如響之與景.Footnote 46 The “Jingshen” 精神 (Quintessential spirit) chapter of the same text goes on to describe how the “true man” (zhenren 真人) “responds only when stimulated, moves only when compelled, and advances only when he has no alternative. Like the illumination of light and the shadow cast by objects, he takes the dao as his model and acts only in response” 感而應, 迫而動, 不得已而往, 如光之耀, 如景之放 (效 ?), 以道為紃, 有待而然.Footnote 47 Finally, the “Ziran” 自然 (Spontaneity) chapter of the Wenzi quotes Laozi 老子 (Master Lao) as saying that “what is meant by no forced action is not that one does not come when pulled, or does not depart when pushed, or that one does not respond when compelled or not move when stimulated, being blocked up without flowing or curling up without spreading out” 所謂無為者, 非謂其引之不來, 推之不去, 迫而不應, 感而不動, 堅滯而不流, 卷握而不散.Footnote 48
The central layer of text on the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript, then, participates in a philosophical discourse that has also been preserved in other texts from the same era, including some of those from Mawangdui.Footnote 49 Action, according to these texts, should not be forced or contrived but must follow naturally and spontaneously from a person's encounters with the world. Acting in this way, in concert with the vicissitudes of the world rather than against its grain, is, according to the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript, the way in which one's heart is patterned or ordered (li 理).
The second layer of text on the manuscript is wrapped around the outside of the blue-green ring that surrounds the spiral at the center of the manuscript, and reads:
§ 2 終日言.，Footnote 50 不為言.， 終日不言.，不 □ [為]Footnote 51 无言.， □ 有 □., 必 □ □ □ □ □ □ 惰 □ 故 □ □ □ □ □ □ □ 廣言 [.?]。
Speaking all day is not speaking. Not speaking all day is not being speechless. … has … Necessarily … idleness … for this reason … expands speech.
One need not look far to identify texts that espouse similar views to those expressed in this second layer of text. Though it is rather badly damaged, we can tell from the surviving fragments that it addresses the issue of what constitutes proper and effective speech (yan 言), and the idea that a person can communicate successfully without using words—“speaking without speaking”—is a familiar refrain in certain corners of the received philosophical literature from the period. The Daode jing 道德經, for example, claims that “the sage manages affairs without engaging in forced action, and conveys his teachings without speaking” 聖人處無為之事, 行不言之教,Footnote 52 stating that “the edification of not speaking and the benefit of unforced action, there are few in the world who attain to these” 不言之教, 無為之益, 天下希及之.Footnote 53 Indeed, in the Daode jing we are told that “one who knows does not speak, and one who speaks does not know” 知者不言, 言者不知,Footnote 54 with the text going on to say that “it is the Way of Heaven to obtain victory without contending, to respond without speaking, and to have things come on their own without being summoned” 天之道, 不爭而善勝, 不言而善應, 不召而自來.Footnote 55 In a similar vein, the “Zhi bei you” 知北遊 (Knowledge rambling in the north) chapter of the Zhuangzi puts is succinctly when it says that “ultimate speech does away with speech, ultimate action does away with [forced] action” 至言去言, 至為去為,Footnote 56 and the “Yuyan” 寓言 (Lodged sayings) chapter of the same text famously states that “not speaking is evenness. Evenness and speech are uneven, and speech and evenness are uneven. For this reason, we say ‘do not speak.’ Speak without speaking. One may speak one's whole life without ever speaking, and one may be speechless one's whole life but never not speaking” 不言則齊, 齊與言不齊, 言與齊不齊也, 故曰無言. 言無言, 終身言, 未嘗言; 終身不言, 未嘗不言.Footnote 57
The first “Xinshu” chapter of the Guanzi also extols the merits of speechless speech, contending that “speaking without speaking is responding” 不言之言, 應也,Footnote 58 and, in a memorable turn of phrase, the second “Xinshu” chapter has it that “speech that is not spoken is heard louder than a thunderclap” 不言之言, 聞於雷鼓.Footnote 59 In addition, the “Miucheng”Footnote 60 chapter of the Huainanzi says “for this reason the use of speech is manifestly insignificant, whereas the use of non-speech is vastly significant” 故言之用者, 昭昭乎小哉. 不言之用者, 曠曠乎大哉.Footnote 61
Despite the fragmentary condition of this portion of the manuscript, then, the text appears to say that there are ways of communicating or speaking (yan) that are both more appropriate and effective than conventional speech (also yan), and a similar distrust for certain kinds of inauthentic speech is recorded in numerous philosophical texts—both transmitted and excavated—from the period.Footnote 62
The third, outermost layer of text is written around the outside of the red square that surrounds the first two layers of text on the manuscript, and reads:
§ 3 物則有刑 (形) -，Footnote 63 物則有名 -，物則有言 = (言) 則可言 = (言) 有 □ [所?] □ □ □ □ □ [自?] = (自?) 明Footnote 64 - □ □ □ □ □ 當分 = (分)Footnote 65 誅 (謀?) □ 以智 □ □ □ □ 以智□ □ □ □ 員 (實?) □ 所歸。
Things have forms; things have names; things have [ways of being put into] speech. Having [ways of being put into] speech, it is possible to speak about them [i.e. things]. Speech has … illuminating … match allotments, allotments conspire [?] … in order to know … in order to know … to where [substance?] … returns.
The third layer of text on the manuscript, which is concerned with the proper relationships between things (wu 物), forms (xing 形), names (ming 名), and speech (yan), similarly participates in a philosophical discourse that was apparently widespread during this period. Just as, according to the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu, phenomenal things in the world naturally have their own forms and thus their own names and ways of speaking about them, the Jingfa 經法 (Constancy of laws) text on the *Laozi B 老子乙本 manuscript from Mawangdui has it that “things create [their own] names, names and forms become fixed, and things spontaneously become corrected” 物則為名, 名形已定, 物自為正.Footnote 66 The same text also advocates examining names (ming) to ensure that their use is in accordance with their “order” or “pattern” (li 理).Footnote 67 According to this text, “if names and their referents are in harmony then there will be stability; if names and their referents are not in harmony then there will be conflict” 名實{不}相應則定, 名實不相應則靜 (= 爭).Footnote 68 The Cheng 稱 (Designations) text, also on the *Laozi B manuscript, similarly states that things (wu) are preceded by their forms (xing), thereby making it necessary to engage with things according to their proper forms and names.Footnote 69 And the Hengxian 恆先 (The primordial state of constancy) manuscript from the looted Shanghai Museum corpus also expresses a concern for the origins of names (ming) and speech (yan).Footnote 70
Similar statements regarding the relationships between things, forms, and names can also be found in the transmitted literature from the period. The first “Xinshu” chapter of the Guanzi, for example, states that “things have fixed forms, and forms have fixed names. [He who] matches names is called a sage. For this reason, it is necessary to understand how to engage in not speaking and unforced action. Only then can one understand the regulation of the dao” 物固有形, 形固有名, 名當謂之聖人. 故必知不言, 無為之事, 然後知道之紀.Footnote 71 The same chapter also goes on to say that “names are the means by which sages regulate things” 名者, 聖人之所以紀物也.Footnote 72 Similarly, the second “Xinshu” chapter states that “All things come bearing names, when sages make decisions based on these [names] all under Heaven is brought to order” 凡物載名而來, 聖人因而財 (裁) 之, 而天下治,Footnote 73 and the “Baixin” 白心 (Purifying the heart) chapter of the same text says “Therefore the sage achieves order by quieting his body and waiting; when things arrive he names them and automatically brings order to them” 是以聖人之治也, 靜身以待之, 物之而名自治之.Footnote 74
Despite the serious damage to this portion of the manuscript, then, at least part of its basic message is relatively clear. All things (wu) have corresponding forms (xing), names (ming), and ways of talking (yan) about them, and it is important to understand the ways in which these elements are properly matched (dang 當).Footnote 75 Certainly, the dangerous consequences resulting from discrepancies between names and their referents was a major theme in the philosophy that survives from this period, and it was widely believed that inappropriate uses of names and disingenuous speech could do serious damage to the social and political order.Footnote 76
To sum up: the three layers of text on the manuscript represent an integrated philosophical statement regarding the heart's responses to stimuli and the relationships between things, forms, and spoken words. The text enjoins the reader to proceed in response to the world, rather than acting aggressively or assertively and thus in opposition to it. The heart is patterned (or ordered) in such a way that it responds harmoniously to phenomenal stimuli, reacting naturally in ways that preclude conflict with the world outside. Spoken words are effective means of communication only insofar as they match the names and forms that are naturally proper to things themselves, and one would sometimes do just as well not to say anything at all. Similar philosophical statements can be found in received and excavated texts that date to roughly the same period, and there is a particular resonance between the text on the manuscript and the ganying 感應 (stimulus and response) philosophy of the Huainanzi.Footnote 77 Indeed, the similarities between the two texts may suggest that the *Wu ze you xing tu was likewise designed to benefit an aspiring political leader.
Iconography and Design
Having established the basic meaning of the surviving portions of text on the silk, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between the textual content and the manuscript's design. There was a longstanding tradition prior to the manufacture of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript of written documents designed (either in whole or in part) as “diagrams” or “charts” (tu 圖) featuring non-linear writing, with such documents designed to inculcate correctly calibrated modes of perception in those exposed to them.Footnote 78 Francesca Bray has argued that what distinguished tu documents from other non-linguistic forms of representation and communication such as hua 畫 (drawings or paintings) and xiang 象 (images or figures) was that tu was “a specialist term denoting only those graphic images or layouts which encoded technical knowledge” and served as “templates for action.”Footnote 79 According to Bray, tu was a functional category rather than a stylistic one, comprising manuscripts that offered “spatial encodings (often but not necessarily two-dimensional) of factual information, structures, processes, and relationships, translating temporal or intellectual sequences into purely spatial terms” with the aim of moving the reader or viewer of the manuscript to higher levels of understanding and action.Footnote 80 Indeed, Bray argues that the three effects of tu manuscripts were “communicative (displaying information), pedagogical (inculcating understanding), and/or transformative (effecting cosmic or other changes through the very act of inscription).”Footnote 81
I fully agree that certain texts in the tu format were designed not just to reflect or embody the way the world was configured, but also to engineer and facilitate correct modes of perceiving it. Indeed, the widespread use of tu documents and other non- or extra-linguistic systems of representation and communication reflects the fact that in late Warring States and Early Imperial China writing was not always considered capable of fully capturing or communicating the totality of the world, or the true nature of the phenomena within it.Footnote 82 It is partly for this reason that a number of the texts and diagrams discovered at Mawangdui make use of writing as patterned image, with non-linear text arranged into iconographic shapes and displayed in cosmologically charged colors. In contrast to the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript, however, which makes use of such design elements in order to immerse its readers in its own philosophical and cosmological logic, in each of these other cases the patterned writing was primarily intended to facilitate access to practical information or technical knowledge, allowing the readers of these texts to manipulate data so as to carry out divinatory procedures and visualize ritual prescriptions.
Other non-linear texts from Mawangdui that have been assigned to the tu category include the *Taiyin xingde dayou tu 太陰刑德大游圖 (Chart on the greater journey of Taiyin and punishment and virtue) on the *Xingde A 刑德甲 (Punishment and Virtue, manuscript A) and *Xingde B 刑德乙 (Punishment and virtue, manuscript B) manuscripts;Footnote 83 the *Xingde xiaoyou tu 刑德小游圖 (Chart on the lesser journey of punishment and virtue), also known as the *Jiugong tu 九宮圖 (Chart on the nine palaces), on the *Xingde A, *Xingde B, *Xingde C 刑德丙 (Punishment and virtue, manuscript C) and *Yinyang wuxing B 陰陽五行乙 (Yin and Yang and the Five Phases, manuscript B) manuscripts;Footnote 84 the Nanfang Yu cang 南方禹臧 [= 藏] (Burial according to the principles of yu in the south) on the Taichan shu 胎產書 (Book of the generation of the fetus) manuscript;Footnote 85 and the *Sangfu tu 喪服圖 (Diagram on mourning vestments).Footnote 86 All of these texts and manuscripts contain iconographic elements designed to represent cosmic structures and relationships and inculcate cosmically mandated modes of perception;Footnote 87 however, in each case the use of non-linear writing is predominantly functional, intended to facilitate the application or memorization of technical knowledge and information. Unlike these documents, the design of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was not intended to make its contents easier to read or consult. Instead, the manuscript was designed in such a way as to reinforce the philosophical message of the text it was used to carry, forcing its viewers, readers, and users to move their eyes and bodies in certain ways, immersing them in the philosophical logic and cosmological patterns presented on the surface of the silk.
The cosmological iconography of the *Wu ze you xing tu, with its presentation of text accompanied by a blue-green ring inside a red square, would have been instantly recognizable to all Western Han elites as a visual representation of Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth are described as round and square respectively in many texts that date to roughly this period,Footnote 88 including the “Yuejian” 説劍 (Delight in sword-fighting) chapter of the Zhuangzi,Footnote 89 the “Yuando” 圜道 (Cyclic way) and “Xuyi” 序意 (Postscript, also known as the “Xushuo” 序說) chapters of the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋,Footnote 90 the “Tianwen” and “Binglüe” 兵略 (Overview of military affairs) chapters of the Huainanzi,Footnote 91 and, most famously, the first volume of the Zhoubi suanjing 周髀算經 (Gnomon of the Zhou Dynasty and classic of calculation), which not only mentions “a round Heaven and a square Earth” (tian yuan di fang 天圓地方) but also describes “Heaven as blue and black, and the Earth as yellow and red” (tian qing hei, di huang chi 天青黑，地黃赤).Footnote 92 Indeed, these descriptions are corroborated by the *Quegu shiqi 卻穀食氣 (Eliminating grain and eating vapor) medical text from Mawangdui, which contains a fragmentary passage that seems to say “what is round is Heaven, what is square is Earth” (yuanzhe tian ye, fangzhe, di ye 圓者天也，方者地也).Footnote 93
While the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript and certain elements of its iconography appear rather conventional when viewed in historical context, then, the way written graphs are incorporated into its design is rather unconventional. Though many documents produced before, during, and after the manufacture of this manuscript made use of non-linear text as part of their design, no surviving manuscript makes use of writing as image quite like the *Wu ze you xing tu, blurring as it does the boundaries between writing as linguistic system, cosmic pattern, and immersive design. Furthermore, as a philosophical statement about the proper relationships between speech and action, the text of the manuscript stands out from most other works in the tu format, the vast majority of which were technical documents used for practical purposes such as ritual divination or the application of medical or ritual knowledge.
Chen Songchang, Cao Feng, and Dong Shan have all commented on the relationship between the design of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript and the contents of the text it was used to carry. Chen, for example, describes the manuscript as a concise graphic or visual (zhiguan xing 直觀性) chart or diagram (tupu 圖譜) used to illustrate (tuije 圖解) certain tenets of what Chen calls Huanglao 黃老 thought and xingming 形/刑名 philosophy.Footnote 94 According to Chen, this is why we find such extensive overlap between the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu and the texts on the *Laozi B manuscript from Mawangdui, as well as with transmitted texts in the xingming tradition.Footnote 95 Chen also notes the visual similarity between the shape formed by the densely clustered portion of text at the center of the manuscript and certain of the cloud-like shapes on the *Tianwen qixiang zazhan 天文奇象雜占 (Miscellaneous divinations based on astrological and meteorological phenomena) manuscript from Mawangdui.Footnote 96 Indeed, Chen has developed this idea to argue that the central portion of text on the *Wu ze you xing tu was designed to serve as a visual representation of the swirling vapor or pneuma (qi 氣) from which all things in Heaven and Earth were thought to be formed.Footnote 97 Chen also contends that, since the second layer of text moving outwards from the center associates speech (yan) with the circular form of heaven, the manuscript categorizes speech as metaphysical (xing er shang 形而上) in nature. Conversely, Chen argues, the outermost layer of text, related as it is to phenomenal things (wu) and patterned in the shape of a square, presents things as part of the physical (xing er xia 形而下) realm.Footnote 98
Cao Feng takes issue with some of Chen's conclusions, arguing that the spiral has no connection to qi but rather symbolizes the correctly patterned or ordered heart (xin 心) referred to in its text. Cao agrees with Chen that this chart presents a concise rendering of a philosophical message,Footnote 99 but he prefers to read it as an elucidation of what he calls the “Daoist” theory of “techniques of the heart” (xinshu 心術),Footnote 100 techniques that, once cultivated (xiulian 修煉), facilitate engagement with the phenomenal world via the proper use of speech (yan) and names (ming) without becoming encumbered or restricted by external things (waiwu 外物).Footnote 101 Cao disagrees with Chen that the manuscript is primarily concerned with dao or qi or with how the world gave rise to forms and names.Footnote 102 Instead, Cao claims that while the geometric shapes in the first two layers of the manuscript (the central spiral of text and the ring that surrounds it, respectively) symbolize the ruler (junzhu 君主) positioned in the center in a state of unforced action (wuwei 無為) and empty stillness (xujing 虛靜), the third layer of text, arranged in the shape of a square, is meant to represent the orderly actions and movements of the ruler's subjects (chenmin 臣民).Footnote 103
Dong Shan, for his part, argues that the structure of the manuscript is intended to express the way the heart interacts with, or responds to, things in the phenomenal world (yingwu 應物).Footnote 104 Dong argues that since the red square represents Earth and the blue-green circle Heaven, thetext on things (wu) that accompanies the square should be connected to the early Chinese belief that “the Earth gave birth to the ten-thousand things” (di sheng wanwu 地生萬物), which, in a similar vein to Chen Songchang, Dong emphasizes was a process that took place in the physical (xing er xia) realm. By contrast, Dong argues, the idea that speech (yan) matches (pei 配) Heaven, suggested by the arrangement of a text about speech wrapped around the outside of a blue-green ring, is essentially a metaphysical (xing er shang) belief.Footnote 105 However, Dong prefers Cao Feng's interpretation of the iconographic meaning of the central spiral of text to Chen Songchang's argument regarding qi, speculating that the empty space (about the size of one written graph) that appears at the very center of the manuscript before the beginning of the central spiral of text may have been intended to represent the void (xu 虛) where the heart (xin) resided according to some texts.Footnote 106 Following the logic of the text and the spatial arrangement of the manuscript's design, Dong abbreviates the interactions described in the document as follows:
“Internal heart” (neixin 內心) --- “speech” (yan 言), “names” (ming 名), “forms” (xing 形) --- “External things” (waiwu 外物).Footnote 107
Although the scholars who have worked on this manuscript have not reached a consensus on the iconographic meaning of each of the manuscript's design elements, and even if some of the particular interpretations they have proposed seem more convincing than others, there can be no doubt that the design of the manuscript was intended to complement or reinforce the message of the text it was used to carry. Indeed, the way the written graphs that are used to communicate the message of the text linguistically are arranged on the surface of the silk is in no way incidental to the communicative force of the manuscript, a force that has as much to do with visual design as with philosophical persuasion. The spiral in the center of the manuscript probably represents the heart that is described in that portion of text, a heart that is patterned in such a way as to remain open and responsive to the stimuli from which it proceeds.Footnote 108 Moving outwards from the center, the textual-iconographic pairing of speech with Heaven and things with Earth establishes a cosmic connection between things, forms, and names reinforcing the idea that action (really always reaction) should harmonize with what stimulates the heart.
Despite all this, however, I am not convinced that a preoccupation with iconography tells us everything we ought to know about how this manuscript was used in the early Western Han. Given the manuscript's intriguing design and its relationship to documents and technical devices that have been excavated from early Chinese tomb sites, it seems necessary to address the many different effects such a manuscript would have had on its viewers and users, effects that would not only have been intellectual or aesthetic, but also bodily and haptic. Indeed, by studying the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript not simply as the carrier of a philosophical text or an aesthetically pleasing and iconographically rich painted surface, but as a material artifact that generated visual, physical, and mental responses in those exposed to it, we gain a better understanding of what the manuscript would have meant to Western Han elites prior to its being buried.
Handling the *Wu ze you xing tu
The *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript is one of a number of early Chinese texts, including the late Warring States Chu silk manuscript from Zidanku 子彈庫 and a Qin bamboo manuscript entitled *Zhengshi zhi chang 政事之常 (The constants of government affairs) from Wangjiatai 王家臺 Tomb 15 (Jingzhou 荊州, Hubei 湖北), that was intended to be read from the inside outwards in a spiral sequence, and Li Ling 李零 has argued that this process was designed to mimic the clockwise rotation of the Way of Heaven (tiandao 天道) from East to South to West to North.Footnote 109 Indeed, it was perhaps thought that arranging the text on the surface of the silk in this way had the potential to reinforce its philosophical message, facilitating attunement of the manuscript's readers and users to the cosmic patterns represented on the silk.Footnote 110
Similar non-linear arrangement of text has been found on board games excavated from a number of early Chinese tomb sites, including the late Warring States lacquer gaming board from Zuozhong 左冢 Tomb 3 (Jingmen 荊門, Hubei)Footnote 111 and the early Western Han game depicted on some of the bamboo daybook (rishu 日書) slips from Kongjiapo 孔家坡 Tomb 8 (Suizhou 隨州, Hubei).Footnote 112 It is not surprising that we encounter these types of non-linear texts on both divination manuscripts and board games, since there was apparently no firm distinction between divination and gaming in early China.Footnote 113 But whereas the non-linear arrangement of text on gaming paraphernalia and technical manuscripts was primarily designed to achieve a practical objective (facilitate gameplay, divination, or the administering of medical services, for example) in addition to underscoring a particular view of the way the cosmos was structured, manuscripts like the *Wu ze you xing tu and *Zhengshi zhi chang seem to have been designed solely to reinforce the cosmological and philosophical message of the texts they carried.Footnote 114 Indeed, Wang Mingqin 王明欽 has described how the message of the *Zhengshi zhi chang manuscript is communicated not only textually but also iconographically, and he likens the relationship between the inner and outer layers of text to that of classic and commentary (jingzhuan 經傳) on the one hand and annotations and subcommentaries (zhushu 注疏) on the other.Footnote 115
As we have seen, scholars working on the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript have tended to approach its design chiefly in terms of iconography, debating back and forth about the representative referent of the text spiral at the center of the manuscript and the reasons why certain passages of text are associated with—indeed, presented as—geometric shapes in different colors. However, though the design of the *Wu ze you xing tu is certainly iconographically potent, the manuscript is not merely a flat surface for displaying text and image together in an aesthetically pleasing or cosmically revealing manner. Rather, the design of this artifact encouraged and even engineered certain modes of manual engagement: ways of touching and moving that reinforced the philosophical message of the text.
Regardless of whether the spiral of text at the center of the manuscript, for example, was designed to embody or represent specific entities or substances such as the ordered heart or swirling qi, it is certain that the visual arrangement of that layer of text serves to reinforce the message encoded in the graphs that constitute its design. This dark, densely clustered text spiral occupies a tiny central section of a small manuscript, meaning that on first encountering the document the reader is confronted with a black spot that barely has the appearance of written text, let alone a text that can be readily identified or easily decoded. The initial perception of the spiral is thus monoptic, the spiral taken in as a shape—as a whole—rather than decoded as a swirling string of linguistic units.Footnote 116 Here writing is pressed into double-duty, simultaneously serving as a way of transmitting wisdom through the encoding of language and as a visual pattern that forms part of the manuscript's overall program of design.Footnote 117 In order to proceed from writing as design motif to writing as text the reader has to move towards the manuscript, examining it up close and deciphering the words of the densely packed text in a clockwise direction from the inside outwards, likely rotating the manuscript in the process. In this way, the text spiral catches the eye and draws the viewer in, with the necessary rotation of the manuscript (and with it the written graphs at its center) creating a captivating visual effect.
The same is true for the second layer of text, the visual arrangement of which likewise embodies and reinforces the message of the text's contents. Here, too, writing is used as a string of linguistic signs for communicating semantic content. However, in keeping with the apparent distaste for certain types of inauthentic or inappropriate speech expressed in this portion of text, the design of the manuscript seemingly refuses to cede absolute authority to the linguistic power of the written sign, patterning the words of the text in a cosmically revealing way that also communicates its message in extra-linguistic fashion.Footnote 118 In each of the textual layers on the manuscript, the words must be read in a way that replicates the orderly, balanced movement of the cosmos, with the rotation of the manuscript reproducing a properly patterned heart moving in harmonious response at the center of a Heaven and Earth that travel along a cyclical course.
Indeed, Chen Songchang has argued that the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was designed to emulate the kinds of diviner's boards (shipan 式盤, also known as “cosmic boards”) that were widely used in Western Han times, boards that also bore the influence of the so-called vaulted heaven theory described above.Footnote 119 Though Huang Ru-xuan has shown that diviner's boards actually predate the widespread acceptance of the vaulted heaven theory, she demonstrates how certain texts such as the diagrams found among some of the Qin daybook manuscripts as well as some of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts shared with Han diviner's boards a similar cosmological visuality and rotational method of operation, and so belong to a genre of “diviner's charts” (shitu 式圖).Footnote 120 That these artifacts and documents replicated or represented the supposed forms of intangible phenomena such as cosmological space would in all likelihood have made the impact of their design all the more powerful, since such images and artifacts do not merely model or illustrate forms that are visible independent of their design, but actually have the potential to determine the ways in which their subjects are visualized and understood.Footnote 121 Reading these portions of text, then, was not just a matter of deciphering written graphs; it also involved tracing the cosmic structures and patterns of the universe. The *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript not only provided a way of reading a text, it provided a way of perceiving and understanding the world.Footnote 122
The *Wu ze you xing tu and the *Jiu zhu tu Manuscript
It is not uncommon for non-linear texts such as the *Wu ze you xing tu to exist simultaneously and independently in linear form as well. There is a significant amount of textual overlap between the text of the *Zhengshi zhi chang manuscript mentioned above, for example, and a linear text from the Shuihudi 睡虎地 (Yunmeng 雲夢; Hubei) Qin manuscript finds, a text that was given the title *Wei li zhi dao 為吏之道 (The way of acting as a petty official) by its editors.Footnote 123 Though the two texts are not identical, the similarities between them raise certain questions regarding the nature of the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu and its relationship to the broader textual culture of the early Western Han. Was the *Wu ze you xing tu an iconographic accompaniment to or representation of an underlying linear text? And if so, what form might this text have taken?
In fact, scholars have disagreed on precisely this issue. Chen Songchang, for example, has argued that the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript served a similar function to another silk manuscript from Mawangdui, the *Jiu zhu tu (Chart on the nine rulers), and that both served as illustrations elucidating in visual form the written contents of parent manuscripts for which they served as visual accompaniments.Footnote 124 The *Jiu zhu tu is a small fragment measuring just 19.6 cm long by 22.5 cm wide,Footnote 125 and all that remains of the text are four inscriptions in black ink (two inscriptions each repeated once) that name certain types of ruler. These inscriptions are accompanied by the black outlines of three triangles. Inside one of these triangles is the outline of a black square around the interrupted red outline of another, smaller square. The same shapes can be found inside the other two triangles, but the colors of the squares are reversed.
Scholars have come to different conclusions regarding the relationship between the *Jiu zhu tu fragments and the *Jiu zhu text that appears on the *Laozi A 老子甲本 manuscript from Mawangdui.Footnote 126 The *Jiu zhu text includes a list of nine types of ruler, and though there is some damage to the manuscript the list seems to match that quoted in Pei Yin's 裴駰 (fl.420–479) jijie 集解 (collected explanations) commentary to a passage in the “Yin benji” 殷本紀 (Annals of the Yin [ = Shang] Dynasty) chapter of the Shi ji 史記, which cites Liu Xiang's Bielu 別錄 (Separated catalog) as listing the nine rulers and mentioning the existence of an accompanying tu chart.Footnote 127 The surviving inscriptions on the *Jiu zhu tu fragments read “The ruler who destroys sacrificial altars” (mie she zhi zhu 烕 [= 滅] 社之主) and “The ruler who destroys the state” (po guo zhi zhu X [= 破] 國之主), and both these ruler types are also mentioned in the *Jiu zhu text.Footnote 128
Despite these similarities, however, the two documents were apparently produced at different times. Though studies of the *Jiu zhu tu fragments often treat them as appendages to the *Jiu zhu text on the *Laozi A manuscript, it is clear from their formal features that they in fact belong to a separate document. Chen Songchang himself notes that there is no obvious place on the *Laozi A manuscript that could have accommodated these fragments, and judging by the calligraphic style and differences in the observance of naming taboos they were clearly copied later than the *Jiu zhu text. On this basis, Chen argues that the *Jiu zhu tu manuscript was probably designed to explain through illustration the text of the *Jiu zhu.Footnote 129 Thus, while Chen accepts that the *Jiu zhu tu fragments belong to a separate document from the *Laozi A manuscript, he nevertheless subordinates the *Jiu zhu tu manuscript to the “earlier” *Jiu zhu text. Furthermore, Chen likewise believes that the *Wu ze you xing tu was designed as an illustration of a pre-existing document.Footnote 130
Whether the *Wu ze you xing tu was designed as an elucidation or response to a particular text, or whether it reflects the independent expression of a philosophical discourse prevalent in Western Han times, I am in full agreement with Cao Feng (contra Chen Songchang) that the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript should be read as a document in its own right rather than as an accompaniment to another text.Footnote 131 While, as we have seen, the text of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript shares a certain philosophical outlook and use of terminology with other texts from the time, including some of those on the Mawangdui manuscripts, I can see no valid reason for assuming it to be an illustration of any of the Mawangdui texts, or of any text for that matter.Footnote 132 Indeed, automatically treating manuscripts like the *Wu ze you xing tu and the *Jiu zhu tu as auxiliary or subordinate to linear texts reflects an unfair predisposition on our part for writing over image, and an assumption that linear texts represented the dominant way in which complex philosophical ideas were materialized and transmitted.Footnote 133 If the aim had been to use non-linear textual formations as accompaniments to or illustrations of extended linear texts, then a manuscript that accommodated both text-cosmograms and explanatory linear text such as those on the *Xingde and *Yinyang wuxing manuscripts mentioned above could certainly have been produced. Instead, the *Wu ze you xing tu was evidently designed as a powerful vehicle for cosmological expression and philosophical persuasion in its own right.
Conclusion
Excavated artifacts like the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript demonstrate that in Western Han the use of written text arranged as patterned image was not restricted to technical documents that presented words as images for functional reasons such as information retrieval or data manipulation. Rather, the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript shows that profound cosmic truths and intricate philosophical systems could likewise be communicated as effectively, if not more so, through the use of writing as image as through the use of written graphs as linguistic signs. Unlike most of the other manuscripts from Mawangdui that also make use of non-linear text as image, the text on the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was designed and displayed largely for immersive rather than functional purposes. The *Wu ze you xing tu shows that in early China, non-linear texts were not produced simply out of necessity, but also because they helped inculcate moral values and properly patterned modes of perception.Footnote 134
Manuscript design in early China was not always a secondary consideration; indeed, the way texts were written down, oriented, and displayed played an important role in conditioning how they were received by communities of readers. The colors and shapes of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript were not intended to serve merely as ornamentation, at least not as long as the term is understood as somehow auxiliary, posterior, or subordinate to “content.” Rather, the design of the manuscript fulfills Oleg Grabar's definition of ornament (as opposed to mere decoration) as “the subject of the design,” and the primary system of communication or representation.Footnote 135 Indeed, the *Wu ze you xing tu is an example of wen 文 at its most potent,Footnote 136 with the manuscript making full use of the communicative potential of the written sign (linguistic, evocative, pictorial) to bring human (ren 人) bodies into concert with Heaven (tian 天) and Earth (di 地), thereby reinforcing the relationships between them. Neither linguistic code nor abstract illustration is privileged in the communicative scheme of the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript. Instead, words are used alongside images, and actually as images themselves, as two components of a mutually constitutive and reinforcing visual-communicative system,Footnote 137 each accomplishing what the other cannot. Writing as text is used to transmit specific messages, and writing as image to immerse the reader in the logic of the text.Footnote 138 In keeping with the message contained in the text on the silk, the manuscript's design reflects a faith in the communicative potential of words only so far as they are properly patterned, literally and figuratively.
Writing about manuscripts from a different time and culture, Mary Carruthers has described how pictures no less than words can serve as signs for stimulating memory as well as encouraging active engagement with texts and internalization of their contents.Footnote 139 Carruthers's analysis of some of the illustrations in the Book of Kells, a c. 800 c.e. Irish illustrated manuscript that contains the texts of the four gospels of the New Testament, for instance, is worth quoting at length:
Let me take as a last example of this distinction the famous black otter eating a salmon that is tucked into the bottom border of the rho on the Chirho page at the beginning of Matthew in the Book of Kells. It is very hard to find amid the myriad and apparently fragmentary forms on this page. But as I suggested earlier, the page is designed to make one meditate upon it, to look and look again, and remake its patterns oneself; the process of seeing this page models the process of meditative reading which the text it introduces will require. The letters on this page are virtually hidden away in the welter of its other forms; indeed, thinking of this aspect of its design, Francoise Henry calls it ‘a sort of rebus.’ Footnote 140
Carruthers introduces five aspects of the Book of Kells that are relevant to the *Wu ze you xing tu: 1) visual attractiveness and appeal; 2) use of the extra-linguistic potential of written words; 3) the mutually reinforcing relationship between text and image; 4) the invitation to meditate on the text's contents; 5) internalization of the text's message. Much like this page of the Book of Kells, the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript draws the reader in with its appealing and enigmatic design, encouraging active modes of reading and viewing, as well as manual engagement. Readers were forced to ask themselves why the text of the manuscript was displayed in this way, to meditate upon its possible significance, and to apply the logic of the text in their everyday life. Once internalized, the user would carry the message of the manuscript in their mind's eye, helping them to move beyond language and access genuine cosmological truths, just as the text of the manuscript entreated. In this way, the *Wu ze you xing tu manuscript was not merely an attractive reflection or appealing product of Han intellectual culture but an active participant in it; an object that produced physical, intellectual, and social effects on the world that created it.Footnote 141
