The Manuscript

The Warring States’ period manuscripts in the Tsinghua collection were not archaeologically excavated but looted by tomb robbers and recovered after they had been smuggled to Hong Kong. Comparison of the script forms with that on the bamboo-slip manuscripts excavated from Tomb One at Guodian in Hubei Province and radio-carbon dating suggest that they were buried around 300 bce.Footnote ³ The tale recounted in Chi jiu is set some 1,300 years earlier, but the language of the manuscript is that of the period in which it was buried and there is no internal evidence for earlier origin.

Chi jiu has fifteen slips. The slips are numbered on the reverse side. The manuscript is self-named: the title, Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi wu is written on the reverse of Slip 15. It is taken from the first line (see Fig. 1, Slip 1, Graphs 3–10, you chi jiu ji yu Tang zhi wu 有赤鳩集于湯之屋, “there were red pigeons gathering on Tang's house”). The slips are 45 cm. in length and there were originally three cords. The slips are intact except for Slips 1 and 2, which are broken at the bottom end and missing one graph each. Like many of the manuscripts in the Tsinghua collection, the bamboo slips are marked by a faint line that runs at an angle from upper left to lower right across the reverse side (originally the inside of the bamboo stalk). In the case of Chi jiu, the slip sequence indicated by the numbering on the reverse side and that indicated by this oblique line correspond to one another. However, this is not always the case. In some manuscripts, individual slips appear to have been replaced or the slips mixed up before binding, so that the line does not correspond to the narrative. Thus, the lines were not cut after the manuscript was bound and probably resulted from some process used in cutting the bamboo stalk or in preparing the slips for writing. They were not deliberately cut in order to preserve the sequence of the manuscript should the cords break.Footnote ⁴

Figure 1. Top of Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi wu, Slips 1–7. After Li Xueqin 李學勤, (ed.), Qinghua Daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian, Vol. 3 清華大學藏戰國竹簡 (Shanghai, 2012), part 1, p. 20.

As noted above, Yi Yin is the main figure in two other manuscripts in the Tsinghua collection, Yin zhi and Yin gao. Yin zhi has five slips and Yin gao has four. They are numbered separately on the reverse sides of the slips. Judging from slip length, the number of cords and the distance between them, the three manuscripts were bound together as a single scroll.Footnote ⁵ Moreover, the oblique line on the reverse of the Chi jiu continues onto the first three slips of Yin zhi. A line on Yin zhi also continues onto Yin Gao.Footnote ⁶ (See Fig. 2.) Xiao Yunxiao has observed that the sequence of the manuscripts in the scroll reflects a historical progression. In Chi jiu, Xiaochen goes from the court of Tang to the Xia. Yin zhi begins with the line, “It was when Yin went to Bo 白 (亳) from Xia and reached Tang”. Yin gao begins with, “It was when Yin had already reached Tang and they were entirely united in their virtue”.Footnote ⁷ However, the language and style of Chi jiu is very different from Yin zhi and Yin gao.

Figure 2. Reverse of Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi Wu, Slips 14 and 15, and reverse of Yin Zhi, Slips 1 and 2, showing oblique line cut across back. After Qinghua Daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian, Vol. 3, part 1, p. 22 and vol. 1, part 1, p. 3.

Chi jiu is written in a lively style that suggests a folktale and its language has no archaistic features, whereas the literary form and language of Yin zhi and Yin gao are readily identified with the Shang shu 尚書.Footnote ⁸ Indeed, the editors of Qinghua Daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian have speculated that Yin gao might be the lost chapter mentioned in the “Preface” to the Shang shu, where it is called “Xian you yi de” 咸有一德.Footnote ⁹ Thus, the three manuscripts were probably placed in chronological order and bound together because they all concerned Yi Yin. This type of loose grouping is also found among other Chu-script bamboo-slip manuscripts; for example in the Shanghai Museum collection, Zigao 子羔, Kongzi shi lun 孔子詩論 and Lubang da han 魯邦大旱 appear to have been bound together because they all concern Confucius. I have proposed elsewhere that these loose groupings reflect a transitional stage in Chinese textual history. Such scrolls are not ‘texts’ in the sense that the manuscripts bound in the same scroll were repeatedly transmitted as a unit, but they were deliberately bound together.Footnote ¹⁰

Translation and Text of Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi wu

The translation of Chi jiu below is based upon the modern-character readings that follow it. There are some paleographic problems in the manuscript, but the sense is generally clear. My readings agree with those given in Qinghua Daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian unless otherwise noted. I only provide images or direct transcriptions of the Chu graphs where the decision about what word is represented is problematic. For ease of cross reference, I have provided the slip number in subscript in both the modern-character text and the translation. These are given at the beginning of each slip. For convenience of discussion, I have divided the text into five sections marked with Roman numerals.

Historiolae

The characters in Chi jiu are familiar from transmitted literature, but the tale does not function within the historical and political discourse in which they usually appear. A possible explanation is that the story functioned as an historiola: that is, it was a mythical narration that made use of well-known figures from historical legend to provide justification for rites associated with house building. I take the term ‘historiola’ from David Frankfurter's classic article, “Narrating Power”, in which he defines such texts as a form of narration in which a mythical paradigm is used to render power to magical rites, particularly healing rites, in the ancient Near East (Babylonia, Egypt), the Classical world of Greece and Rome, and later Christian Europe. Gil Raz has also used this concept to understand stories associated with later Daoist ritual magic.Footnote ²⁷ Told in a ritual context, the power of the oral narration lent authority to rites. According to Frankfurter, historiolae involve “performative transmission of power from a mythic realm articulated in narrative to the human present”.

An important aspect of such historiolae – also useful in understanding the bamboo manuscript – is that they are not variations of other myths, even though classicists frequently attempt to analyse them in relationship to myths with which they share actors and sometimes regard them as ad-hoc inventions when they do not agree with the accounts found in the related mythology. Instead, such stories make use of the power of mythical prototypes for their own purposes. They thus “formulate rules that exert authority of their own on the events to follow”.Footnote ²⁸ We have no means of determining whether Chi jiu was technically a historiola: that is, we do not know whether it was narrated aloud to give power to a ritual act. Nevertheless, we can make sense of it by reading it as a tale told in association with a rite of exorcism conducted upon the placement of a parapet on the roof in order to prevent illness among the occupants.

Yi Yin as a Founding Minister

The name Yi Yin appears in the earliest written materials in China – the divination inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1050 bce), popularly called oracle bone inscriptions. In these inscriptions, he receives sacrifices and exercises powers in a similar manner to powerful ancestral spirits of the Shang royal house. Oracle bone scholars have generally assumed that he was the minister of the Shang founder, Tang, mentioned in later texts, but, to my knowledge, there is no direct evidence of an association with Tang in the inscriptions. K. C. Chang, who hypothesised that the Shang royal lineage was divided into moieties, theorised that Yi Yin was the ancestor of one of them, but there is also no direct evidence in oracle bone inscriptions that might confirm this.Footnote ²⁹

In Warring States period texts, Yi Yin most commonly takes the role of a ‘founding minister’ who assists in establishing the Shang dynasty. In pre-Han political philosophy, such ministers play a critical role in establishing the legitimacy of a non-hereditary ruler. By attracting men of worth [xian 賢] to their service and appointing them in spite of their low social position, the future rulers demonstrate the power of their own virtue (de 德). This appointment of a man of worth, who was labouring in a menial capacity when he met the future king, is critical to the idea of a dynastic cycle. In this role, Yi Yin is most often classed with Taigong Wang 太公望, who assisted Kings Wen 文 and Wu 武 in founding the Zhou dynasty. Taigong Wang is variously described as fishing, chopping meat in a market or working as a boatman when he met King Wen. Footnote ³⁰ Similarly, Yi Yin was a ‘cook’ or ‘preparer of meat’ [pao 庖, zai ren 宰人], or a “carrier of the ding-tripod and sacrificial stand” [fu ding zu 負鼎俎] in the service of Tang's wife.Footnote ³¹ The prototype for Yi Yin and Taigong Wang in the pre-dynastic era is Shun 舜, who was labouring in the fields when he was raised up by Yao 堯. Some ministers of the Warring States period hegemons are given similar roles, as is Fu Yue 傅說, who aided Wu Ding in restoring the Shang dynasty.

In the following passage from the Mozi, we find Yi Yin (here called Yi Zhi 伊摯) described as the personal servant [si chen 私臣] of a woman of the Youxin 有莘 family. As I shall discuss below, this name is that commonly found in transmitted texts for Tang's wife.

Just as Yao plowed in the fields, Yi Yin was the personal servant and a cook, and Fu Yue was a forced labourer. The point of these encapsulated tales here is that the wise rulers nevertheless raised them up and gave them power (as future ruler, minister, or one of the three lords); thus they were able to rule the people.

The Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋, completed c. 239 bce, is the richest pre-Han source for myth and legend concerning Yi Yin. In this passage, it reflects a very different political philosophy from that of the Mozi passage translated above, but it also stresses the ruler's necessity of having a worthy minister if one is to achieve hegemony or kingship.

Significantly, Yi Yin is called “Xiaochen” in this passage, as he is in Chi jiu, thus confirming that this term was used as a name for Yi Yin in the third century bce. Its inference here is unclear. Chen means ‘servant’ or ‘subject’ and also ‘minister’ (similarly, in the British tradition, ministers are ‘servants’ to the king). Xiao chen 小臣 is also used as an official title in both Shang oracle bone and Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. However, Yi Yin's role in Chi jiu is that of a cook rather than a minister, and in the Mozi passage translated above, he was a called the personal servant [si chen] of Tang's wife. So, Xiaochen in Chi jiu is more likely to refer to Yi Yin's role as a ‘little servant’ cooking for Tang's wife rather than to an official rank.

The Mozi, which advocates raising up men of worth [shang xian 尚賢], stresses the low position of the founding ministers. In some transmitted texts, however, the men of worth are recluses and deliberately take humble roles. This tradition is found in the Shi ji 史記 account in which Yi Yin deliberately became a cook in order to meet Cheng Tang and convince him to follow the path of a true king:

Whether such men are described as of lower social class or as gentlemen in seclusion during the rule of a bad king depends upon the ideology of the writer. Nevertheless, in all such references to founding ministers, their low status is a trope that functions to allow a sage ruler to demonstrate his insight into human character and humility. By raising up Yi Yin and Taigong Wang, Tang and King Wen established their own worthiness to rule, as well as gaining the services of a sage who is capable of assisting them in establishing new rule.Footnote ³⁵

Chi jiu does not discuss these historical models as a means of articulating a political or philosophical stance; instead, it takes these personages with their well-known attributes and makes them into characters in a tale which functions in a different context. Yi Yin's role as a cook in the entourage of Tang's wife in the historical and philosophical tradition is his best-known feature, so we may reasonably assume that it is the source of Xiaochen's role as a cook for Tang's wife in Chi jiu. Cooking has a further dimension within a discourse of the late Warring States period, well explored by Roel Sterckx in Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China. In this discourse, cooking serves as a metaphor for government or, more broadly, for self-cultivation and/or cosmic harmony. Moreover, the five flavours [wu wei 五味] become part of a developing correlative system.Footnote ³⁶ Thus, in the founding minister legend discussed above, Yi Yin convinced Tang of his worthiness by discussing harmonization of the flavours. However, in Chi jiu, the flavours are not mentioned and the only soup ingredient given in the text is red birds. Furthermore, after making the soup, Xiaochen fled to the Xia Lord. He did not impress Tang with his sagacity by a discussion of the flavours. Thus, this discourse is not an aspect of the tale recorded in the manuscript.

Tang's Wife and the Myth of Yi Yin's Birth

In Chi jiu, Tang's wife is called Ren Huang, but in transmitted texts she is called by the clan name Youxin 有辛 [varied as Youxin 有莘 or Youshen 有侁]. If, as Wang Ning 王寧 has suggested, Ren 紝 is her given name and huang 巟 should be read as huang 媓, a title for wives of rulers, there is no conflict between the name in the bamboo manuscript and that in transmitted literature.Footnote ³⁷ The association of Yi Yin with Tang's wife is intertwined with a myth in which his pregnant mother turned into a hollow mulberry tree.

The earliest reference to this myth is found in the “Tian Wen” 天問 chapter of the Chu ci 楚辭, a text associated with the state of Chu and traditionally dated to the late fourth century bce, not long before the Tsinghua manuscripts were buried:

The second-century commentator, Wang Yi 王逸, explains:

Although Wang Yi's commentary is relatively late, the Lüshi chunqiu provides a similar account and makes it clear that this myth is the source of Yi Yin's relationship with Tang's wife:

The passage goes on to say that Tang asked for Yi Yin, who had grown up to become a worthy, and when he could not obtain him, Tang married the Lady of Youshen, thus placing him once again within the context of obtaining men of worth as a means of establishing rule.

The story that Yi Yin's pregnant mother turned into a hollow mulberry tree is reminiscent of the stories found in the Shi jing 詩經 and other early texts about the birth of the Shang ancestor Xie 契, who was born after his mother swallowed the egg of a black bird. That the tree was a – or the – hollow mulberry (kong sang 空桑) is especially significant, since the Hollow Mulberry is often mentioned in early texts as a dwelling place of the gods or as a cosmic tree that served as an axis mundi between heaven and Earth. As I have discussed previously, Yi Yin's miraculous birth, the Hollow Mulberry and the flooding water are aspects of a complex of myths found in early texts that are associated with the Shang people that also includes the ten suns, who were dark birds and identified with the Shang royal ancestors. These dark [xuan 玄] birds are sometimes identified as swallows, but they also appear as ravens or crows [wu 烏]. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are the silk banners found in Mangwangdui Tombs 1 and 3 in which a raven or crow is depicted in a red sun.Footnote ⁴⁰

Yi Yin as a Shaman

‘Shamans’, as I understand the term herein, are people with the ability to enter into a trance and communicate with spirits, either by travelling to the other world or through being possessed by a spirit. The Chinese term wu 巫 is often translated as ‘shaman’. However, as the Chinese term wu has a broader meaning, including diviners, conjurers, magicians and healers who do not enter an altered state of consciousness, this translation often causes confusion. As used in this manuscript, wu first refers to the raven that possesses Xiaochen and then to Xiaochen himself who speaks with the raven's voice. Thus, I have translated it as ‘spirit medium’.

In Inside the Neolithic Mind, David Pearce and David Lewis-Williams argue that shamanic activities are rooted in hypnagogic experiences – visions or hallucinations, which range from vivid mental imagery in a state of semi-wakefulness to altered states of consciousness induced by such means as alcohol, rhythmic music and dancing, or psychotropic drugs – that are neurologically engendered and thus common among people of all cultures.Footnote ⁴¹ Specialist shamans are simply people who have an innate or specially cultivated ability to enter such states. Because these experiences are commonly associated with unusual visions, shamans are often called ‘seers’. Another common experience is the sensation of flight, which may be why shamans are often associated with birds.

In China, there is evidence of specialist shamans from as early as Erlitou 二裡頭 culture (ca. 2100–1600 bce). This evidence comes from tombs in which the deceased were buried with turquoise plaques decorated with two-eyed motifs placed on their chests, probably indicating their special powers of vision, and with wine vessels made of bronze and jade implements.Footnote ⁴² In the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1050 bce), this two-eyed motif was developed into the taotie 饕餮 motif conventionally found on Shang ritual bronzes.Footnote ⁴³ Moreover, figures that are part-man and part-bird are found on a number of Shang jades. The example illustrated below (Fig. 3), shows a barefoot, crested figure with wings on his thighs and a bracelet on his upper arm. It is from the southern site of the Xin’gan site in Jiangxi Province but related bird-human images are also found at Yinxu.Footnote ⁴⁴

Figure 3. Jade figure excavated at Xin’gan Dayangzhou. From Jiangxisheng bowuguan 江西省博物館, Jiangxisheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo 江西省文物考古研究所, and Xin’ganxian Bowuguan 新干博物館, Xin’gan Shangdai da mu 新干商代大墓 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1997), p. 158.

Figure 4. Lacquer figurine of a person with a bird beak, feathered tail and clawed feet standing on the head of a bird. From Tomb 2, Jingzhou Tianxingguan. After Jingzhou Bowuguan 湖北省荊州博物館, Jingzhou zhongyao faxian (Beijing, 2009), p. 94.

The role of shamanism in the Shang dynasty has been much debated since Chen Mengjia proposed an association between kingship and shamans almost eighty years ago.Footnote ⁴⁵ It is beyond the scope of this paper to review this debate here, especially since the manuscript is in all likelihood a Warring States period composition and cannot be taken as having any historical validity for the Shang period. More relevant are the the Jiu ge 九歌 and Li sao 離騷 of the Chu ci, which have long been recognized as drawing on a shamanic tradition, and artifacts found in contemporaneous burials. In his insightful book, The Shaman and the Heresiarch, Gopal Sukhu argues that these works were not simply inspired by shamanic activities, but draw directly on a tradition of spirit possession. Moreover, this tradition was associated with the wu of the state of Chu.Footnote ⁴⁶ Thus, although Chi jiu is unique as the earliest direct description of spirit possession in the Chinese tradition, it is consistent with what we already know about Chu culture in this period. Chu tombs have also yielded numerous lacquer artifacts which are difficult to interpret because of the lack of related literary evidence. Of particular interest to us here is the beaked man with a feathered tail and bird feet standing on the head of a long-necked bird from Tomb 2 at Tianxingguan 天星觀 in Jingzhou 荊州. (Guodian is also in Jingzhou.) The tomb is dated to approximately 350–330 bce, so it is a little earlier, but roughly contemporaneous with the presumed burial date of the Tsinghua manuscripts.Footnote ⁴⁷ While the meaning of the figure cannot be determined with certainty, it could well refer to shamanic flight.

The Soup of Red Pigeons

Chi jiu begins with red birds gathering on Tang's house. I assume that there is more than one bird because the verb is ji 集, to gather. The species of bird is uncertain. The Chu-script graph is made up of niao 鳥 and jiu 咎 and is not known elsewhere. Jiu 鳩 (*ku; phonetic is 九 *kɯɯw), a term which includes smaller birds such as pigeons and doves, is a precise homophone for jiu 咎 and the most obvious loanword, especially since pigeons and doves flock and are commonly eaten as game birds.Footnote ⁴⁸ The editors of Qinghua zhujian suggest it be read as hu 鵠, a category of long-necked bird that includes cranes and swans. This reading takes the phonetic elements, 告 (*kuugs) and 咎 (*kɯɯw) as interchangeable.Footnote ⁴⁹ It is based on the following line from the “Tian wen” 天問 chapter of the Chu ci 楚辭 and, especially, the note by the Han Dynasty commentator, Wang Yi 王逸:

Wang Yi comments:

This comment is suggestive because it mentions a soup of birds. However, as Hou Naifeng 侯乃峰 has argued, Wang Yi could also have used the character for hu as a loan for jiu. Footnote ⁵⁰ Moreover, Wang Yi's commentary corresponds to the portrayal of Yi Yin as a worthy who persuaded him to follow the Way by his discussion of flavours found in the Shi ji passage translated above, whereas in Chi jiu, Xiaochen flees after Tang notices that his soup has been interfered with, so Tang could not recognise his worthiness by his discussion of the flavours in this tale.

Both pigeons/doves and cranes/swans have symbolic associations in transmitted literature. Cranes (hu), which are migratory, were eaten and associated with renewal and immortality.Footnote ⁵¹ Because pigeons (jiu) suck rather than sip liquids, they were considered a good omen for the elderly, who are vulnerable to choking, and were also an omen associated with longevity.Footnote ⁵² I have not found any references to either chi jiu or chi hu in pre-Han texts, so this bird is not a conventional trope. That it is red is undoubtedly significant. Correlative cosmologies were being developed in this period and since the tale is set at the turn of the Xia and Shang dynasties, we might expect it to be an omen that foretold the establishment of the Shang dynasty. However, the colour does not match the correlative cosmologies for dynasties found in later transmitted texts. Indeed, the Shang were normally associated with white and the Zhou with red. Accordingly, in the Lüshi chunqiu, a red raven [chi wu 赤烏] with a cinnabar document in its beak perched on the Zhou altar in the time of Wen Wang 文王, whose son went on to overthrow the last Shang king and establish the Zhou dynasty.Footnote ⁵³

The narrative function of the soup in Chi jiu is to give Tang's wife and, more importantly, Xiaochen the power to see to the ends of the Earth. Later in the manuscript, Xiaochen, possessed by the raven-spirit is able to heal the Xia Lord. Both suggest shamanic powers. These same motifs of clairvoyance and healing occur in the biography of Bianque 扁鵲 in the Shi ji. Bianque is described as a person from Zheng 鄭, but que 鵲 is a type of bird. According to the biography:

Like Xiaochen, after ingesting a medicine, he can see beyond physical barriers.

The Possession of Yi Yin

After Xiaochen and Ren Huang gained the power to see everything to the ends of the world by drinking the magic soup, Tang returns. He becomes angry when he finds out that they have tasted his soup and Xiaochen then flees to Xia in the face of his wrath. In some transmitted texts, after Yi Yin met Tang, he went to the Xia and acted as Tang's spy, but in this story Yi Yin is fleeing from, rather than going on behalf of, Tang.Footnote ⁵⁵ After he flees, Tang curses or puts a spell on him – the Chu graph is partially illegible. This makes him feel so poorly that he has to lie down beside the road.

When Xiaochen lies down on the road, a flock of ravens or crows (wu 烏), anticipating his death, begin to circle, but a spirit-medium raven (wu wu 巫烏) identifies him as Xiaochen and says that he is not to be eaten. This implies that Xiaochen was not an ordinary person and the other ravens would recognize who he was. Thus, although the manuscript does not refer to the myth of Yi Yin's birth, it is likely that this is implicit in his identity. The ravens ask the spirit-medium raven (wu wu 巫烏) about the illness of the Xia Lord which he explains in terms of two yellow snakes and two white rabbits that were sent by the Thearch (di 帝) to inhabit his house. Then, after they have left, the spirit-medium raven possesses the body of Xiaochen, dwelling in his throat and digestive tract (wei 胃). That Xiaochen is physically possessed by the raven-spirit is clear because, afterwards, Xiaochen goes to the Xia Lord and speaks in almost the same words used earlier by the spirit-medium raven. He also identifies himself as a celestial spirit medium (tian wu 天巫).

The Yellow Snakes and White Rabbits

The raven and later Xiaochen, who has been possessed by the raven, state that the Xia Lord became ill because the Thearch sent the two yellow snakes and two white rabbits to inhabit his house.

The snakes and rabbits first live in the beams of the house, causing the Lord to become befuddled. Then the Lord of the Earth (Hou tu 后土) makes two mounds beneath the Xia Lord's bed for them to live in. They infect his body [or possibly simply prevent him from sleeping] to the extent that his illness becomes so acute that he is confused and does not recognize people. Although the Xia Lord is conventionally an archetype of evil, there is no indication in the manuscript that this is the reason for his illness. Moreover, Xiaochen aids him by advising him to move house, and dig up the mounds where the snakes and rabbits have burrowed, so that he can recover.

Yellow snakes and white rabbits are also not conventional tropes in Warring States literature. The colours are surely significant and might be correlated with that of the pigeons, but I have not been able to establish a framework for interpretation. The only reference to “yellow snakes” that I have found in early texts is from the Shi ji:

This passage links yellow snakes to the Supreme Thearch and includes both the colour white, but it has no direct relationship to the story in Chi jiu.

Putting Parapets on Houses

The manuscript concludes with the Xia Lord taking Yi Yin's advice, demolishing the house, excavating the ground and killing the yellow snakes and one of the white rabbits. The other rabbit escaped, so since that time people have made parapets. Pi 陴 are defined by the Shuowen as: cheng shang nü qiang 城上女牆: that is, a parapet or low undulating wall on top of a city wall. The next graph is unknown and not easily deciphered. It is written in the manuscript as: . The Tsinghua editors transcribe it as ding 鼎 and cite a gloss in the Mao commentary to the Shi jing 詩經 to interpret it as dang 當. Thus, the line would mean that they built a small wall on the building to protect it. In any case, the line clearly means that after the escape of the white rabbit, parapets began to be put on houses to protect people from the return of the escaped rabbit. ‘Rabbit’ might be plural, ‘rabbits’, but it was the escape of one white rabbit that caused the feature to be put on houses, so the line probably refers to that rabbit. The white rabbit's identity is uncertain, but the obvious candidate is the white rabbit in the moon: that is, the rabbit may have fled from the Xia Lord's house to the moon.

The earliest textual reference is probably from the “Tian wen” in the Chuci. The transmitted text includes the line:

An image of the white rabbit in the moon can be found on the silk banners laid over the corpses in Tombs One and Three at Changsha Mawangdui 長沙馬王堆, so we know that the idea of a rabbit in the moon was extant at the turn of the beginning of the second century bce.Footnote ⁵⁸ These banners also show the toad associated with the moon and a white rabbit leaping above him.Footnote ⁵⁹ Why the white rabbit of the moon should be guarded against is unclear, but the moon is the supreme yin 陰 symbol and shines at night, so perhaps the rabbit was associated with the baleful influences of the night. More practically, such parapets may have functioned to block undesirable animals that cause illness from entering the house. It is difficult, however, to understand how they could have prevented the entry of burrowing animals, such as ordinary rabbits and snakes.