|
Rel.
312: Early Chinese cosmology and its ritual response Fall 2017 |
K.E. Brashier, ETC 203 Office
hours: M noon-2 pm, W
10-11 am, by appointment or
whenever door is open |
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俯盡鑒於有形 |
Looking down, I
exhaust my investigation because there are so many forms around me, |
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仰蔽視於所蓋 |
But when I look up,
my vision is impeded by the cover of heaven. |
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游萬物而極思 |
So I wander among the
myriad things and thereby take my thoughts to their limit; |
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故一言于天外 |
Then I can say a few
words about what lay beyond heaven. –
Chenggong Sui 成公綏
(231-73) |
Think
for a moment about how we get knowledge. It can consist of direct experience
itself such as observing an experiment or walking through a canyon. It can be
taught to us conveyed through books, teachers and indeed syllabi. It can be
intuited through meditation. It can be revealed to us through gods.
Additionally as Chenggong Sui here argues, it can be extrapolated, and in his
opinion when it comes to exploring the cosmos, extrapolation is indeed the only
viable conduit. We first examine the little things near us, then deduce a
pattern and finally extend that pattern to things far away.
Chenggong Sui sets forth both the
message and the medium for this course on early Chinese cosmology. His message
is the all-encompassing cosmos that ties together the annual seasons, the
bodily organs, the government bureaucracy, the circumpolar constellations. We
will explore the Han map of the universe and then stick a “You are here” pin –
known as an “ideo locator” – on it to see how the self relates to circumstance.
(Religions fascinate me mostly because they are our culture’s popular maps of
time and space within which we then locate ourselves and figure out how we get
to our destinations.) Chenggong Sui’s medium is extrapolation, is
looking at the small and specializing at the near-at-hand until he can trace
that pattern outward. As you will see, that's exactly what each of us will do
in this course.
To me, cosmology is indeed about
placing the self on that biggest of time-and-space maps; it’s about imagining
the grand pattern outside the self and then relating the self to that pattern.
Hence, we are studying early Chinese notions of time and space, but we also
looking at the human ritualized reaction to those particular notions of time
and space.
I.
Required texts in the
bookstore
·
Birrell, Anne. Chinese
mythology: An introduction.
·
Major,
John S., Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer and Harold D. Roth. The Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and
practice of government in early Han
E-reserves
There are also numerous readings – articles,
chapters, monographs and so forth – on e-reserves. Please print them out,
mark them up and bring them to conference instead of just reading them
on-line. (I and many others have noticed a marked difference in conference
participation when texts are not subject to highlighting, underscoring and
marginal comments.)
II. Requirements
·
Four exploratories. The topics here are
open (although must deal with the Huainanzi
chapter for that particular day) and are spaced out over the first nine
weeks. Also, I will not make them due the day before, thereby giving you a
little more time to prepare. However, as I will not have had a chance to read
them in advance, you will be called upon to lead us through an aspect of the
reading that merits attention. Thus I strongly urge you to develop your
exploratories in such a way that they foster good discourse among your
colleagues. Think ahead to the conference itself and try to predict how your
colleagues will respond. What can you do to encourage interesting
discussions? What approaches have you
seen work in other courses you have had?
You might lead up to a good question you think we should all discuss, or
you might have particular passages you want us to read aloud and ponder as a
group. Yet on the days you are not giving an exploratory, never give into the
temptation of paying less attention to the reading. Needless to say, it’s easy
to judge levels of preparation in a small group.
·
Conference
participation. Active,
informed participation in which the group as a whole develops new ideas and
insights is intrinsic to this course. Note that the whole assignment must be read and pondered before conference. For a
fuller idea of what I expect in conference, see the statement appended to the
end of this syllabus. At the very least, I
recommend every day homing in on a particular passage that “speaks” to you,
that gives you insights and leads us to good group discussions. I very much
value close reading, and I love it when we jump from passage to passage,
developing a theme for the conference that draws on the textual and imagistic
evidence at hand.
·
Conference leadership. Giving structure to our
course, the Huainanzi is divided into
two sections, the first eight chapters being the core and the next twelve
chapters being supplementary areas of cosmological interest. We’ll be studying
the core in depth, adding additional books and readings where appropriate, and
that will take us through roughly two thirds of the course. After that, I’m
handing the conference over to you, and each of you will have a chance to
choose two of the supplementary topics that most interest you. Those topics
range from the cosmologically aligned ruler to how military tactics take
advantage of the cosmological pattern, from integrating popular rituals into a
single cosmological structure to the history of sages who first uncovered the
pattern of the universe. You will each be leading conferences, assigning extra
readings, devising visual aids and developing unique pedagogical approaches to
get across the point you think is vital to retain.
·
Three short papers (4-6
pages). Each
annotated formal paper will derive from interpretations of our base text – the Huainanzi – and the secondary materials
we are using to understand and contextualize it. The first paper will focus on
a theme that interests you from chapters one through four (due 13 Oct), the
second from chapters five through eight (due 15 Nov) and the third from your
chosen chapter(s) between chapters nine and twenty inclusive (due 8 Dec). You might want to be looking for a common
theme that you can pursue throughout all three papers, but if imposing a
commonality feels forced, it is not mandatory. The papers should draw on the
other materials, primary and secondary, relevant to your chosen chapters, and
please ask Ken about texts and images beyond the syllabus that might be helpful
in understanding your theme. The last paper should be accompanied by a
self-addressed stamped envelope if you want comments. Please do not consult on-line
resources – they’re generally not very good anyway – and for the first two
papers give me your papers as hardcopies during the following conference.
·
Final group project. The content of this
project, due 13 December at noon,
will be determined as the semester develops and we learn each other’s
interests. Why a “group” project? I want
to encourage you to discuss, explore and decipher these texts with each other
beyond the confines of formal conference and beyond my evil, patronizing
influence. I will give you more project parameters later in the semester, but
be thinking about interesting cosmological themes that you see developing
throughout the entire course, latch onto a favorite one and explore it to the
fullest with your colleagues. Your project will make use of the textual medium
as well as other media to get your idea across, thereby allowing you a certain
degree of creativity (as long as creativity does not eclipse content and
clarity).
·
III. Incompletes,
absences and extensions – the draconian stuff so PLEASE READ
As the great Warring States legalist Han Feizi warned, indulgent parents
have rowdy kids and overly lenient rulers have inefficient subjects; by
extension, a permissive teacher can’t maximize a student’s learning potential.
By laying down the law now, we’ll also never need to raise it again in the
future, and I can pretend to be a kindly Confucian rather than a draconian
legalist.
“An Incomplete [IN] is permitted in a course where the level of work done up to the point of the [IN] is passing, but not all the work of a course has been completed by the time of grade submission, for reasons of health or extreme emergency, and for no other reason,” according to the Reed College Faculty Code (V A). “The decision whether or not to grant an IN in a course is within the purview of the faculty for that course.” Like many of my colleagues, I read this as restricting incompletes to acute, extreme emergencies and health crises that have a clear beginning date and a relatively short duration only, that are outside the control of the student, and that interrupt the work of a student who was previously making good progress in a course. Incompletes cannot be granted to students unable to complete coursework on time due to chronic medical conditions or other kinds of ongoing situations in their academic or non-academic life. Accommodation requests need to be timely and go through established channels.
Regular, prepared, and disciplined conferencing is intrinsic to this course, and so at a certain point when too many conferences have been missed – specifically six which translates into a “fail” for the course – it would logically be advisable to drop or withdraw and to try again another semester. There’s no shame in that. Longer-term emergencies indeed happen, and you ought to make use of Student Services when they do. In sum, I’ll help you out as much as I can to get you across the finish line, but it’s the same finish line for everyone and to be fair to your colleagues I need to have you there in the race. To that end, I would ask that you please email me whenever you are absent just to let me know you’re okay. (More and more students seem to be doing this without prompting anyway, perhaps because we’ve all become increasingly dependent upon virtual connectivity.)
I’m happy to give paper extensions for medical problems and emergencies, and you should take advantage of the Health and Counseling Center in such circumstances. Please note that here, too, the honor principle provides a standard for expectations and behavior, meaning that none of us (including myself) should resort to medical reasons when other things are actually impeding our work. (Please just be honest. It’s as simple as that.) In non-medical situations, late papers will still be considered, but the lateness will be taken into account and no comments given. Ken’s Subjectivity Curve: The later it is, the more subjective Ken becomes. It's a gamble. I’m not a legalist like Han Feizi, but even the Confucians resorted to hard law when ritualized conduct and exemplary leadership failed.
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Karmic retribution for missing a conference |
IV.
The schedule
As
we are few, this schedule can be regarded as tentative. Let me know if you want
to stop on an idea for a while, and I can provide more materials on it. Or if
there’s a worthy and relevant detour we ought to make – e.g. spending some time
on Daode jing ontology (or at least
how I understand it), going to the Portland Art Museum to think about its Han
collection in terms of cosmology or taking a day to read about how some
philosophers thought the basic physical universe was shaped – we can do that.
The last part of this schedule is intentionally without dates to give us some
flexibility.
A. An introduction to
early Chinese cosmology
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28
Aug |
Watching,
dancing with and being the cosmos |
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30
Aug |
A
preview of our building blocks |
·
Henderson, The development and decline of Chinese cosmology, 1-52, 79-92. (Moodle) |
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1
Sep |
The
mythological version I |
·
Birrell, Chinese mythology, chaps. 1-4. (Text) |
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6
Sep |
The
mythological version II |
·
Birrell, Chinese mythology, chaps. 5-10. (Text) |
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8
Sep |
The
mythological version III |
·
Birrell, Chinese mythology, chaps. 11-16. (Text) |
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11
Sep |
Epistemology:
How is knowledge shaped? |
·
Sivin, “The myth of the naturalists.” (Moodle) ·
Brashier, “Introduction: The Han tree
of knowledge,” Ancestral memory in
early China, 1-45. (Moodle) |
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13
Sep |
The
historical context of early imperial China |
·
Major & Cook, “The Western Han
dynasty through the reign of Emperor Wu,” 197-231. (Moodle) ·
Hardy & Kinney, “Technological
innovation and empire,” 53-67. (Moodle) ·
Biography of Dong Zhongshu, translated
by Tony Clark (http://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/historyfaculty/26/) |
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15
Sep |
A
primer on qi |
·
Roth, Original Tao: Inward training, 41-97. (Moodle) ·
Puett, To become a god, 109-121. (Handout) |
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18
Sep |
A
primer on yinyang |
·
Queen and Major, “Yin-yang principles,”
in Luxuriant
gems of the Spring and autumn, 371-440. (Moodle) |
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20
Sep |
A
primer on the five phases |
·
Queen and Major, “Five-phase
principles,” in Luxuriant gems of the Spring
and autumn, 441-490. (Moodle) |
B. The Huainanzi’s core chapters
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22
Sep |
An
overview of
the essentials |
·
The
Huainanzi, introduction and chap 21. (Text) |
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25
Sep |
Poetic
imaginings of the cosmos |
·
Hawkes (trans.), “Yuan you or ‘Far-off journey,” 191-203. (Moodle) ·
Ssu-ma
Ch’ien, Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju 57 (i.e. “Fu
on the great man”), 136-143. (Moodle) ·
Yang Ziyun, “‘Sweet springs palace rhapsody” 16-39. (Moodle) ·
Zhang Pingzi, “‘Rhapsody
on contemplating the mystery,” 104-139. (Moodle) |
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27
Sep |
1.
Originating in
the Way Exploratories |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 1. (Text) ·
Yates. “Dao the Origin.” (Moodle) ·
Needham, “Time and social devolution or
evolution, Ta thung
and Thai phing,”
253-267. (Moodle) MOVE THIS TO HNZ
8! |
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29
Sep |
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·
Wang Zhongjiang,
“Hengxian: Stages of cosmic unfolding,” 30-62. (Moodle) ·
Brashier,
“‘A poetic exposition on heaven and earth’ by Chenggong Sui (231-273),” 1-46.
(JSTOR) |
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2
Oct |
2.
Activating the
genuine |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 2. (Text) ·
Zhuangzi, “Wandering far and
unfettered,” 3-8. (Moodle) |
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4
Oct |
|
·
Zhuangzi, “Equalizing assessments of things,”
9-21. (Moodle) |
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6
Oct |
3.
Celestial patterns Exploratories |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 3. (Text) ·
Tseng, “Imagining celestial journeys,”
336-367, 407-409. (Moodle) |
|
9
Oct |
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·
Sun Xiaochun and Kistemaker,
“Philosophy of the Chinese sky” and “Main structures in the sky and their
meaning,” 94-145. (Moodle) ·
Pankenier,
“Appendix: Astrology for an empire: The “Treatise on the celestial offices”
in The grand scribe’s records (c.
100),” 444-511. (Moodle) |
|
11
Oct |
4.
Terrestrial forms |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 4. (Text) ·
Birrell, “The classic of the northern
mountains,” from The classic of
mountains and seas. (Moodle) ·
Henderson, The development and decline of Chinese cosmology, 53-78. (Moodle) |
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13
Oct |
|
·
Brashier, “The symbolic language of
fading memories,” 280-348. (Moodle) |
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First paper (on Huainanzi chaps
1-4) due @ 11.59 p.m. |
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FALL BREAK |
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23
Oct |
5.
Seasonal rules Exploratories |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 5. (Text) ·
Ling and Cook, “Translation of the Chu
silk manuscript.” (Moodle) |
|
25
Oct |
|
·
Hsu, “Ordinances for the four peoples.” (Moodle) ·
Bodde, “The winter solstice or solar
new year,” 165-188. (Moodle) ·
Bodde, “The midsummer festivals,”
289-316. (Moodle) |
|
27
Oct |
|
·
Lynn, “Commentary on the appended
phrases,” 47-101. (Moodle) |
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30
Oct |
6.
Surveying obscurities |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 6. (Text) ·
Puett, “Aligning and orienting the
cosmos,” 259-286. (Moodle) |
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1
Nov |
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·
Graham. Yin-yang and the nature of correlative thinking, 1-95. (Moodle) COULD ADD DAY MOVING
BAN GU WUXING ZHI HERE. |
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3
Nov |
7.
Quintessential spirit Exploratories |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 7. (Text) ·
Cook, “The pre-Han period.” In Chinese medicine and healing, 5-29. (Moodle – note it’s under “Takashima”
on the E-reserves list.) ·
Lo, “The Han period.” In Chinese medicine and healing, 30-64. (Moodle – note it’s under “Raphals” on
the E-reserves list.) I SPLIT THIS INTO TWO
SESSIONS, ONE ON HNZ AND ONE ON COOK/LO. |
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6 Nov |
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·
Unschuld, trans. Huang Di nei jing su wen, vol. 1, 29-153. (Moodle) |
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8
Nov |
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·
Ssu-ma
Ch’ien, “Pien Ch’üeh and Ts’ang-kung,” in The grand scribe’s records, 1-88. (Moodle – note it’s under “Ch’ien” on the E-reserves list.) |
|
10
Nov |
8.
The basic warp |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 8. (Text)
Pankenier
to notes for conference – really good but hard for them. Instead shift focus
to shaping time ·
Me (PM Part I intro, i.e. pp. 60-68) on
removing our current thinking about past ·
Pankenier,
but just 51-58 ·
Needham, “Time and social devolution or
evolution, Ta thung
and Thai phing,”
253-267. (Moodle) on their shapes
of past. Warn about weird romanizations e.g. Datong 大同 and Taiping 太平. MOVED FROM ABOVE ·
HNZ 8 |
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13
Nov |
|
CHANGED TO Brashier,
PM II, pp.144-208, on “age” – the personal
version of shaping time in the Han. [Intro with example of names improving as
age, as net size grows?] |
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15
Nov |
|
·
Ban Gu and human-heaven resonance. (Appended to reading map) XXJettisoned
due to needing to find room (and it’s better at HNZ 6) |
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|
Second paper (on Huainanzi chaps
5-8) due @ 11.59 p.m. |
|
The
sun bird flying among the stars and through the ethers
(Eastern
Han stone relief, Jianyang)
C. The Huainanzi’s (suggested) supplementary chapters
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9.
The ruler’s techniques |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 9. (Text) ·
HIGH PRIORITY |
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11.
Integrating customs |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 11. (Text) ·
HIGH PRIORITY |
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12.
Responses of the Way |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 12. (Text) ·
MED PRIORITY |
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13.
Boundless discourses |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 13. (Text) ·
HIGH PRIORITY |
|
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15.
An overview of
the military |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 15. (Text) ·
MED PRIORITY – IF YOUR INTO IT |
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20.
The exalted lineage |
·
The
Huainanzi, chap. 20. (Text) ·
HIGH PRIORITY |
D. A Han critic of
cosmological speculation
|
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Final
project brainstorming |
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(21.)
Wang Chong critiques cosmic structures |
·
Forke,
Lun-heng: Philosophical essays of Wang Ch’ung, pp. 64-143. (Moodle) |
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(22.)
Wang Chong critiques the nature of physical phenomena |
·
Forke,
Lun-heng: Philosophical essays of Wang Ch’ung, pp. 250-312. (Moodle) |
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(23.)
Wang Chong critiques human-heaven resonances |
·
Forke,
Lun-heng: Philosophical essays of Wang Ch’ung, pp. 313-373. (Moodle) |
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Outroduction:
“You are here.” |
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8
Dec |
Third paper due 8 Dec @ 6 p.m. (with SASE
if you want comments) |
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13 Dec |
Final project due at noon |
Fuxi
and Nüwa build the cosmos (Eastern Han stone relief, Sichuan)
V. Consciousness of
conference technique
Much of our educational system seems designed
to discourage any attempt at finding things out for oneself, but makes learning
things others have found out, or think they have, the major goal. –
Anne Roe, 1953.
At
times it is useful to step back and discuss conference dynamics, to lay bare
the bones of conference communication. Why? Because some Reed conferences
succeed; others do not. After each conference, I ask myself how it went and why
it progressed in that fashion. If just one conference goes badly or only so-so,
a small storm cloud forms over my head for the rest of the day. Many students
with whom I have discussed conference strategies tell me that most Reed
conferences don't achieve that sensation of educational nirvana, that usually
students do not leave the room punching the air in intellectual excitement. I
agree. A conference is a much riskier educational tool than a lecture, and this
tool requires a sharpness of materials, of the conferees and of the conference
leader. It can fail if there is a dullness in any of the three. Yet whereas
lectures merely impart information (with a "sage on the stage"),
conferences train us how to think about and interact with that information
(with a "guide on the side"). So when it does work....
The content of what you say in
conference obviously counts most of all, so how do you determine in advance
whether you’ve got something worthwhile to say? The answer is simple if you
don’t just quickly read the assigned materials and leave it unanalyzed. So how
do you analyze it? A colleague and friend at Harvard, Michael Puett, writes,
“the goal of the analyst should be to reconstruct the debate within which such
claims were made and to explicate why the claims were made and what their
implications were at the time." A
religious or philosophical idea doesn’t get written down if everyone already
buys it; it’s written down because it’s news. As new, we can speculate on what
was old, on what stimulated this reaction. Think
of these texts as arguments and not descriptions, and as arguments, your
job is to play the detective, looking for contextual clues and speculating on
implications. I will give you plenty of historical background, and if you look
at these texts as arguments, you will get a truer picture.
In addition to content, there
are certain conference dynamics that can serve as a catalyst to fully developed
content. I look for the following five features when evaluating a conference:
1.
Divide
the allotted time by the number of conference participants. That resulting time
should equal the leader's ideal speaking limits. (I talk too much in
conference. Yet when I say this to some students, they sometimes tell me that
instructors should feel free to talk more because the students are here to
acquire that expertise in the field. So the amount one speaks is a judgment
call, but regardless, verbal monopolies never work.)
2.
Watch
the non-verbal dynamism. Are the students leaning forward, engaging in eye
contact and gesturing to drive home a point such that understanding is in fact taking on a physical dimension? Or are
they silently sitting back in their chairs staring at anything other than
another human being? As a conference leader or participant, it's a physical
message you should always keep in mind. Leaning forward and engaging eye
contact is not mere appearance; it indeed helps to keep one focused if tired.
3.
Determine
whether the discourse is being directed through one person (usually the
conference leader) or is non-point specific. If you diagram the flow of
discussion and it looks like a wagon wheel with the conference leader in the
middle, the conference has, in my opinion, failed. If you diagram the flow and
it looks like a jumbled, all-inclusive net, the conference is more likely to
have succeeded.
4.
Determine
whether a new idea has been achieved. By the end of the conference, was an idea
created that was new to everyone, including the conference leader? Did several
people contribute a Lego to build a new thought that the conferees would not
have been able to construct on their own? This evaluation is trickier because
sometimes a conference may not have gone well on first glance but a new idea
evolved nonetheless. The leader must be sure to highlight that evolution at
conference end.
5.
Watch
for simple politeness. "Politeness" means giving each other an opportunity
to speak, rescuing a colleague hanging out on a limb, asking useful questions
as well as complimenting a new idea, a well-said phrase, a funny joke.
If
you ever feel a conference only went so-so, then instead of simply moving on to
the next one, I would urge you, too, to evaluate the conference using your own
criteria and figuring out how you (and I) can make the next one a more
meaningful experience. Preparation is
not just reading the assigned pages; it’s reading and then thinking through
something in that reading, developing a thought and getting it ready to
communicate to someone else.
In the end, as long as you are
prepared and feel passionate about your work, you should do well, and if
passion ever fails, grim determination counts for something.
VI. The exploratory
Sometimes
conferences sing. Yet just when I would like them to sing glorious opera, they
might merely hum a bit of country-western. After my first year of teaching at
Reed, I reflected upon my conference performance and toyed with various ideas
as to how to induce more of the ecstatic arias and lively crescendos, and I
came up with something I call an "exploratory."
Simply put, an exploratory is a one-page,
single-spaced piece in which you highlight one thought-provoking issue that
caught your attention in the materials we are considering. This brief analysis
must show thorough reading and must show your
own thoughtful extension –
·
Your
own informed, constructive criticism
of the author (and not just a bash-and-trash rant);
·
Your
own developed, thoughtful question (perhaps even inspired by readings from
other classes) that raises interesting issues when seen in the light of the
author's text;
·
Your
own application of theory and method to the primary source;
·
Your
own personal conjecture as to how this data can be made useful; or (best of
all)
·
Your
own autonomous problem that you devised using the same data under discussion.
I
am not here looking for polished prose or copious (or any) footnotes – save all
that for our formal papers. (I do not return exploratories with comments unless
a special request is made.)
Exploratories are not full, open-heart surgeries performed on the text.
Instead, exploratories tend to be somewhat informal but focused probes on one
particular aspect in which you yourself can interact with the text and can
enter into the conversation.
What is not an exploratory? It is not merely a topic supported by evidence
from the book, nor is it a descriptive piece on someone else's ideas, nor is it
a general book report in which you can wander to and fro
without direction. Bringing in outside materials is allowed, but the
exploratory is not a forum for ideas outside that day's expressed focus. (Such
pieces cannot be used in our conference discussions.) Also, don’t give into the temptation of just
reading the first few pages of a text and then writing your exploratory. (What
would you conclude if you received a
lot of exploratories that all coincidentally tackled an issue in the first five
or six pages of the reading?) It is
instead a problematique, an issue with attitude.
The best advice that I can give here
is simply to encourage you to consider why
I am requesting these exploratories from you: I want to see what ignites your
interest in the text so I can set the
conference agenda. That is why they are due the evening before a conference. Thus late
exploratories are of no use. (Being handed a late exploratory is like being
handed your salad after you've eaten dessert and are already leaving the
restaurant.) I base roughly a third to
half my conferences on exploratories, and I will use them to draw you in, parry
your perspective against that of another, and build up the discussion based on
your views. Exploratories help me turn the conference to issues that directly
interest you. They often lead us off on important tangents, and they often
return us to the core of the problem under discussion. So if you are struggling
with finding "something to say," simply recall why I ask for these
exploratories in the first place. Is there something in the text you think
worthy of conference time? Do you have an idea you want to take this
opportunity to explore? Here is your chance to draw our attention to it. Your
perspectives are important, and if you have them crystallized on paper in
advance, they will be easier to articulate in conference.
Since I began using exploratories,
most students have responded very favorably. Students like the fact that it is
a different form of writing, a bit more informal and more frequent, somewhat
akin to thinking aloud. It forces one not just to read a text but to be looking
for something in that text, to engage that text actively. And it increases the
likelihood that everyone will leave the conference singing Puccini.
The mapped human surrounded by the four cosmic animals
(dragon to the east, turtle to the north, tiger to the west
and bird to the south)
flanked by the sun, moon and Big Dipper,
all against a background of qi.
(Eastern Han, Henan)