La Pensée Cyclique (8)—Chinese Civilization (and Thought)

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series about Marcel Granet, "La Pensée Cyclique"

One year ago on Round and Square (13 April 2011)—Breaking the Vessel: Crafting a History

[a] Bloom RF

This series is dedicated to understanding one of the most fascinating intellects of the twentieth century, Marcel Granet (1884-1940). In an earlier era, he might have been considered (at least by bibliophiles studying tomes ranging from De l'esprit des lois to 呂氏春秋 between the world wars) the most interesting man in the world. For me, he is every bit of that (as we say back home). Granet's range of interests in social theory and Chinese literature were profound, catholic, and engrossing. I hope that (whether you are interested in French, social theory, or Chinese) you will give Monsieur Granet a little bit of your attention. The material is not simple, by any means, but it is an ideal way to grasp how knowledge really works.

Chinese Civilization (and Thought) 
                                   La Chine, je m’en fous.  Ce qui          I don't give a damn about China. What
                                   m’intéresse, c’est l’Homme.[1]            interests me is mankind.
                                                                          —Marcel Granet 

[b] Impact RF

But give a damn Granet did.  No one with interests in "mankind” as a whole—and there have been many, from Rousseau to Toynbee—could write over a hundred brilliant pages on Chinese numbers alone. As a significant chapter in Granet’s untranslated [into English] final work La pensée chinoise [Chinese Thought], it takes the classification concepts found in Durkheim and Mauss (not to mention in Granet’s earlier works) and, in effect, supercharges them. It is almost unfortunate that Pensée is such an original and brilliant work, because it has been read to the exclusion of Granet’s writings on marriage, polygyny, and Chinese social practices.

Without a translation of Pensée, the English translation of La civilisation chinoise [Chinese Civilization] loses its full impact, and the combination of thought and civilization in Granet’s crowning studies is lessened, making La pensée chinoise appear to be an isolated, quirky masterpiece. 

When read separately, La civilisation chinoise and La pensée chinoise lack the solidity Granet clearly planned for his works on Chinese civilization and thought. Indeed, there is significant overlap in the two books, and they form two sides of a single research question—one that dominated Granet’s own thought throughout his career. His crowning works on early China would show the profoundly social influences on intellectual life. Even more importantly, however (for Granet’s sociology and sinology were hardly mere echoes of either of his mentors), they showed the intellectual influences on social life. 

[c] Sonorous RF

It is here that we see the problem with reading La pensée chinoise in isolation. It forms both an embracing of and a significant step beyond the sociology of Emile Durkheim and the sinology of Edouard Chavannes. The array of chapters is dizzying, and even a rapid flip through its pages shows charts and graphs that both excite and give pause to even the most diligent sinologists. 

If La pensée chinoise is read alone, it might appear that, for example, Granet’s descriptions of the numerical values of various notes on the Chinese musical scale are truly ingenious baubles, as were so many of the sinological studies of his contemporaries.[3] It might well appear to readers of Pensée that the impact of the Année sociologique had been lost in the density of Granet’s early Chinese texts. 

It might appear, in short, that the diagram below representing the dimensions of musical tubes is a fascinating curiosity, and little more—especially considering Granet’s “explanation” below the diagram, which reads “We have 60 at the beginning of the series and 81 at the end, because, according to their cyclical disposition, the twelfth tube, 60, produces the first, 81."[4]

                  ORDRE DE PRODUCTION DES TUBES

                         Mois correspondent          XI         I           III         V          VII        IX

                    aux tubes                               VI       VIII         X                     XII         IV

                                                                           Tubes yang (valeur 3 ; désignation

                                                                                     emblématiques : Neuf)

      Emblèmes numériques             81         72        64         57         51         45         81

           des tubes yang

      Emblèmes numériques

            des tubes yin                         60         54        48        42        76        68        60

                                                                           Tubes yin

                                                                            Valeur 2                                     valeur 4

                                                                               Désignation emblématique : Six

[d] Embedded RF

What the careful reader of Granet’s oeuvre will see—especially if she has paid close attention to Granet’s work in the mid-to late-1920s, including Danses et légendes and La civilisation chinoise—is that cyclicality (of peasant festivals as well as musical notes) is embedded in Chinese thought, and it has profoundly social origins. These are the key points found in Granet’s earliest works, and were quite closely connected to Durkheimian sociology. One can see in the diagram above, however, an articulation of something that, although equally social in its origins, has profound connections to the details of Chinese thought found in the works of the Warring States period that linked ruling philosophy and the calendar to the movements of the universe.

Granet would never lose his focus on social theory, but it would become less and less obvious to many readers as his articulation of Chinese texts became more detailed. This is precisely why Granet’s final two works must be read as a pair. They create their own social and intellectual cyclicality, and form a fitting ending to Granet’s brief scholarly career. 

[e] Rockthought RF

From the opening pages of Chinese Civilization, we can see a world in rhythm. Granet there begins with the traditional history of early China, a section that many readers familiar with early Chinese skip, therefore losing an opportunity to see Granet’s argument from start to finish. He deals in some depth with the mythical traditions for early dynasties and introduces key concepts that will take on increasing importance later in Chinese Civilization and in La pensée chinoise.  Indeed, it is the only place in all of his works where he gives full mythical and historical context to such key ideas as his concepts of vertu and emblème, which color many of his later arguments, as well as the concept of rhythmic, ordered—and, ultimately, cyclical—movement that unites all (things) under heaven. 

          Each Sovereign has for an emblem a single  Element.  He possesses, however, 
          a sort of complete “Virtue,” and each one of them is, by himself, a creator of the
          national civilization. He is more than simply an inventor of scientific discoveries, 
          or of institution….The Sovereigns, who are the most perfect realizations of a 
          type, reign but do not invent. Invested with a more complete, and what seems 
          in a sense a more abstract Virtue, the confine themselves to the task of civilizing 
          by radiating a controlling power. This authority spreads both in space and time.  
          When complete, it constitutes the unity of the Empire, identifying the frontiers of 
          China with the limits of the universe.  This good result is secured when the 
          Sovereign, moving his headquarters about, himself carries his Virtue to the 
          limits of the world.  It is in this way that Huangdi, visiting the four points of the
          compass…But Yao is satisfied with sending delegates to the four poles and, 
          better still, a simple ceremony, carried out at the four gates of the capital, allows 
          Shun to subject the Universe to the order he wishes to inaugurate.  The 
          Sovereign rules over space because he is the master of Time…

Marcel Granet does far more in Chinese Civilization than shape the background for his work on Chinese thought (this is the conventional wisdom). He forges new arguments and sets his older ones—those concerning rural festivals and social life, as well as marriage customs and polygyny—in the broader historical and philosophical context of early China. Above all, we can see a subtle change in Granet’s work that would not come fully to the fore until La pensée chinoise. He shows great fascination with the way that people think and move, move and think, and in Chinese Civilization he shows the way that those thoughts and movements have been rendered in early Chinese literature.

[f] Movements RF

Chinese Civilization summarizes the key elements of Marcel Granet’s research before 1929, provides far fuller historical and philosophical context than any of his works before Danses et légendes, and sets the stage for a book that would mirror it in every sense of that word. The mirror image is important, and not only because of the centrality of bronze mirrors in early Chinese civilization (several of which appear as plates in Chinese Civilization). A mirror shows a reflection, and one in which any key element is found on the “other side.” Right becomes left and left right. So it is with Chinese Civilization and La pensée chinoise. The very force of the earlier book shows a rich social context for key Chinese ideas. Those very same ideas would come to the fore in La pensée chinoise, but their social power remains as Granet articulates the deep cycles of Chinese social life and thought.

---

Notes 

[1] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 29.  

[2] Find the reference for this point in Granet’s early work plan. 

[3] Granet’s examples in La pensée chinoise all spring from a deep sociological focus, even as they speak to detailed Chinese texts. 

[4] Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise (Paris: Albin Michel, 1934), 182. “On a rajouté 60 au début de la série et 81 a la fin, car, en raison de leur disposition cyclique, le 12^e tube, 60, produit le premier, 81.” 

Bibliography  

Granet, Marcel. La pensée chinoise. Paris: Albin Michel, 1934. 

Granet, Marcel. The Religion of he Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice Freedman]. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

[g] Analogy RF