One year ago on Round and Square (11 October 2011)—Asian Miscellany: Education in China
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Rural Religion in Early China."
Click here for the introduction to "La Pensée Cyclique" the "umbrella topic for this series.
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Rural Religion in Early China."
Click here for the introduction to "La Pensée Cyclique" the "umbrella topic for this series.
Divisions and Labor
“Society” is not something that is often engaged on an
intellectual level, at least by those who concentrate on making a living from
the soil. It takes extraordinary situations to notice it at all, and the
seasonal festivals were just that—the extraordinary, the “stressed periods in
the rhythm of peasant life.” For Granet,
one kind of gendered work “followed from” the other, and vice-versa. This
alternation and patterning was also seen in the seasonal festival songs, where
a deep sense of social harmony could be achieved—and even an awareness of a
larger “society” created—when opposing groups from different villages sang. At
the base of this conception was the hope of fruitfulness, in its sexual and
agricultural senses. That hope was intimately linked to the very divisions of
male and female, yin and yang, as the work of the year took on
its own distinct shapes.
The unity of society was deeply felt only at the time of the seasonal festivals,
in the stressed periods of the rhythm of peasant life: when male work was to
follow from female, or vice versa, men and women gathered together in the
Holy Place and having taken up position in opposing ranks and sung by turns,
joined together in a deep sense of harmony and in great hopes of
fruitfulness.[1]
L'unité de la société n'était profondément sentie qu'au moment des fêtes
saisonnières, aux temps forts du rythme de la vie paysanne : quand le
travail masculin allait succéder au travail féminin ou inversement, hommes
et femmes se rassemblaient dans le Lieu Saint, et, après s'être disposés en
lignes affrontées et avoir chanté alternativement, s'unissaient avec un
sentiment profond de concorde et d'immenses espoirs de fécondité.[2]
Granet goes further, in noting the manner in which one force leads and another responds to make the world fertile and for harmony to be generated. Fertility is both biological and agricultural. Both are manners of “working.” Both contribute to the growth of “society.”
The unity of society was deeply felt only at the time of the seasonal festivals,
in the stressed periods of the rhythm of peasant life: when male work was to
follow from female, or vice versa, men and women gathered together in the
Holy Place and having taken up position in opposing ranks and sung by turns,
joined together in a deep sense of harmony and in great hopes of
fruitfulness.[1]
L'unité de la société n'était profondément sentie qu'au moment des fêtes
saisonnières, aux temps forts du rythme de la vie paysanne : quand le
travail masculin allait succéder au travail féminin ou inversement, hommes
et femmes se rassemblaient dans le Lieu Saint, et, après s'être disposés en
lignes affrontées et avoir chanté alternativement, s'unissaient avec un
sentiment profond de concorde et d'immenses espoirs de fécondité.[2]
 |
| [b] Union RF |
Granet goes further, in noting the manner in which one force leads and another responds to make the world fertile and for harmony to be generated. Fertility is both biological and agricultural. Both are manners of “working.” Both contribute to the growth of “society.”
In the same way, yin
and yang were appointed to meet in
the spring and
the autumn; then they were face to face; depending on the season, one
called and the other replied; then, to make the world fertile and form its
harmony, they came together sexually; their splendid union was manifested
in the rainbow.[3]
De même, le yin et le yang se donnent rendez-vous au printemps et à
l'automne ; ils s'affrontent alors ; selon la saison, l'un appelle et l'autre
répond ; puis, pour féconder le monde et en constituer l'harmonie, ils
s'unissent sexuellement ; leur union splendide se manifeste par
l'arc-en-ciel.[4]
Finally, upon sexual union, the forces come together to transform society and nature. Here Granet, with no citations of any kind, notes the splendor of the rainbow to signify sexual connection. It is important to consider Granet’s rhetoric here, and, indeed, throughout these passages. It is the sexual unions that creates the rainbow. One cannot understand Granet’s perspective on Chinese thought without changing one’s basic ideas about cause and effect in nature and society. Sexual intercourse brings splendid rainbows. They don’t merely appear inevitably with springtime rains, nor are they merely a natural “symbol” of human linkage. They appear because human beings couple and link with the cycles of nature.
The directional power of the concepts yin and yang is seen most clearly in the passage below. Labor is divided in society, but it reflects the very proportions of the universe, not just the efficiency of the domestic economy. Yin is dark and recessed, just as the inner quarters where women live are separated from the strong outer flow of the world of agricultural labor. During the height of seasonal labor, women stayed in their homes and tended to sericulture and weaving. Men, on the other hand, worked in the hot (yang) sun and had the most “public” gains in terms of their work (although the fashionable clothing all wore to the festivals, crafted in the recesses of the household, is hardly trivial).
Women (and men, in far more muted fashion) wore women’s products. Everyone ate the men’s. The public (which is light-filled, in keeping with the master image of yang) nature of men’s activities separated them in profound ways from women, who were shaded and sheltered for much of the year, even to the point of weaving the fabrics they would wear in public in the inner quarters. Men worked in the light and shared their bounty in the light. Theirs was the most public of society’s labors.
Separated after the nuptials, they took it in turn to labor: yin, like women,
was active in the winter, and its activity, inward in its nature, could be
conducted only in withdrawn, dark, and closed off places; yang, like men,
was at work during the summer, in the full light of day, lavish in its output.
Yin had the meaning of shaded, north of the mountain, south of the river;
yang meant sunlight, south of the mountain, north of the river.[5]
Séparés après ces noces, ils se relayent dans leurs travaux : le yin,
comme les femmes, est actif en hiver, et son activité, qui est d'ordre
intérieur, ne peut s'exercer qu'en des lieux retirés, sombres et clos ; le
yang, comme les hommes, travaille pendant l'été, au plein jour, à grand
rendement. Yin a pour sens hubac, nord de la montagne, sud, de la
rivière ; yang a pour sens adret, sud de la montagne, nord de la rivière.[6]
The master images contour, as it were, to the body. As a natural phenomenon in its own right, the body was in tune with nature itself. The sunny part of a mountain and the south side of a river—sunlight: all of these provide the outward (“go get ‘em) nature of yang energy. The shady part of a mountain and the north side of a river—darkness: all of these provide the receptive and inward (“come get me”) nature of yin energy.
Granet does not use the sunny or shaded slopes in a merely classificatory style, as did the Chinese thinkers of the first millennium BCE. He assumes a literal and practical use of the slopes, with girls and boys taking up their positions there. It is a natural backdrop for a profound social principle—or a social backdrop for a natural one. Granet underlines the active nature of the principles and rejects interpretations that might be merely “symbolic.”
The names of the two principles are explained by the appearance of the
Holy Place, and they are a reminder of the sunny or shaded slopes where
the opposing choruses of girls and boys took up position. Thus these two
principles for organizing thought were conceived during the seasonal festivals
whose ordering made the principles of the organization of society perceptible
to everybody.[7]
Les noms des deux principes s'expliquent par l'aspect du Lieu Saint et
sont un souvenir des versants ensoleillés ou sombres où se plaçaient les
chœurs opposés de garçons et de filles. C'est que ces deux principes
d'organisation de la pensée furent conçus au cours des fêtes saisonnières
dont l'ordonnance rendait sensibles à tous les principes d'organisation de la
société.[8]
If the two primary organizing principles of yin and yang had their very foundation in society—and in the energetic interchange between boys and girls, men and women, in the seasonal festivals—then society was in many ways but another aspect of nature. Indeed, Granet argues here that the physical array of boys and girls on the sunny and shady slopes made society itself perceptible to everyone there. Something seemingly “theoretical” thus became observable and almost palpable. The individual boys and girls were a group that encompassed not only other boys and girls, but observers—voyeurs who had been the chanters themselves years before—as well. This perception of society, though, was ephemeral. It was born of the song contests in the seasonal festivals, and remained only as a memory once people returned to the fields in the summer or the domestic compound for the long winter. The cycle of memory, anticipation, and gathering, however, was what gave this picture of society its sustained power.
Finally, the songs and the budding society were only part of the picture. Everyone saw something else: a society in the midst of nature at one of its great “gathering points. It is not just a row of boys and girls chanting in alternation and isolation. What everyone perceived was the change of hawks into ring doves, the gushing waters of newly melted rivers, the mating calls of wild animals, and the hazy presence of the ancestors who had roamed these fields before—all with the “backdrop” of human society singing in joyous alternation, as its members, too, planned for “change” of a highly sexual nature. The growth of society took place in closed communities, but the energy behind that growth was generated by the gathering power of the festivals themselves, and the lines of chanting youths who teased and cajoled members of the other sex to pair with them and continue the regenerative cycle.
the autumn; then they were face to face; depending on the season, one
called and the other replied; then, to make the world fertile and form its
harmony, they came together sexually; their splendid union was manifested
in the rainbow.[3]
De même, le yin et le yang se donnent rendez-vous au printemps et à
l'automne ; ils s'affrontent alors ; selon la saison, l'un appelle et l'autre
répond ; puis, pour féconder le monde et en constituer l'harmonie, ils
s'unissent sexuellement ; leur union splendide se manifeste par
l'arc-en-ciel.[4]
Finally, upon sexual union, the forces come together to transform society and nature. Here Granet, with no citations of any kind, notes the splendor of the rainbow to signify sexual connection. It is important to consider Granet’s rhetoric here, and, indeed, throughout these passages. It is the sexual unions that creates the rainbow. One cannot understand Granet’s perspective on Chinese thought without changing one’s basic ideas about cause and effect in nature and society. Sexual intercourse brings splendid rainbows. They don’t merely appear inevitably with springtime rains, nor are they merely a natural “symbol” of human linkage. They appear because human beings couple and link with the cycles of nature.
 |
| [c] Inner RF |
The directional power of the concepts yin and yang is seen most clearly in the passage below. Labor is divided in society, but it reflects the very proportions of the universe, not just the efficiency of the domestic economy. Yin is dark and recessed, just as the inner quarters where women live are separated from the strong outer flow of the world of agricultural labor. During the height of seasonal labor, women stayed in their homes and tended to sericulture and weaving. Men, on the other hand, worked in the hot (yang) sun and had the most “public” gains in terms of their work (although the fashionable clothing all wore to the festivals, crafted in the recesses of the household, is hardly trivial).
Women (and men, in far more muted fashion) wore women’s products. Everyone ate the men’s. The public (which is light-filled, in keeping with the master image of yang) nature of men’s activities separated them in profound ways from women, who were shaded and sheltered for much of the year, even to the point of weaving the fabrics they would wear in public in the inner quarters. Men worked in the light and shared their bounty in the light. Theirs was the most public of society’s labors.
Separated after the nuptials, they took it in turn to labor: yin, like women,
was active in the winter, and its activity, inward in its nature, could be
conducted only in withdrawn, dark, and closed off places; yang, like men,
was at work during the summer, in the full light of day, lavish in its output.
Yin had the meaning of shaded, north of the mountain, south of the river;
yang meant sunlight, south of the mountain, north of the river.[5]
Séparés après ces noces, ils se relayent dans leurs travaux : le yin,
comme les femmes, est actif en hiver, et son activité, qui est d'ordre
intérieur, ne peut s'exercer qu'en des lieux retirés, sombres et clos ; le
yang, comme les hommes, travaille pendant l'été, au plein jour, à grand
rendement. Yin a pour sens hubac, nord de la montagne, sud, de la
rivière ; yang a pour sens adret, sud de la montagne, nord de la rivière.[6]
The master images contour, as it were, to the body. As a natural phenomenon in its own right, the body was in tune with nature itself. The sunny part of a mountain and the south side of a river—sunlight: all of these provide the outward (“go get ‘em) nature of yang energy. The shady part of a mountain and the north side of a river—darkness: all of these provide the receptive and inward (“come get me”) nature of yin energy.
 |
| [d] Slope RF |
Granet does not use the sunny or shaded slopes in a merely classificatory style, as did the Chinese thinkers of the first millennium BCE. He assumes a literal and practical use of the slopes, with girls and boys taking up their positions there. It is a natural backdrop for a profound social principle—or a social backdrop for a natural one. Granet underlines the active nature of the principles and rejects interpretations that might be merely “symbolic.”
The names of the two principles are explained by the appearance of the
Holy Place, and they are a reminder of the sunny or shaded slopes where
the opposing choruses of girls and boys took up position. Thus these two
principles for organizing thought were conceived during the seasonal festivals
whose ordering made the principles of the organization of society perceptible
to everybody.[7]
Les noms des deux principes s'expliquent par l'aspect du Lieu Saint et
sont un souvenir des versants ensoleillés ou sombres où se plaçaient les
chœurs opposés de garçons et de filles. C'est que ces deux principes
d'organisation de la pensée furent conçus au cours des fêtes saisonnières
dont l'ordonnance rendait sensibles à tous les principes d'organisation de la
société.[8]
If the two primary organizing principles of yin and yang had their very foundation in society—and in the energetic interchange between boys and girls, men and women, in the seasonal festivals—then society was in many ways but another aspect of nature. Indeed, Granet argues here that the physical array of boys and girls on the sunny and shady slopes made society itself perceptible to everyone there. Something seemingly “theoretical” thus became observable and almost palpable. The individual boys and girls were a group that encompassed not only other boys and girls, but observers—voyeurs who had been the chanters themselves years before—as well. This perception of society, though, was ephemeral. It was born of the song contests in the seasonal festivals, and remained only as a memory once people returned to the fields in the summer or the domestic compound for the long winter. The cycle of memory, anticipation, and gathering, however, was what gave this picture of society its sustained power.
Finally, the songs and the budding society were only part of the picture. Everyone saw something else: a society in the midst of nature at one of its great “gathering points. It is not just a row of boys and girls chanting in alternation and isolation. What everyone perceived was the change of hawks into ring doves, the gushing waters of newly melted rivers, the mating calls of wild animals, and the hazy presence of the ancestors who had roamed these fields before—all with the “backdrop” of human society singing in joyous alternation, as its members, too, planned for “change” of a highly sexual nature. The growth of society took place in closed communities, but the energy behind that growth was generated by the gathering power of the festivals themselves, and the lines of chanting youths who teased and cajoled members of the other sex to pair with them and continue the regenerative cycle.
Click here for other posts in Round and Square's "Rural Religion in China" series:
Rural 17 Rural 18 Rural 19 Rural 20 Rural 21 Rural 22 Rural 23 Rural 24
Rural 25 Rural 26 Rural 27 Rural 28 Rural 29 Rural 30 Rural 31 Rural 32
Rural 33
 |
| [e] Nature RF |
[1] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 48.
[2] Marcel Granet, La religion des chinois (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1922), 21-22.
[3] Granet, Religion, 48.
[4] Granet, La religion, 22.
[5] Granet, Religion, 48.
[6] Granet, La religion, 22.
Bibliography
[7] Granet, Religion, 48-49.
[8] Granet, La religion, 22.
Bibliography
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated by Maurice Freedman]. New York:
Harper & Row, 1975.
Granet, Marcel. La religion des chinois. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1922.
Harper & Row, 1975.
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