University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Questions about the Year Star (Nan-sui).

Common people have a feeling of uneasiness, and are prone
to believe in defences and prohibitions. Even the wise become
doubtful, and are at a loss how to settle these questions. Consequently,
artisans carry the day, and scholars and well informed
people submit to them. Books on auguries outshine the Classics
and Canons, and the utterances of artisans have more weight than
the words of scholars and students. Now, I propose to inquire a
little into this question, that others may see for themselves, weighing
right and wrong, and that people in general may be roused.

Concerning the moving of one's residence, they say that to
encounter T`ai-sui[1816] is unlucky, and that to turn one's back upon it
likewise bodes evil. The encounter of T`ai-sui is termed "Jupiter's
descent,"[1817] and the moving in opposite direction to it, "Jupiter's
destruction",[1818] wherefore both are attended with misfortune.

In case T`ai-sui is in chia-tse, people on earth must not move
in a northerly or a southerly direction. Building a house and
marrying, they should avoid this as well. When they move to
the east or the west,[1819] or in one of the four intermediate directions,
these configurations are all lucky. Why? Because then they do
not collide with the T`ai-sui, nor meet its shock.

Let us ask what this avoidance of T`ai-sui really means.
Does it object to people's moving altogether? Then all moving
would entail calamities. Or does T`ai-sui not prevent people from
moving, but resent their collision? Then all people going north
or south on the roads would be visited with misfortunes.

The feelings of T`ai-sui would be like those of a high officer.
When a high officer is on a road, and somebody runs against

the carts and horses of his men, he would fly into a passion.
Why should T`ai-sui chastise only those who, carrying their
furniture and transporting their things, in changing their domicile
run against it?

Of yore, when on a trip, the Emperor Wên Ti[1820] was crossing
the Pa-ling bridge, there was an individual on the road who,
falling in with the cortège, jumped down from the bridge. Trusting
that the carriages of the emperor had already passed, he suddenly
emerged again, and frightened the carriage-horses. The emperor, very
angry, handed him over to the sheriff Chang Shih Chih[1821] for trial.
Provided that the spirit of T`ai-sui[1822] travel like Wên Ti, then those
who fall in with it would resemble the man emerging from below
the bridge.

At present, many wayfarers are unexpectedly drowned, or
fall down dead. How do we know but that they also encountered
T`ai-sui on its journeys?

Those moving their residence cannot stay in their former
home. Unable to stay there, they ignore whether they will meet with
the Year Star or not, and not knowing this, they cannot make up
their minds what to do.

Moreover, in case the spirit of T`ai-sui really travels about,
then perhaps it proceeds along a crooked line, and not necessarily
along a straight one, south or northwards,[1823] as with high officers,
leaving their houses, it happens that they take a crooked road.
Should it, as a spirit of Heaven, take the straight road, and not
a crooked one,[1824] then people moving from east and west and in
the four intermediate directions, would also run against it.[1825] A high
officer proceeding southward and northward, and people moving
from east to west, the configuration of these intermediate directions
would be like that leading to a collision.[1826] If T`ai-sui does not go
straight south and north, how could people, moving in these directions,
fall in with it?

If T`ai-sui did not move at all, then it might perhaps stay
in its palace and behind its walls without meeting anybody; how
then were man to encounter it?

Supposing T`ai-sui had no body like high officers and, shaped
like vapours, clouds, or a rain-bow, stretched straight across the
firmament, reclining at its extremities in the south and the north
on tse and wu,[1827] then people, moving east and west as well as those
taking an intermediate line, would also run against it, just as men
of our time, encountering an extensive fog and malarial exhalations,
no matter whether they moved straightways or sideways, backward
or forward, would all be affected.[1828] If T`ai-sui were really like air,
people ought to meet it and even, without moving, they would
have to suffer from it.

Further T`ai-sui is another spirit of Heaven resembling the
Green Dragon.[1829] The body of the latter does not exceed several
thousand chang.[1830] Let us suppose that the size of our spirit is
exceptional, and measures several ten thousand chang, and that this
body covers the north. Then we ought to say that T`ai-sui stands
in the north, but not in tse. East of tse is ch`ou, (N.N.E.) and west
of it, hai (N.N.W.). If it be shown that T`ai-sui does not cover
the whole north, it is owing to the great distance between the
extreme eastern and western limits of the north. But if it be held
to be just in the tse point, and colliding with people on earth,
only those settled in tse and wu regions should not move south
and north; why should those living eastward as far as ch`ou (N.N.E.)
and sse (S.S.E.), or westward as far as hai (N.N.W.) and wei (S.S.W.)
refrain from doing so?

Provided that the inhabitants of the ch`ou and hai regions
move up and down on the right or the left side of T`ai-sui southward
and northward, or east and west, they are quite safe. Ch`ou
being east and hai west of tse, the people of these quarters moving
simply east and west,[1831] must come into collision with the position
of T`ai-sui, and those of the sse and wei regions moving east and
west, be afraid lest they suffer destruction by the planet.

The Literati considering the Nine Provinces "under Heaven"[1832]
hold that they cover the entire length and breadth of the earth,
north, south, east, and west. These Nine Circuits comprise five
thousand Li which alone form the country of the Three Rivers,[1833]
i. e., the centre of the earth. With reference to the Duke of Chou,
consulting the tortoise, about his new residence the Classic says,
[Let the king come here as the vicegerent of God, and labour in
the centre of the earth.[1834] ] Consequently Lo is the centre of the earth.

Tsou Yen, arguing on the subject, maintains that of the Nine
Continents the five thousand Li form only one Continent, situated
in the east and called Ch`ih-hsien.[1835] Of continents, each comprising
nine circuits, there are nine. Nine times nine gives eighty-one,
consequently there are altogether eighty-one circuits. This view
is probably imaginary, but it is difficult to know the shape of
the earth. Should it be as described, there would also arise one
difficulty.

In case all land under Heaven forms Nine Circuits as the
Literati conceive it, then merely the circuits due south from Lo-yi
and north from the Three Rivers viz. Yü-chou, Ching-chou, and Chi-chou
could be frequented by T`ai-sui. How could it be between Yung
and Liang-chou, in Ch`ing-chou, Yen-chou, Hsü-chou, and Yang-chou?[1836]

Should Tsou Yen's view be correct, and the Nine Circuits of
the empire occupy the south-eastern corner of the earth, and not
be lying exactly in tse or wu, how could T`ai-sui be present?

If T`ai-sui did not keep its position at the confines of Heaven
and Earth, and were wandering about among the people, then the
house of every family might harbour it, and although a person
did not move south or north, it would come across it all the same.
Moving from an eastern to a western village, it would find T`ai-sui
there, and should it move from an eastern into a western building,
T`ai-sui would be in the western dwelling too. It would be east
or west, north or south of the person in question, just as, walking
on a highway, one falls in with other people in the east or the
west, the north or the south.

Provided that the space filled by T`ai-sui measures several
thousand, ten thousand, or hundred thousand chang, and that all
mankind under heaven by moving entails some adversity, then

how can their moving be regulated? If T`ai-sui stands in the
interstice between Heaven and Earth, it has a similar position to
a king in the midst of his country. People in the eastern part
of it, bending their bows and shooting westward, would not be
supposed to have wounded the king, because their bows do not
carry as far as the king's capital; they merely shoot in their own
place. Now, how could people moving proceed as far north as
where T`ai-sui has its resting-place? Moving no farther than perhaps
a hundred steps, how could they be charged with having
hurt T`ai-sui?

Moreover, people moving their residence, are warned to go
south or north, because T`ai-sui is held to stay in the tse point;
tse breaks wu,[1837] and those moving north or south, receive the shock,
which is called a calamity. Now, in order to smash something,
one requires a hammer. If there really be such a tool, then all
people, even those not stirring, would be smashed and destroyed
with it, but how could they be smitten in default of such a tool?

Thunder is the heavenly fluid. When in mid-summer it strikes,
it splits trees and rends mountains, and, at times, suddenly kills
a man. If the blow of T`ai-sui should be like a thunderbolt, there
ought to be a crashing sound also, and death ensue instantaneously,
for, otherwise, there could not be destruction either.

If the knocking together, and the falling foul of each other
be said to cause destruction, how can the knocking and striking
have this effect? The meeting of east and west is called knocking
together, and the coming into contact of south and north, falling
foul. Provided that knocking and running foul be calamitous, then
east and west must be always baleful, and south and north always
fatal.[1838]

In case a collision with T`ai-sui proves disastrous only because
of its being a spirit, it should be borne in mind that there are no
spirits more powerful than Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and
Earth meeting, dashed one against the other, no human life would
be possible between Heaven and Earth.

Perhaps there are Twelve Spirits above, Têng-ming, Tsung-k`uei
and the like,[1839] which the artisans declare to be all celestial spirits.
They always occupy tse, ch`ou, and the other cardinal points, and

are endowed with a fluid rushing and dashing against whosoever
crosses their way. Though in spiritual force not equal to T`ai-sui,
still they must do some minor damage, and those moving their
residence, although they may eschew the perils of T`ai-sui, would,
nevertheless, fall a prey to the attacks of the Twelve Spirits. Therefore,
whenever they are going to move they should be prevented.

The winter air is cold and corresponds to water, which has
its position in the northern quarter. The summer air is hot and
corresponds to fire, whose place is in the south. Autumn and
winter are cold, spring and summer are warm; that applies to every
place throughout the empire, and water and fire are not solely
encountered in southern and northern regions. Now, T`ai-sui stands
in tse only, but it is formed all over the world, and it is not
merely encountered in tse and wu. Should really the position alone
be decisive, then in wu there would be a hot summer and in tse,
a hard winter. Would those moving south and north, in winter
and summer, still meet with disasters?

In the beginning of spring, kên represents the king, and chên,
the minister, sun is the embryo, and li means annihilation, k`un
death, and tui imprisonment, ch`ien disgrace, and k`an tranquillity.[1840]
The king incurring death, and the minister imprisonment, king
and minister have knocked against the respective positions,[1841] and
elicited the fluids of death and imprisonment.

Ch`ien, k`un, and their six sons[1842] embody the true laws of nature
which Fu Hsi and Wên Wang have illustrated to govern the world
thereby. These texts are written in the Classics, and the principles
are believed by all the sages. They are evidently much more certain
than what we know about T`ai-sui.

If, at the commencement of spring, people should move to
the north-east, they would come under the diagram kên,[1843] but not
suffer any injury. When T`ai-sui stands in tse, and from the northeast
they move to k`un,[1844] this diagram would be near wu,[1845] as when
k`un is changed for kên, they would strike against the tse point.
Why would the latter fact alone entail misfortune?[1846]

The first moon resting in yin[1847] is destructive in shên,[1848] but the
moving between yin and shên is not attended with disasters in its
course. Although T`ai-sui does not point to wu, they wrongly
maintain that the year breaks wu. As a matter of fact, there is
no adversity to be apprehended, and the prohibition to move south
and north is inane and unreasonable.

Twelve months make a year and, when the four seasons are
completed, and the fluid of the yin and yang reaches a certain limit,
again a year is formed, which is but another name of days and
months joined together. Why should it be taken for a spirit,
supposed to stand in the tse point? By dissolving this combination
we get days, the addition of days forms a month, several months
become a season, and a number of seasons, a year, which therefore,
is something similar to a day, a month, and a season.

If the year possess a spirit, have days, months, and seasons
spirits also? 1,539 years form a t`ung period, 4,617 a yuan period.
A year is like a t`ung or a yuan period.[1849] A year having a spirit,
have the t`ung and yuan periods spirits likewise? Critics deny it,
but should they have them, for what reason would they injure
mankind? No spirits surpass Heaven and Earth, and Heaven and
Earth do not hurt mankind. People speak of the Hundred Spirits,
but they do not injure them either. Why should the fluid of T`aisui,
being the essence of Heaven and Earth, be so inimical to men
as to strike and hurt them?

Further, the text says that in chia-tse one must not move.
This may denote that chia and tse are different directions; but
T`ai-sui, having its position in tse, cannot stay in chia.[1850] In case
persons moving proceed there (to tse), and again settle in chia,
taking that course, but finally staying in chia, those fixing the time
for moving ought likewise to hinder them from moving eastward
or westward.[1851] Provided that chia and tse are combined, their
calamities should be the same too. Not shunning chia, but avoiding
tse, those persons fixing the time talk at random and deserve no
confidence.

People living somewhere cannot but change their residence,
and changing their residence, they cannot but come into collision
with the Year Star. Even if they do not, they cannot avoid dying
at their time. Artisans noticing people's death at present, ascribe
this misfortune to a change of residence in a former time. Common
folk are very timid in their minds, there are always people passing
away, and the consequence is that the story about T`ai-sui is
handed down from generation to generation and never dies out.