Tantian — Discoursing on Heaven談天篇

The Confucian books say that Gonggong contended with Zhuanxu to be the Son of Heaven and did not win, and that in his anger he struck Mount Buzhou, breaking the pillar of Heaven and snapping the cords of the earth.

Nüwa smelted stones of five colors to mend the blue Heaven, and cut off the feet of a great turtle to set up the four poles. Heaven is not complete in the northwest, so the sun and the moon move there; the earth is not complete in the southeast, so the hundred rivers pour there. This is writing from long ago, and the world holds it to be right. Men of letters think it strange, but they have no way to call it wrong; and if they would call it wrong, they have no way to take it away. They also fear that it may truly be so, and so they dare not discuss it plainly. Discussed by the way of Heaven and the affairs of men, it is almost certainly empty talk.

If he contended with a man to be the Son of Heaven and did not win, and in his anger struck Mount Buzhou so that the pillar of Heaven broke and the cords of the earth snapped, then his strength was such that he had no match under Heaven. With such strength, had he fought the three armies, their soldiers would have been mole crickets and ants, and their weapons the tips of fine hairs. How then could he have carried the grievance of not winning, and in anger struck Mount Buzhou? Again, nothing is as hard and heavy as a mountain. Ten thousand men pushing together at a small mountain could not move it. Mount Buzhou is a great mountain. If it was the pillar of Heaven, breaking it was surely hard; if it was not the pillar, then that striking Mount Buzhou broke the pillar of Heaven is also hard to believe. When Zhuanxu contended with him, he could not have withstood him even by raising the soldiers of all under Heaven and using up the multitudes within the seas. What not winning could there be!

Again, is Heaven breath, or is it a body? If it is breath, it is no different from cloud and smoke. How could one get a pillar there and break it? It is said that Nüwa mended Heaven with stone, so it is a body. If that is truly so, then Heaven is of the kind of jade and stone. The substance of stone is heavy, and one pillar to a thousand li could not bear it. The peaks of the Five Marchmounts do not reach up to the end of Heaven; can they then be pillars? It is said that he struck Mount Buzhou. Did that mountain reach up to the end of Heaven? If Mount Buzhou was broken by Gonggong, was Heaven then ruined and fallen? If it was truly ruined and fallen, with what was it raised again? Of cutting off the turtle's feet to set up the four poles, those who explain it say, "The turtle was a great beast of antiquity. Its four feet were long and large, so its feet were cut off to set up the four poles." Now Buzhou is a mountain, and the turtle is a beast. If Heaven had a mountain for its pillar from the first, and Gonggong broke it, and the feet of a beast took its place, bones have rot in them. How could they stand for long? Again, if a turtle's feet could prop up Heaven, its body must have been so long and large that Heaven and earth could not hold it. Then, sage though Nüwa was, how could Nüwa kill it? And if Nüwa could kill it, what use was the killing? If the feet could prop up Heaven, then the hide would be like iron and stone. Knife and sword, lance and halberd could not pierce it, and the strong crossbow and the sharp arrow could not overcome it.

Consider that Heaven now stands very high from the earth, and that the Heaven of old was no different from the Heaven of now. When Gonggong broke Heaven, Heaven did not fall to the earth. Nüwa was a human, and though a human be tall, none reaches Heaven. When that mending of Heaven was done, what steps were climbed and held to do the work? Was the Heaven of old shaped like a roof, and not far from people, so that Gonggong could ruin it and Nüwa could mend it? If that were truly so, then of those who cut their teeth and became human before Nüwa, the Human Sovereign was the first. In the time of the Human Sovereign, was Heaven like a cover? Those who explain the Yi jing say, "The primal breath was not yet divided. It was a chaos, and it was one." The Confucian books say again, "Mingxing is of the kind where the breath is not yet divided. When it divided and parted, the clear became Heaven and the turbid became the earth." If we follow the school that explains the Yi jing and the words of the Confucian books, then when Heaven and earth first divided their bodies were still small, and the distance between them was near.

If it was near, then Heaven may have rested on Mount Buzhou, so that Gonggong could break it and Nüwa could mend it. Among the kinds that hold breath, there is none that does not grow. Heaven and earth are what holds breath and is so of itself. Since they first stood, the years have been very many, so the distance between Heaven and earth, its breadth and its narrowness, its farness and its nearness, can no longer be reckoned. The words of the Confucian books may have something they saw. Yet their words are still empty: that he struck Mount Buzhou and broke the pillar of Heaven and snapped the cords of the earth, that stones of five colors were smelted to mend the blue Heaven, that a turtle's feet were cut off to set up the four poles. Why? Though a mountain may move, the strength of Gonggong could not break it. Were the mountains small and the people large when Heaven and earth first divided? How could he strike it and break it? To say that Heaven was mended with stones of five colors may still be called like the way five minerals treat an illness as medicine. But when it comes to cutting off a turtle's feet to set up the four poles, it is hard to discuss in words. It has been long since Nüwa. Do the four poles stand on the turtle's feet still?

The book of Zou Yan says that under Heaven there are nine provinces, which are what is called the nine provinces above the Yu gong. The nine provinces of the Yu gong are what is called one province, and above it there are nine such as the Yu gong. The nine provinces of the Yu gong are the nine provinces of the world today. They lie in the southeast corner and are named Chixian Shenzhou. Beyond them there are eight more provinces. Each single province is ringed by four seas, named the Bihai. Outside the nine provinces there is again the Yinghai. These words are strange, and those who hear them are startled. Yet they too cannot know whether it is truly so or not, and so they follow one another in looking at them, reading them, chanting them and telling them. In this way empty things and solid things are handed down together in the world, and true and false are not told apart. The people of the world are deluded by it, and for this reason it is hard to discuss.

Consider that the knowledge of Master Zou did not surpass that of Yu. When Yu governed the flood, he took Yi as his aide. Yu had charge of governing the waters, and Yi had charge of recording things. They exhausted the breadth of Heaven and the length of the earth, told apart what lay beyond the four seas and reached the outer face of the four mountains, and there was nothing they did not set down of the lands of thirty-five states, of the birds and beasts and grasses and trees, of the metals and stones and waters and soils. Yet they did not say that there were nine more provinces. Liu An, king of Huainan, summoned masters of arts such as Wu Bei and Zuo Wu until they filled his palace halls, and they made a book of the arts of the Way and discussed the affairs of all under Heaven. The chapter Dixing speaks of things of other kinds and of the marvels of foreign lands, and sets out the differences of thirty-five states. Yet it does not say that there are nine more provinces. Master Zou's travels over the earth did not match those of Yu and Yi, and what he heard and saw did not surpass what Bei and Wu heard and saw. His talent was not that of a sage, and his matter was not given by Heaven. How did he come by these words? When the Shan jing of Yu and the Dixing of Huainan are examined, and the book of Master Zou is weighed against them, it is empty and reckless talk.

The Grand Historian said, "The Yu benji says that the He rises from Kunlun, whose height is more than three thousand five hundred li, where the sun and the moon avoid each other and hide to make their light, and that upon it are the Jade Spring and the Flower Pond. Now since Zhang Qian went as envoy to Daxia, the source of the He has been traced to its end. Where did anyone see what the Benji calls Kunlun? So in speaking of the mountains and rivers of the nine provinces, the Shang shu comes near. As for the strange creatures in the Yu benji and the Shan jing, I dare not speak of them." Now to say that one dares not speak of them is to call them empty. The height of Kunlun and the Jade Spring and the Flower Pond are what the whole world has heard of, and yet Zhang Qian went there himself and found no such thing. Consider that the Yu gong sets down without exception the strange and rare things of the mountains and rivers of the nine provinces and the treasures of gold and jade, and yet it does not say that on Mount Kunlun there are a Jade Spring and a Flower Pond. Examined by the words of the Grand Historian, the Shan jing and the Yu ji are empty and reckless talk.

In all things it is hard to know, and right and wrong are hard to measure.

The pole is the middle of Heaven, and all under Heaven now lies south of the pole, so north of the pole there must be high ground with many people. The Yu gong says that it soaks eastward to the sea and westward reaches the flowing sands. These then are the farthest bounds of Heaven and earth. The sun is a thousand li across. Now at Yin in Kuaiji, above the Eastern Sea, if one looks at the sun as it first comes out, it is two feet across, which is proof that it is still far off. If it is far, the lands of the east are still many; and if the lands of the east are still many, then north of the pole the breadth and length of Heaven and earth can no longer be counted. This being so, the words of Zou Yan cannot be called wrong, and the Yu ji, the Shan hai and the Dixing of Huainan cannot be believed. Zou Yan said, "All under Heaven now lies in the southeast of the earth, and is named Chixian Shenzhou." The pole is the middle of Heaven. If all under Heaven now lay in the southeast of the earth, the pole should be seen in the northwest. It is straight in the north, so all under Heaven now lies south of the pole. Speaking by the pole, it is not in the southeast, and the words of Zou Yan are wrong. If it were in the southeast, it would be near where the sun comes out, and the sun's light should be large when it comes out. Now one looks at the sun above the Eastern Sea, and looks at the sun from the land of the flowing sands, and its size is the same. They are ten thousand li apart, and its size does not change, so the breadth of land that all under Heaven now holds is small. Luoyang is the middle of the nine provinces, and looking north from Luoyang the pole is straight in the north. Above the Eastern Sea is three thousand li from Luoyang, and there too the pole is seen in the north. Reckoning by this, from the land of the flowing sands also the pole must again be seen in the north. The Eastern Sea and the flowing sands are the eastern and western bounds of the nine provinces and are ten thousand li apart, and that the pole is still seen in the north is because the land is small and what is dwelt in is narrow, and it has not been able to get clear of the pole. The commandery of Rinan is nearly ten thousand li from Luo. Ask the people who moved there and came back, and they say that at midday the land where they dwelt was still not south of the sun. Reckoning it, ten thousand li further south the sun is south of Rinan. That is, only at twenty thousand li from Luoyang does one come to what is south of the sun.

Now if one looks from the land of Luo at how far or near the sun is, it is not the same as the pole; the pole is farther. One could go thirty thousand li north and still not reach the place beneath the pole. Suppose one arrived there; that is then called reaching the place beneath the pole. Since it is fifty thousand li to Rinan, it is also fifty thousand li north to the pole. If it is fifty thousand li north to the pole, then east and west of the pole are also fifty thousand li each. East and west a hundred thousand, north and south a hundred thousand, and taken together a million li. Zou Yan's words were, "Between Heaven and earth there are nine such as all under Heaven." Consider that in the time of Zhou the nine provinces were five thousand li east and west and five thousand li north and south. Five times five is twenty-five, so one province is twenty-five thousand li. All under Heaven being nine times this twenty-five thousand li is two hundred and twenty-five thousand li. One might call the book of Zou Yan excessive, but reckoned and proved against the reality it turns out too small instead.

The Confucian scholars say, "Heaven is breath, so it is not far from people. When people have their right and wrong and do good or harm in secret, Heaven knows it at once and answers it at once, and this is the proof that it is near to people." Discussed by the reality, the body of Heaven is not breath. People are born from Heaven; why suspect that Heaven has no breath? Still, it has a body above, and it is far from people. Secret transmissions say in places that Heaven is more than sixty thousand li from all under Heaven, and the reckoners count three hundred and sixty-five degrees to one circuit of Heaven.

Below there are the degrees of the circuit, and above there is a number of li. If Heaven were truly breath, breath is like cloud and smoke, and how could it have li and degrees? Prove it again by the twenty-eight lodges. The twenty-eight lodges are the houses of the sun and the moon, just as the earth has post stations that serve as the offices of the senior clerks. The post stations are fixed to the earth, just as the houses of the stars are fixed to Heaven. Consider that those who appended these writings held that Heaven has a form and a body, and what they relied on was not empty. Examined in this way, it is clear that there is nothing indistinct about it.