A Chinese Bestiary : Strange
Creatures from the Guideways
Through Mountains and Seas by
Richard E. Strassberg
A Scholarly Read Not To Be Missed
76 b/w plates, 37 b/w illustrations A Chinese Bestiary presents a
fascinating pageant of mythical creatures from a unique and enduring
cosmography written in ancient China. The Guideways through Mountains
and Seas, compiled between the fourth and first centuries b.c.e., contains
descriptions of hundreds of fantastic denizens of mountains, rivers,
islands, and seas, along with minerals, flora, and medicine. The text also
represents a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese. Richard
Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving
together translations from the work itself with information from other texts
and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the
imaginative world of early China. Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval
period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the
strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found
throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred
geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today,
it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and
shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the
start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from
a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for
the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engravers art
during the late Ming dynasty. This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-
known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts
and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general
readers alike.
My Personal Review:
Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd and Nathan Sivin in, The Way of the Word: Science
and Medicine in Early China and Greece, raise the following
questions: "In what circumstances did inquiries about the world outside
human society begin? and What paths [my own italics] did those inquiries
open up?" One such "path" or "guideway" is found in the Shan hai jing , or
"The Scripture, Classic, Canon, Warp-text [and now Guideways]--however
one wants to render jing--Mountains and Seas," as Robert Ford Campany
puts it in his review of Riccardo Fracasso and Anne Birrell''s earlier
translations. He goes on to say, "The list is the trope of plenitude, and an
overwhelming plenitude of anomaly is what this book conveys." The
Shan hai jing is one of the earliest Chinese works that attempted to
provide a description of what was then believed to be "the world outside
human society." It sought to provide an embodiment of taxonomic
reckoning of its landscape and all of its natural and supernatural fauna and
flora, especially to those who ventured into it. There gradually arose
amongst the ancient Chinese intelligentsia a weltanschauung, or "world
concept" of their biophysical and socioanthropological environment in
which they conceived of themselves as being an integral part of the
cosmos and intrinsically interjoined with its spiritual, physical, and moral
"influences." To explore the Shan hai jing is to undertake an odyssey in
search of its mysteries. This literary venture can easily boggle the mind,
especially when it comes to accomplishing a creditable translation with a
plausible exegesis of its contents. Many of the traditional commentaries
are, for the most part, useless, since the commentators were themselves
ignorant of the folklore and pal?ozoology that underlies this venerable and
probably composite text. It requires a whole critical apparatus built around
it before an even reasonably full interpretation can be achieved, especially
by the philological unwary. Richard Eric Strassberg, Professor of Chinese
in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University
of California at Los Angeles, offers us an exceptionally fine work of
scholarship in his thorough editing, excellent translation, and extensive
commentary of this ancient work. He provides his readers with a new and
invigorating approach to wandering through this arcane world. He leds us
along this jing, or "guideway" and familiarizes us with its passages as a
jing, or a "classic." As our guide, he points out in his introductory remarks
(p. 5), as a daybook to guide the reader in "choosing auspicious days for
travel and avoiding danger from gods and demons." As its expounder, he
penetrates its "sacred geography filled with strikingly unusual denizens" (p.
xiv) and acquaints us with its mysteries. Strassberg reminds us that he
has "undertaken the risky venture of providing translations whenever
possible of the names of creatures, places, and things. Though well aware
of the risks involved in the more polysemous case, I offer these
translations as reasonable significations that would have occurred to
traditional Chinese readers both to facilitate the readers contact with this
difficult text and to stimulate further consideration among specialists of
what these names might have meant." (p. xviii) One can never be too
exacting when it comes to translating ancient Chinese words, nor should
such exactitude be so constrained as to preclude the full rein they must be
given in order to convey the splendor of their exquisite implicitness. And,
again, one can never be too careful when it comes to avoiding renderings
which are vitiated by the bland assumption that they meant then what they
mean in later dynastic periods; accordingly, such assumptions can be
distorted or entirely false. The author has adroitly avoided such pitfalls and
he does not misguide his readers. The contents of A Chinese Bestiary:
Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas
(hereafter cited as A Chinese Bestiary) consists of eight parts: List of
Illustrations; a Preface; Editorial Notes; a meticulous introduction, followed
by 76 plates of the rare illustrations found in the 1597 Yaoshantang reprint
of the earlier Wang Chongqing edition as well as 345 descriptions of its
demoniac/theriomorphic denizens; extensive Notes; an inclusive Selected
Bibliography; and a thorough Glossary Index to Plates. Strassberg has
gone to considerable effort to cull through resources in order to provide his
readers with what is regarded as being the earliest surviving illustrations of
woodblock engravings from the above rare work, making the illustrations
available perhaps for the first time in any foreign publication, thereby,
providing his readers with an artistic tour de force into the realm of a
Chinese bestiary. In discussing the origins of A Chinese Bestiary, the
author refers to how "the yi-physicians credited Divine Farmer (Shennong)
and the Yellow Thearch...with having written important medical and
pharmacological treatises." (p. 4) One is reminded of Angus Graham''s
remarks that "legends of Shennong and the Yellow Emperor develop in
interaction as representatives of rival tendencies to political centralization
and decentralization...." This political dichotomy within medicine also
reflects a gradual division within Chinese society between the illiterati (the
bearers of oral traditions, including folk medicine) and the literati (the
bearers of written traditions, including what would later become known as
traditional Chinese medicine). Consequently, one can with caution suggest
that materia medica may have been later more closely associated with folk
traditions even though it is referenced in the Huang di nei jing su wen, or
"The Inner Canon of the Yellow Thearch, Basic Questions" which forms
in part the literary foundation of Chinese medicine. As for minor
suggestions, I would offer the following remarks: It would be more
convenient for the reader to have the ideograms side by side with their
Romanized counterparts, not to mention having the footnotes at the foot of
each page for immediate and convenient referencing; there are a few
entries, such as guai, yi, xi, and qiu whose ideograms are missing
in the Glossary Index; there is some question to rendering of yu and jin
as "jade" and "gold,"or zhen as "minister," since in most texts as early as
this they mean "precious stones," "precious metals," and "magnate."
Similarly, jing bi shi probably means "azure pi stones" (bi is an unidentified
stone in early texts, used for making arrowheads; its use as a color word is
much later); and, even given all of Strassberg''s extensive footnotes, the
undaunting quest for more appears to be an insatiable need (e.g., the
guanxiong min, or "the people with perforated chests" (pp. 163-164) may
refer to those people who were carried on planks of simple construction
before the advent of sedan chairs). The contents of A Chinese Bestiary
are not vitiated by bland assumptions of contextual meanings misplaced in
dynastic disorder or by a "highly imaginative rendition" (p. xvii) in which
assumptions can be distorted or entirely false. Strassberg''s literary
astuteness and refined linguistic sensitivity provide his readers with an
encompassing grasp of its numerous subtleties and variegated shades of
meaning. He has not failed to afford his readers, specialists and
nonspecialists alike, with an exceptional opportunity of improving our
appreciation and understanding of this fascinating ancient Chinese text. It
joins the ranks of Yuan Ke''s Shan hai jing jiaoyi, Rémi Mathieu''s étude sur
la Mythologie et L''ethnologie de la Chine Ancienne and Riccardo
Fracasso''s Libro dei monti e dei mari (Shanhai jing): Cosmografia e
mitologia nella Cina Antica, as being the best translation in its language--
English--as well as a must read for those whose penchant is ancient
Chinese studies.
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