Chinese Civilization

Marcel Granet

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136200168
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Originally published between 1920-70, The History of Civilization was a landmark in early twentieth century publishing. It was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings:
* Prehistory and Historical Ethnography
Set of 12: 0-415-15611-4: £800.00
* Greek Civilization
Set of 7: 0-415-15612-2: £450.00
* Roman Civilization
Set of 6: 0-415-15613-0: £400.00
* Eastern Civilizations
Set of 10: 0-415-15614-9: £650.00
* Judaeo-Christian Civilization
Set of 4: 0-415-15615-7: £250.00
* European Civilization
Set of 11: 0-415-15616-5: £700.00

SECOND PART-CHINESE SOCIETY

ORTHODOX history seeks to prove that three thousand years before Christ, and within the classical limits of the country, a disciplined Empire existed in China and a nation which was already homogeneous. On the other hand, from the time that documents appear in comparative abundance, which can be dated with relative certainty and tentatively criticized, the land of the Chinese Confederation is seen as a new and circumscribed country. The soil is not tilled. The inhabitants, penned within small cantons, live isolated lives.

Is it necessary, because of our reverence for dates, to see a kind of primitive state in this condition of China at the dawn of chronology? Is it necessary to make this the starting-point of the history of Chinese society ? But who will prove that the Chinese, at the beginning of the Ch‘un Ch‘iu period, were not the remnant of a united and prosperous nation ? May we not suppose that they had formerly colonized at least the basin of the Yellow River, and that some cataclysm came to ruin their work ? There is no need to imagine an enormous cataclysm : a flood, an invasion of Barbarians would explain the state of partition revealed by the first dated documents. Is it a primitive state ? It seems to carry with it a traditional ideal of unity. Can we be sure that this is a recent ideal which has been artificially projected into the past ? The existence of an acknowledged sovereign supposes a certain political unity. The relative respect and the consideration which the Chou appear to have enjoyed during the Ch‘un Ch‘iu period seem to bear witness to an authority of ancient date, the mark of a previous state of comparative union. All that can be said in favour of the orthodox tradition has no more than a hypothetical value. But if we rejected these modest hypotheses, preferring an absolute negation founded on the lack of historic evidences, it would be easy to produce some beginning of proofs, insisting, for example, on the importance of traditions relating to stories of a flood, or on the assertions of chronicles which tell of a fierce invasion of the Ti in the seventh century.

We will take no sides. We refuse equally to deny and to accept the orthodox tradition in its entirety. It is probable that Chinese civilization is of great antiquity. It may even be that her history presents a certain continuity : again it is possible that China (or, at any rate, a part of the Chinese country) was possessed in very ancient times of a sort of homogeneity. But what can we make of the traditional theory which sets out to explain the whole of Chinese civilization ? This theory will have it that the society was perfect at its commencement, at the time when the Founders of the national civilization were revealing their Saintship. The idea that the Prince, solely by the observance of certain rites, could regulate his people's morals, and keep the world in order, corresponds with an ideal which is undoubtedly not of recent invention. We recognize indeed that it is the refinement of an ideal : we should like to know, with some precision, its origin and its history. Now for those who embrace the orthodox doctrine, this ideal is one of the necessary data—an accepted fact. It is from this standpoint that the facts of history are explained, nay, that they are related. All the documents have been manipulated and reconstructed by learned criticism. It has accepted the traditional data only so far as they seem to agree with the spirit of the system. Under these conditions, all true research would be impossible, were it not for one fact : the Chinese, when they are systematically constructing or reconstructing their history, think and write only by the aid of consecrated formulas, and within the frame-work of traditional rules. Rules and formulas, once they can be detached from the system, form positive data. It is from these data and these data alone, that the elements of a history of Chinese Society can be extracted.

It is at once evident that these data consist of fragmentary documents which cannot be attached to any chronology. All one's labour consists in classifying them. By this classification, it is possible to relate them to various centres of social life. It then remains to classify these centres. Here we must at first employ a retrogressive method.

We are acquainted, by direct documentation, with the lettered class, and the nobility of the Empire. The lettered class and the officials occupied a place in Imperial China similar to that held by the feudal nobility of China at the time of the tenure by fief. This China is known to us only by what the literati have chosen to tell us. But for this purpose they had recourse to traditional formulas. These they interpreted after their manner. But it is not impossible to understand them in the sense in which they were taken by the feudal nobles. To sort out the different values of these formulas is equivalent to relating them to classified centres. Consequently their classification makes it possible to describe an evolution: One may go in the same way passing in a gradual ascent from the Emperor to the feudal lord. But here the passage from one term to another is more direct. As a result of this more continuous evolution, it is possible to trace it almost to its source and discover, under extremely archaic forms, what was the power of the Prince. This power is defined by formulas which are veritable themes of mythology : sometimes we can even connect them with allied ritual acts : the whole reveals the beliefs and even the data of fact which rendered possible the constitution of chieftainships, and the advent of individual authority. Now there are other themes, chiefly to be found in poetry, which allow us to picture a rustic environment where some of the most important beliefs were nurtured which lie at the root of the authority belonging to the political chief, as well as of that which belonged to the head of the family. Thus by the simple means of referring the rules and formulas in which Chinese beliefs are enshrined to correctly classified centres, we succeed in tracing, in both the political and the family order, a double parallel evolution, which explains the formation of constitutional and of private right.

It will be seen no doubt that if these centres, which were described by the help of formulas borrowed from an immemorial tradition, can be correctly classified, it is only in so far as the rôle of governorship passed successively from one to the other of these centres. We are only stating this fact in other words when we say that the nobility of the Empire was the heir of the feudal nobility, or arose to take its place. This statement does not by any means imply that the feudal nobility disappeared when the nobility of the Empire arose in its stead to play a similar part in the life of the Nation. It is possible that groups of the feudal type still subsisted in China under the Han. On the other hand, it is possible that a species of nobility existed before the Imperial Era differing from the real feudal nobility, whose members were even at that period more like officials than vassals. In any case, it is certain that in the Ch‘un ch‘iu period (and even later) the customs of the peasants remained almost as they had been at the time when ideas were being worked out in the rural communities, then representing the most active element in Chinese society, which were later to be borrowed and transformed by the founders of the chieftainships at the Revolution whence feudal China emerged. But it was at that time that the rôle of leadership and creative activity passed into the hands of the chieftains and their followers. The beliefs and theories which helped to build up Imperial China had their origin in the activity of the feudal courts. Thus we shall study the different centres in which Chinese civilization was moulded at the moment when they began their work of creation. And we shall occupy ourselves more with the fortunes of what they created than with their own. It would be possible to justify this method by reason. It will suffice however to show that it is imposed by fact. There is no possibility of defining the different centres which must be studied for an understanding of Chinese civilization, other than through the beliefs and the technology which are their contribution to that civilization.

It is clear that the evolution, as we are able to define it, assumes an air of timelessness (for nothing begins and nothing ends at a fixed date) and a static quality (for there is no possibility of indicating peculiarities of detail and nothing to explain whether there were ebbs and flows, if it moved rapidly here and slowly there, if it was delayed or hastened through such a cause in such a country).

At first, every attempt at geographical or historical precision would be a mockery—much more every attempt at ethnographic precision. Again : the multiplicity and variety of possible influences render every theory more dangerous than useful. Nevertheless, I will point out one, solely as a working hypothesis and because it approximates fairly closely to an important datum. As far back as we can go Chinese civilization appears to be a complex civilization. On the other hand, at the beginning of the period known by dates, this civilization has its centre within the borders of two border regions, where the boundary of the fields of loess joins that of the alluvial plains. It is not impossible that the rise of a truly Chinese civilization is explained by the contact of two principal (I do not say primitive) civilizations, one of which would be a civilization of terraces and of millet and the other a civilization of rice and of the low-lying plains. The first may have contributed the influences of the Steppe and the other those of the sea. Historical traditions lend some support to this hypothesis. The Chou, who seem to have been powerful in the Chinese west, and were upheld by the Barbarians of the west, are said to have lived in ancient times in caves : for ancestor and god they had Prince Millet. The Yin, their rivals, allied themselves with the Barbarians of Huai in their struggle against them. They inhabited the marshy plains which border the eastern sea. The princes of Song, the descendants of the Yin, with the other princes of the East, always kept up communication with them. On the other hand, it seems certain that the civilization of Eastern China presented a certain unity with individual characteristics. Its sexual customs were more free. Hospitable prostitution was practised, with definite rites of blood alliance.

Before she entered the Chinese union, it is possible that Eastern China entertained relations which were peculiar to herself. It may be that through her, distant influences were brought to bear on Chinese civilization whose importance can scarcely be guessed. It is clear that it will only be possible to write the history of Chinese society in a concrete form when we have discovered how to define the ethnographical or technical influences which acted upon it.

SECOND PART-CHINESE SOCIETY

BOOK ONE

THE PEOPLE OF THE PLAINS

CHAPTER I

LIFE IN THE FIELDS

THE Chinese, from the first day of their known history, appear as an agricultural people. No doubt the raising of crops was of more importance formerly than in our day : but it was by the culture of cereals that the ancient Chinese gained a livelihood, as did the populations bordering their country, whom they considered Barbarians. Certain forays undertaken by the Ti (in 601 B.C.for example) are explained by the drought which had ruined their crops.¹

Nowadays when one visits the country of old China and sees long row after row of cultivated ground at the side of the roads and canals, one is tempted to think that with their relatively settled climate and apparently rich soil the marshy uplands or alluvial plains must always have invited the inhabitants to live as agriculturists. One would suppose that it had always and everywhere been easy to set up houses and till the fields. As a matter of fact, the Chinese soil has only revealed its fruitfulness canton by canton, and at the cost of heroic labours.

Native ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• FIRST PART-POLITICAL HISTORY
• SECOND PART-CHINESE SOCIETY
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX