Mark Csikszentmihalyi - Technical Arts in the Han Histories

Technical Arts

in the

Han Histories

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor

Technical Arts

in the

Han Histories

Tables and Treatises
in the Shiji and Hanshu

Edited by

Mark Csikszentmihalyi
and Michael Nylan

Cover: Bronze oil lamp from the tomb of Liu He, the Marquis of Haihun, ca. 64 BCE. On the side is inscribed: Changyi Eunuch Imperial Messenger [regulation] ding-style lamp, weighing six jin ten liang, made in the second year. Photograph by Mark Csikszentmihalyi.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2021 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Csikszentmihalyi, Mark, editor. | Nylan, Michael, editor.

Title: Technical arts in the Han histories : tables and treatises in the Shiji and Hanshu / Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Michael Nylan.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Cultyure | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781438485430 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438485447 (ebook)

Further information is available at the Library of Congress.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Michael Loewe

by unanimous vote of the contributors,
with deep respect

Tamdiu discendum est quemadmodum vivas,
quamdiu vivas. Seneca, Letters
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

Contents

Michael Nylanand Mark Csikszentmihalyi

Michael Loewe

Luke Habberstad

Lee Chi-hsiang

Jesse J. Chapman

Michael Nylan

Tian Tian

Karine Chemla

Miranda Brown

Mark Csikszentmihalyiand Zheng Yifan

Acknowledgments

In writing a book, especially an edited book, one always incurs many debts, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge them in due time. This book came into being to address some of the needs of our graduate students and best undergraduates to show them how scholars young and old tackle the technical issues, partly by doing and partly by watching other experts in the field discuss their own research projects. We editors were aware that the fields of Classics and the history of science were doing innovative work on the technical arts in antiquity, pushing the boundaries in ways that remained largely closed to those of us working in Early China studies, so we decided to take the plunge.

Of course, we must begin with the chief dedication of the volume, supported unanimously by the contributors, all of whom were canvassed through emails along with other routine inquiries, until it became clear that we had to stop emailing the probable object of the dedication himself. For each and every person save Michael Loewe put Michael at the top of the list of people we wanted to see honored for contributions to the field of Han history in general, and the technical arts in particular. As it would take far too long to list Michaels virtues as a scholar, colleague, teacher, and human being, suffice it to say that his Chinese name says it all: he is , the only one, that is, peerless.

All the contributors would like to thank Nathan Sivin, who commented on all the papers in various stages, sometimes more than once. Originally, the editors had planned to invite Professor Sivin to contribute his own chapter for the volume, which would describe where the history of the technical arts has been and is likely going in Chinese studies. Then, because of circumstances beyond everyones control (but common, alas, in academia), a few chapters did not appear on time for the volume, at which point it seemed unfair to ask Professor Sivin to plough through every chapter all over again and produce his own in short order. That said, a number of contributors consulted him via email about their chapters, and we have predictably benefited from those exchanges, we believe.

As a student, Csikszentmihalyis mentors in the technical arts were Sally Church, Robin Yates, Lothar von Falkenhausen, and Albert Dien. Since coming to Berkeley, he has been fortunate to learn from his students, Michael Nylan, and her students.

Nylans work on the technical arts began with study of the Taixuan jing under Nathan Sivin, proceeded with Paul Serruys and linguistics, and took an unexpected turn with early optics, with medicine and with manuscript culture, rooted always in history undergirded by archaeology. In matters archaeological, she has often benefitted from the superb guidance of Robert Bagley, her teacher, friend, and colleague, as well as from Michael Loewe.

A great many contributors commented on each others papers (as, for example, Luke Habberstad and Jesse Chapman read for Michael Nylan and each other). This has been an incredibly collegial bunch of people to work with: mostly on time with deadlines, endlessly patient in response to queries large and small, alert to the ways that they would like the papers to articulate with one another, despite the separate fields they largely represent. Besides this, we would like to thank the librarians at UC-Berkeley (Jianye He, Peter Zhou, Bruce Williams, and Deborah Rudolph especially) for their tireless work on behalf of faculty and students. Charles Aylmer, in the Cambridge University Library, hunted down materials for Michael Loewe.

At UC-Berkeley, the editors moreover had the help and support of the TaiwanUnited States Alliance (TUSA), which funded our initial meeting for potential contributors to plan such a volume late in 2014. We owe thanks to the Institute for East Asian Studies (then under Martin Backstroms leadership). Our respective departments (East Asian Languages and Cultures; History) gave the editors additional material and logistical support for the initial meeting with contributors. Finally, the Marjorie Meyer Eliaser Chair in International Studies provided support for the project at several key junctures.

Editors and contributors would like to thank Christopher Ahn for his encouragement early on with the project. We owe thanks to James Peltz and Roger T. Ames for their unfailing kindness and clear directions while shepherding the co-editors through the volumes final stages. We were fortunate enough to have the invaluable editorial assist from Vanessa Davies, an Egyptologist, whose steady intelligence, good cheer, and superb sense of the English language relieved the editors of considerable stress and gave us a good read on how best to convey some technical points to non-specialists. As Nylan was concurrently dealing with a less capable copy editor at another press, she was supremely mindful of what all academics owe to good editors at every stage of the complex process. The editors would also like to proffer warm thanks to Diane Ganeles at SUNY Press, and to Laura Tendler, for help during the final editing process.

Introduction

M ICHAEL N YLAN AND M ARK C SIKSZENTMIHALYI