Illness and the Cosmic Body in the Fourth Century bce

Abstract A comparison of two body cosmograms in fourth century bce bamboo manuscripts stored in Tsinghua University reveals overlapping conceptions of how the human body is controlled by supernatural forces, albeit adapted to different social contexts. A “cosmogram,” in this context, is a graphically or textually described pattern depicting the interconnection of the spirit world, including agents of time and space, with the structure of the human body. One manuscript, the * Wu ji 五紀 ( The Five Guidelines ), reflects government-level hierarchy and a scholarly readership concerned with the role of moral prosocial behavior and sustaining a balanced cosmic order. The other manuscript, the *Shi fa 筮法 ( Stalk Divination ), reflects householder-level hierarchy and a specialist group of literate diviners concerned with managing the forces influencing a particular person. Both manuscripts reveal a dynamic relationship between pantheons of divine and demonic spirits that affect the welfare of the living. In a world where divine spirits, like officials, governed the people through a system of awards and punishments, illness is a punishment. This is specified in the * Wu ji . It is the role of ghosts and demons to inflict that punishment, causing “supernatural harm” ( sui 祟) to individuals. It is the identification of the source of sui that concerns the diviners using the * Shi fa . In both texts, the afflicting demonic forces are categorized according to the divine spirits in charge of the “harmed” body site. While demonic harm was seen in the fourth century bce as potentially affecting all aspects of social and political life, this essay focuses on afflictions to the physical bodies of individuals. Hence, the details presented in the * Shi fa are linked to diviner records of prayer and sacrifice buried in fourth-century- bce tombs (in Baoshan 包山, Hubei, and Geling 葛陵, Henan, for example) and compared to the larger framework presented in the * Wu ji .