The Han Cosmic Board: A Response to Christopher Cullen

Abstract

This article adduces additional evidence to substantiate the author's ideas regarding the cosmic board shih published in Early China 4. The most essential points in the discussion concern first the relation between the appearance of the Big Dipper on the cosmic board and the role of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief and calendrical theory; and second, the influence of the cosmic board on religious belief and practice beginning in the Han period. Contrary to Cullen's opinion that the expression “main-cay of heaven” which denotes the Big Dipper is merely a figure of speech, passages from a variety of previn and Han texts show that this term accurately reflects the conception of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief. The development of the cosmic board and the system of divination associated with it are best understood in light of this belief and of the major role played by the Big Dipper in ancient calendriil theory. The influence on Han popular belief of the celestial spirits associated with the cosmic board is attested in the Lun Heng. The presence of several cosmic board divination texts dating to the Han and six Dynasties period in the Tao Tsang are evidence of the absorption of the cosmic board system of divinaion into Taoism at that time. In Taoist hagiography the traditional legend of the transmission of cosmic board divination to the Yellow God is also explicitly linked to the Taoist technique of pacing the Dipper, lese facts, combined with a Buddhist description of a mandala modeled on the design of the cosmic board, npy document the role of the cosmic board in Chinese religion.