OVERGROWN COURTYARDS AND TILLED FIELDS: IMAGE-BASED DEBATES ON GOVERNANCE AND BODY POLITICS IN THE MENGZI, ZHUANGZI, AND HUAINANZI

Abstract

Abstract Thus far, scholarship on early China has mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology. I showcase in this article a methodology called metaphorology that enables us to analyze how discourses developed through the reworking of images. In particular, I reconstruct a discourse on governance and self-cultivational practices as enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter and Huainanzi 9.13. While Mengzi 3A.4 purports that the cultivation of agricultural fields and human bodies are necessary steps in the civilizational process, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter demands a decultivation of the human population and a return to the wilderness. In my reading, Huainanzi 9.13, from the “Arts of Rulership” chapter, amalgamates these two image-based debates with the help of the metaphors of the ruler as an overgrown courtyard and the officials as tilled fields. Hence, I propose that Huainanzi 9.13 creates its integrative vision of governance that promotes both education and decultivation by synthesizing the “Mati” chapter's focus on wilderness and Mengzi 3A.4's concerns with tilling. As a result, I encourage us to engage fully in imagery's role as a central and foundational aspect of early Chinese debate culture rather than a rhetorical side effect of its various discourses. 提要 迄今為止的早期中國研究大多著力於對術語、概念的爭論和詮釋。在這篇論文中，我希望展示一種新的研究方法，即通過研究意象的轉化來分析各種話語的變化發展。尤以《孟子・滕文公上》、《莊子・馬蹄》和《淮南子・主術訓》為例，我試圖重構這三個文本所體現的統治與修身話語。雖然〈滕文公上〉主張耕作與修身是禮樂文明賴以發展的必經階段，〈馬蹄〉的一些章節卻要求人們去除禮樂教化，回歸「廣莫之野」。而〈主術訓〉一章藉由兩個比喻──以「朝廷蕪」比喻君主「無為而治」，以「田野辟」比喻官吏「務功修業」──將《莊子・馬蹄》的荒野和《孟子・滕文公上》的耕作這兩種不同意象融為一體。由此，《淮南子・主術訓》創造性地提出了一種整合禮樂教化與無為復樸的統治術。