Myth and authenticity: deciphering the Chu Gong Ni Bell inscription.

• Author: Cook, Constance A.

ACCORDING TO THE POET Qin Guan (1049-1100), strange lights attracted the local people in Jiayu district one night, late in the northern Song period. The source was a lake bank that had been exposed during a drought.(1) The people marked the spot and later excavated "bo and zhong class bells". Qin described them as "shaped with two corners like two tiles; on the left and right |of each side~ are nine nipples (i.e., bosses) all together |equaling~ thirty-six teeth (bosses)--the kind with gu (striking area), zheng (central vertical cartouche on surface), wu (flat top), yong (shank), heng (top of shank), xuan (protrusion around shank), and gan (suspension ring).(2) Upon examination, they do not conform to ritual standards." They were stored in Wuchang until some time later when they were unfortunately recycled into metal for weapons by a local official who found them unappealing, particularly since they had been discovered during an inauspicious time. Qin Guan bemoaned the foolish trashing of antiquities--in this case, musical instruments made by one who was honored "by a former king for his meritorious virtue and had harmonized man and spirits with their (i.e., the bells') fine music." Qin composed a ci lyric in imitation of the Chuci poem "Buju"--a poem lamenting the plight of the worthy Qu Yuan in a topsy-turvy world--in which he laments the loss of the sacred, primal energy of the bells, owing to someone who acted as did the ignorant rulers in the Chuci poem (who would discard bronze bells and instead use clay pots to sound "thunderous peals").(3)

But the reputed powers of ancient metals, particularly those cast by an unknown Chu Gong into a bell that, according to Song commentators, described itself as an instrument of "night rain and thunder" must have saved at least one of the bells from the junk heap. This was a "thunder bell" described in 1178 by Rong Qi as being about 60--70 millimeters high and decorated with "a naked ghost sitting on the knob--probably a thunder spirit. The five colors are displayed intertwined. An inscription is on the bell's inner section."(4) Since both bells are now lost, we are forced to reconstruct their possible form from the Song accounts, which are often caught up in the mystique of Chu. Rong Qi's description of the decor, for example, derives from mythological images traditionally associated with the south, particularly with the area of southeastern Hubei where the bells were discovered, just north-northeast of the ancient Dongting Lake region--a region steeped in the early lore of mystical journeys and water deities. The cultural association of the area with the ancient state of Chu is seen most clearly in the late Warring States- and Han-period shamanistic songs collected in the Chuci.(5)

Rong Qi's description of bell decor in terms of a "thunder spirit" and "five colors" derives from texts with shamanistic overtones, such as the Shanhaijing and certain poems of the Chuci. One "thunder spirit" is defined in the Shanhaijing, as follows: "In the Thunder Swamp there is a thunder spirit, with a dragon body and a human head. It beats its belly, and lives in Wuxi (i.e., west of the Wu area).(6) In the Chuci poem "Yuan you", the Han poet describes a mystical journey through Heaven in a chariot harnessed with dragons and decorated with flapping banners made from the dazzling "five colors" of the rainbow. During part of this journey, the "Rain God" and "Thunder God" act as his guide and protector, respectively. On his way through Heaven and to enlightenment (via "lightning's fissure"), he encounters various other Chu divinities.(7)

By interpreting the bell decor in terms of the metaphorical world of spirit travel, Rong Qi elevated the "night rain and thunder" bells, as well as their inscriptions by the unknown Chu Gong, to a historical-mythical realm that even most modern Chinese scholars have barely dared to question. By the Southern Song period, the bells--once considered by a local official as inauspicious liabilities--had obviously become metaphors of the region's magical past.(8) Discussion of the bells in comparison with other recently excavated bells may help to dispel some of their mystery.

The modern scholars Li Ling and Gao Zhixi agree that the bell(s) as described could not belong to the bo class, as understood at present, but must have belonged to the yong class of bell.(9) Both of these types were made to be suspended (obliquely in the case of the yong and vertically in the case of the bo) and struck with a mallet.(10) Wang Guowei claimed to have seen a Ye-lei Chu Gong zhong ("Night-Thunder Chu-Lord bell") in the possession of Luo Zhenyu in Shanghai as late as 1915.(11) Unfortunately, the image of the bell in Luo's catalogue (printed in 1917) is a rubbing, the only one in a book otherwise consisting of photographs.(12) The rubbing, now known to be a fake, shows a bell of the nao class, covered with swirling "thunder" ornamentation, apparently a product of Shang or early Western Zhou southern manufacture.

Dragon images were common in bell ornamentation during both the Western and Eastern Zhou periods, and, given the dragon's traditional association with thunder and rain, could easily have been interpreted by a Song scholar as representing a thunder spirit. However, the placement of a dragon on the bell's suspension loop is unusual, the only other such example being on a very late Western Zhou yong bell excavated in Fufeng, Shaanxi--the so-called Nangong Hu zhong.(13) There are examples of bo-class bells where the loops themselves are formed of two dragons (though not, as here, one sitting on the niu or "knob"), but those date from the late Chunqiu or early Warring States periods.(14) On most excavated yong bells, loops and even the shanks to which the loops are attached are either plain or decorated with abstract linear patterns or (in later examples) raised hooked patternon.

Rong Qi's "five colors" may have referred to the abstract bands of linear scrolls typically found between the rows of bosses, as on the Nangong Hu zhong. Such scrolls in Chinese paleography have, since the Han period, been understood to represent clouds.(15) It is unlikely that Rong's "five colors" referred to inlay, as inlaid bells were rare and only then a late Warring States phenomenon.(16)

The inscription of four lines and thirty-six characters, as preserved by the Song compiler, Wang Houzhi,(17) was on the zheng or "central panel" of the bell surface, this being a rectangular, outlined cartouche that is positioned vertically between two flanking and identically decorated panels. There are no examples of bo bells with inscribed zheng panels until the late Chunqi period,(18) but yong bells with inscribed zheng panels are common from the late Western Zhou period.(19) Examples include several Chu yong bells, such as the Chu Gong Jia bells of the late Western Zhou(20) and the Chu Wang bell of the middle Chunqiu period.(21) The Chu Wang Yin Zhang bell of 443 B.C.E. of the early Warring States period is a bo example.

To judge from these facts and comparisons, we can assume that our inscription was most likely on a yong bell, dating sometime from the late Western Zhou up through the Chunqiu period, or--though this is less likely--a bo bell, dating to the late Chunqiu period. Although the mythologically loaded description of the bell does not match perfectly with excavated examples (except for the Nangong Hu zhong), we shall see in our analysis of the inscription that the case for the authenticity of a Chu Gong Ni bell is fairly strong.

In 1888 Sun Yirang attempted to give the figure of Chu Gong some historical veracity. Sun deciphered the personal name as Ni and argued that since ni could be read e, the "Chu lord" must have been Xiong E (r. 799-790),(22) an early Chu ruler who is mentioned in the Shiji.(23) Sun, following tradition, believed "Chu" (as an ancient clan and a polity) originated in the central Yangtze river valley (also regarded as one of the early homes of Chinese shamanism), Recent archaeological research has shown that the Chu polity most likely spread from the middle Han river valley to the south and southeast, although there is disagreement about whether this occurred in the late Western Zhou period or only during the Chunqiu period.(24) The association between the location of the bells' discovery and the identity of Chu Gong Ni will be taken up again shortly, when we examine the inscription itself.

The number of inconsistencies between myth and archaeological fact, along with the odd nature of the inscription itself, tempt one to dismiss the inscription as an ingenious but clumsy forgery. The present form of the wood-cut graphs bears little resemblance to contemporary paleographs and thus makes the complete inscription almost impossible to read. Close examination of the inscription, however, suggests the hand of an ignorant but not necessarily malicious copyist and forces us to give the Chu Gong Ni inscription the benefit of the doubt. Although the inscription is problematic, I transcribe it as follows:(25)

It was the eighth month, day Jia-shen,(26) Chu Gong Ni on his own initiative made a thunderbolt |-sounding~(27) bo-bell.(28) Its inscription says:(29)

"Use |it~ to entertain with music the fathers and older brothers and the various collateral-lords."(30) Gong(31) Ni, may(32) |he~ for ten thousand years have long life. |Use it~ to protect his body.(33) |His~ progeny may eternally treasure |it~.

The language of this inscription is not unique when compared to other contemporary inscriptions, particularly those of the early Eastern Zhou period. Some expressions, however, present problems.

For example, the expression "a thunderbolt bell" is unprecedented in bronze texts; however, the idea of a "thunderbolt" representing a sound with supernatural overtones appears in late Warring States and early Han texts.(34) Earlier, the zhen trigram in the Yijing was interpreted as...