Chiyou

Summary

Chiyou 蚩尤 is the rebel against Huangdi in early Chinese tradition, and, as the Book of Documents says, the first to bring disorder into the world. He fought Huangdi on the plain of Zhuolu, called on wind and rain, was defeated by drought and killed, and centuries later became the god of war to whom kings made offerings.

The Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) says that in Xuanyuan's time the house of Shennong had grown weak and the lords raided one another and oppressed the people; Chiyou was the most violent of them, and no one could fight him. Then he rose in revolt and would not follow the ruler's command, so Huangdi gathered the armies of the lords, fought him on the plain of Zhuolu, captured him and killed him, and the lords made Huangdi Son of Heaven.

The Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) tells the war as a war of weather. Chiyou made weapons and marched against Huangdi, and Huangdi ordered the dragon Yinglong to attack him on the plain of Ji; Yinglong stored up the water. Chiyou called on the Lord of Wind and the Master of Rain, who let loose a great wind and rain. Huangdi then sent down from heaven a woman named Ba, drought, and the rain stopped, and Chiyou was killed. But Ba could not go back up to heaven, and wherever she stays no rain falls; Shujun told the Supreme Ruler, who placed her north of the Red River, and Shujun became "Ancestor of the Fields". Whenever Ba escapes, people drive her out with the words "Spirit, go north!", having first cleared the waterways and opened the ditches. Shanhaijing 17. Another chapter says that Yinglong himself, after killing Chiyou and Kuafu, could not go back up, so drought became frequent below, and when drought comes people make the image of Yinglong and heavy rain falls.

The idea his story turns on is that victory over the storm leaves the land out of balance. Chiyou fights with wind and rain; the king fights him with stored-up water and then with drought, and wins, but the drought sent down from heaven does not return to it, and the dragon that held the water cannot rise, so people are left to manage the weather by their own hands: they drive drought to the north after opening the ditches, and make the dragon's image so that rain will come. The first war for rule became a war between rain and drought that never ends.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method. 蚩 was read in Middle Chinese with an aspirated t-sound, and its phonetic element 之 was *tə in Old Chinese; 尤 was *[ɢ]ʷə, with a voiced consonant made at the uvula. So the letters are t, then gh, then a vowel, the letters of Arabic ṭaghā. In Lane ṭaghā is "he exceeded the just, or common, limit or measure", and particularly in disobedience; of water or a torrent, "it rose high, so as to exceed the ordinary limit"; of the sea, "its waves became raised"; and the Qur'an says, "When the water rose beyond its bounds, We carried you in the ship". On this reading Chiyou is "the one who goes beyond the bounds", which is what his stories make him: the first to break the limit on earth, and the one who let wind and rain loose beyond their measure. The Chinese 尤 itself means "fault, transgression", so the Chinese sense meets the Arabic reading.

Linguistic Root

The Shuowen jiezi says that 蚩 is an insect with 之 as its phonetic element, and that 尤 is "the different", that which departs from the usual. The Kangxi dictionary gives the rhyme-book reading of 蚩 with an aspirated t-sound and says that anything without understanding is called by it, and the Baxter and Sagart list glosses 尤 "fault; even more". So in Chinese the name comes close to "the faulty insect" or "the faulty outsider", a name the winner gives the loser.

In the comparison with ṭaghā, ṭ takes the place of the Chinese t, since ṭ, t, dh and ẓ form one group that becomes t or d in other languages; gh takes the place of the voiced uvular, the Arabic letter nearest to it in place and voicing; and the final weak letter of ṭaghā answers the vowel that closes both syllables. The three letters stand in order, and the Arabic sense joins disobedience and the overflowing of water, the two things the stories give to Chiyou. The point that needs explaining is that 蚩 is not itself in the Baxter and Sagart list, so its old form is taken from its phonetic element 之 and its Middle Chinese reading.

Neither of the project's Chinese essays mentions Chiyou, so the reading is proposed on the method.

Key Mythic Narratives

The first to bring disorder

In the "Punishments of Lü" chapter of the Book of Documents the king says: the ancient teaching tells that Chiyou was the first to bring disorder, and it spread to the common people until none were left who were not robbers and bandits. Then the Miao people made five cruel punishments, called them law and killed the innocent, so that the Supreme Ruler smelled no fragrance of virtue among the people, only the stench of punishments; and the August Ruler, pitying the innocent, ordered Chong and Li to cut the road between earth and heaven, so that no one came down and no one went up, one of the witnesses of the separation of heaven and earth. Then he commanded three lords: Boyi to give the statutes, Yu to level the waters and the land and to name the mountains and rivers, and Ji to sow the grain.

The maple tree

The Shanhaijing says that on Mount Song there is a tree called the maple, and that the maple is where Chiyou threw off his fetters, which became the maple tree. Another chapter says that Yinglong, after killing Chiyou and Kuafu, went to live in the south, which is why the south has much rain.

The Lord of War

The Shiji, in its chapter on the great sacrifices, says that the state of Qi had eight spirits worshipped from of old, the third of which was "the Lord of War", to whom sacrifice was made in the person of Chiyou, whose site lay on the western border of Qi. When Liu Bang, founder of the Han, rose as lord of Pei, he sacrificed to Huangdi and to Chiyou in the court of Pei and smeared the drums and banners with blood, and once his rule was settled he ordered a shrine to Chiyou set up in the capital, Chang'an. The loser of the war of Zhuolu became the god of warriors, to whom the victors sacrificed before battle. Shiji 8 and 28. The Kangxi dictionary records a star called "Chiyou's banner", like a comet with a curving tail, said to show the quarter where war will break out.

Symbolic Reading

The rereading essay does not mention Chiyou, but it reads the Chinese dragon as a symbol of typhoons and the monsoon winds. In the war of Zhuolu the dragon stands on the king's side: it stores the water, then goes to the south, where rain is plentiful; Chiyou stands on the side of wind and rain beyond their bounds; and Ba, drought, comes down and stays in the north. The story divides the land into a rainy south and a dry north, and explains why people drive out drought, clear the ditches and make the dragon's image, the farmer's work of every year. It is one of the images of storm and power over water, but here the master of the storm is the one defeated. The sense of the name in the Arabic reading, ṭughyān, going beyond bounds, holds both sides: disobedience to the ruler, and water exceeding its limit.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In the Theogony Typhon rises against Zeus after Zeus's rule is settled; from him come the wild winds that ruin crops and sink ships, and Zeus strikes him down with the thunderbolt. Chiyou rises against Huangdi and lets loose wind and rain, and is defeated. Both stories have a last enemy of the new king who fights with the storm; they part in that Zeus wins with the storm's own weapon, the thunderbolt, while Huangdi wins with drought.

In Ugaritic poetry Mot, death and drought, swallows Baal, the lord of rain, and the land dries up until Baal returns. In China drought stands on the king's side: Ba comes down from heaven and stops the rebel's rain. In both stories drought is a person with a dwelling, but at Ugarit it is the enemy of the rain-giver, and in China the king's soldier.

The war of Huangdi and Chiyou with water and wind is one of the images of combat with sea and serpent, with the dragon on the king's side, as Indra in India fights Vṛtra, who had shut the waters in; in China it is the king's own dragon that shuts the water in.

The Shanhaijing says that Chiyou "made weapons", as Cangjie made writing and Boyi made the well, so he is the master of a craft among the culture heroes, and his craft is war.