The ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’ (Wuxing zhi)

Abstract

Most researchers in Chinese studies shy away from the ‘superstitious’ material in the Sui shu 隋書 ‘Wuxing zhi’ 五行志 (the History of the Sui ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’), preferring to reduce the messages it would convey to the purely political and invoking Liu Zhiji’s condemnations of such treatises in his Shitong 史通 (Generalities on History). This essay suggests that such treatises in the official histories may provide some of the best entry points into the distinctive cast of mind of their compilers in their ventures into world-making. After all, both rulers and officials often subscribed to the belief, reiterated in the Five Classics, that history’s patterns, as reflected in the resonant cosmos, could be read not only for possible insights into past events but also as reliable guides to the future. The Sui shu ‘Wuxing zhi’ therefore becomes an important part of the educational plan for princes and those who serve them. The essay also attests the great flexibility of the formal aspects of such treatises, whose categories grow, shrink and change to adapt to new realities on the ground.