The lexicology of zhi 至 and dao 到
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecc 9:11)
The tribe of the predynastic Zhou (Zhouren 周人, or in Old Chinese Tiw-ni) had two groups of enemies that are attested from the Shang Dynasty. One of them, the Rong (戎, OC Nung) was a group closely related to the Zhou, who may have spoken a similar Sinitic language—if not Old Chinese, then a related para-Sinitic or perhaps proto-Qiang language. The differences between Zhou and Rong were not as much ‘ethnic’ or linguistic, as they were economic and ‘cultural’: the Rong, who are described as clothing themselves in animal skins, seem to have relied more on animal husbandry and pastoralism than on growing cereal grains like buckwheat or millet.
Another of them was a non-Sinitic people: a true group of outsiders, with a different language and ancestry. These were the Xian-yun (獫狁, OC Hram’-lun’). They lived on the northern bank of the upper reaches of the Yellow River. In terms of economy and ‘culture’ they were similar to the Rong: they were herdsmen and nomads. However, as with the later Xiongnu people, it’s still unclear what language they spoke, or if they were a tribal confederation of peoples speaking a large number of different languages.
Violence between the Zhou and their nomadic neighbours would likely have mostly followed the pattern of Eurasian steppe warfare. The Rong and Xian-yun would have made sporadic, but regular, low-yield raids on Zhou settlements and livestock. On the other side, there would have been small Zhou expeditions that chased off small bands of Rong and Xian-yun to clear out fields for settlement.
When pitched battles occurred between the Zhou and their nomadic neighbours, they would have been brutal. Both sides were equipped not only with bronze armour, spears and bows, but also with chariots (che 车). Chariots initially served as transports for advance infantry, but by the late Shang they had become the tanks of their era. They were mobile horse-drawn platforms whose speed and capacity for manoeuvre made them indispensable tools of battlefield dominance. It became common practice, particularly in later eras, for the chariot to have a three-man crew: a scout-commander who issued orders to the charioteer, and an archer who fended off attacks from the flanks.
When describing one battle between the Zhou and the Xian-yun, the Odes say:
玁狁匪茹、整居焦穫。
侵鎬及方、至于涇陽。
織文鳥章、白旆央央。
元戎十乘、以先啟行。戎車既安、如輊如軒。
四牡既佶、既佶且閑。
薄伐玁狁、至于大原。
文武吉甫、萬邦為憲。Badly reckoned the Xian-yun,
When they confidently occupied Jiao and Huo,
And overran Hao and Fang,
As far as to the north of the Jing.
On our flags was their blazonry of birds,
While their white streamers fluttered brightly.
Ten large war chariots,
Led the way in front.The war carriages were well made.
Nicely balanced, before and behind.
Their four steeds were strong,
Both strong and well trained.
We smote the Xian-yun,
As far as Tai-yuan.
For peace or for war fit is Ji-fu,
A pattern to all the States.(Book of Odes 《詩經》, Decade of Red Bows 彤弓之什, ‘Sixth Month’ 六月 4-5)
In isolation, this Ode reads something like a Zhou propaganda ditty, though the broader context situates it as part of the Zhou dynasty’s tragic historical ‘arc’. The Ode praises the chariots and horses of the Xian-yun and also their fierceness. (Legge’s translation says ‘badly reckoned…’ but the term feiru 匪茹 is a kind of litotic praise, that they ‘weren’t weaklings’!) This appraisal of the Xian-yun evokes Herodotos’s praise for the military prowess and organisation of Persia—it makes the victorious Zhou look all the more awesome in comparison. It ends on a note of praise for their king, Ji-fu. But the thrust of the poem is that you need more than just well-constructed cars and strong, well-trained horses to win battles. A commander like Ji-fu needs to have both short-range and long-range combined-arms tactical awareness.
The Ode itself does not delve into specifics of military battle tactics. And no wonder! To give a more recent example, the American national anthem doesn’t go into detail about the tactics of the War of 1812, howbeit there are lyrical references to ‘the rockets’ red glare’. Yet from archaeological evidence as well as certain later historical commentaries, we can draw some extrapolations. If Ji-fu was situated on a chariot himself, he would have had to have flawless, tight communication between himself, his driver and his archer. A single misheard or delayed order could spell disaster for a unit as dependent on speed and manoeuvre as a chariot! Yet in battle, Ji-fu would also need to be aware of the overall situation and disposition of his forces—his foot-soldiers and foot-based archers as well as his chariots. Ancient battle tactics required a field commander to divide his attention and thought in the moment, between his immediate situation and the broader one.
Drivers would also have to have a good rapport with their animals, and both driver and team had to be ready to respond to orders instantaneously in real-time. It’s unclear if these orders were delivered orally or by means of signal flags—either is possible, though the text of the Ode itself alludes to each army’s coloured banners and totemic symbols emblazoned on them. And obviously the archer on the crew had to be able to respond instantly both to the commander’s orders and to the situation within his whole field of vision. He also had to have a steady aim and be able to hit his target from a moving platform. The socketed, three-lobed bronze arrow-heads we have from this period are designed for balance and aerodynamics to increase their range and flight stability, suggesting they were specialised to be shot from the back of a chariot.
The word zhi 至 appears twice in this Ode. This glyph is nowadays interpreted as a pictograph (xiangxing 象形) of an arrow with fletching hitting its target. However, Xu Shen interprets it as a bird of prey in stoop, like those depicted on the Xian-yun banners here, diving to the earth to capture its prey (至：鳥飛從高下至地也。從一，一猶地也). Although the modern readings, bolstered by oracle-bone and bronze-inscribed instances of zhi 至 in the unmistakeable shape of an arrow (shi矢), tend to view Xu Shen’s analysis as depreciated, his ‘bird’ (niao 鳥) interpretation carries strong resonances of the totemic avian symbolism of the Xian-yun in this Ode, and thus should not be discounted completely. The linkages to hostile pursuit, capture and martial destruction are reinforced by the Erya’s linkage of zhi 至 with words like di 弔 ‘to shoot (a bird or animal), to score, to hit a mark’; cui 摧 ‘to break, to smash’; and li 戾 ‘surly, rebellious’.
In modern contexts, the word zhi 至 serves primarily a prepositional purpose. It marks reach, extent or limit. Dongzhi 冬至 and xiazhi 夏至 are the ‘winter solstice’ and ‘summer solstice’, respectively. Shenzhi 甚至 is ‘even’ as used to remark on an outlier or marginal case, as in 所有哺乳动物，甚至针鼹，都是温血动物 ‘all mammals, even echidnas, are warm-blooded’. There are also compounds like zhishao 至少 ‘at least’; zhiduo 至多 ‘at most’; zhiyu 至于 ‘as for, even considering’. The other function is directional or durational, as ‘until, up to’: zhisi 至死 ‘till death’; zhizhong 至终 ‘to the end’.
The Classical usage is prepositional, but there is an implied dynamic. In this case, it’s the extent of military control. The Xian-yun zhiyu Jingyang 至于涇陽 ‘got as far as the Jing’s sunny bank’, while the Zhou, when they pushed back, zhiyu Taiyuan 至于太原 ‘got as far as Taiyuan’ (Odes, ‘Sixth Month’). This can also be used in a more general or abstract sense, ‘to the point of’: 笑不至矧，怒不至詈。 ‘He should not laugh so as to show his teeth, nor be angry till he breaks forth in reviling.’ (Book of Rites 《禮記》 1.55) In other texts, the superlative use is prefigured: 天下之至柔，馳騁天下之至堅 ‘The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest.’ (Daodejing 《道德經》 43). In rarer cases, it can function on its own as a verb, ‘to arrive, to return’: 公及戎盟于唐，冬，公至自唐。 ‘The Duke met up with the Rong and made a pact with them at Tang. In the winter, the Duke returned from Tang.’ (Spring and Autumn Annals 《春秋》, ‘The Second Year of Duke Huan’s Reign’ 桓公二年 1) The allied character dao 到 contains zhi 至 and is thus a semantic derivative. It is apparently a more recent character, as it occurs only once in the Classics, in a similarly martial-military function of ‘to visit’: 蹶父孔武、靡國不到。 ‘Jue-fu is very martial, and there is no State which he had not visited.’ (Odes, Decade of Dang 蕩之什, ‘Grandeur of Han’ 韓奕 5)
This zhi 至 is thus related to ji 及, both expressing range or limit or reach, in a typologically parallel way to the relationship the Semitic roots f-g-‘ פ-ג-ע and n-g-‘ נ-ג-ע share. Similar to these two Sinitic roots, the two Semitic roots both denote ‘to reach, to touch, to make contact’, though the connotations of the former are more forceful and more martial. The latter can still be used to refer to hostile, violent or unwanted contact: הלוא צוּיתי את־הנּערים לבלתּי נגעך ‘Have I not charged the young men not to molest you?’ (Ruth 2:9) However, this nāga‘ נגע ‘to touch, to afflict’ is still less directly associated with forceful violence than fāga‘ פגע ‘to fall upon, to meet, to strike’, as Gideon struck the Midianite princes in the Book of Judges: ויּאמר זבח וצלמנּע קוּם אתּה וּפגע־בּנוּ כּי כאישׁ גּבוּרתו ויּקם גּדעון ויּהרג את־זבח ואת־צלמנּע ‘Then Zebaḥ and Ṣalmunnā‘ said, “Rise yourself, and fall upon us; for as the man is, so is his strength.” And Gideon arose and slew Zebaḥ and Ṣalmunnā‘.’ (Jdg 8:21)
Interestingly, however, the value in the nominalisation of these terms is reversed. Nega‘ נגע ‘blow, wound, sore, pox, stripe’, is less general, and more negative, than fega‘ פגע ‘blow, impact, result’: נגע־וקלון ימצא וחרפּתו לא תמּחה ‘Wounds and dishonour will he get, and his disgrace will not be wiped away’ (Prov 6:33), but on the other hand כּי־עת ופגע יקרה את־כּלּם ‘but time and chance happen to them all’ (Ecc 9:11).
… Or so it seems on the surface. Wounds and stripes are not permanent. A nega‘ נגע can be removed with time and repentance (Psalm 37:12). The fega‘ פגע in Ecclesiastes is permanent—it is Šǝ’ôl שׁאול ‘the grave’ (Ecc 9:10). That passage in Ecclesiastes is in fact a grim warning that even human beings who are outstanding in one of their attributes, whether cunning or strength or swiftness, must all die… therefore, whatever you do, make sure that you do it with all your strength.
The Xian-yun disappear from history, and are either supplanted by or absorbed into the Xiongnu 匈奴 tribal confederation, just as the Zhou dynasty collapses and is replaced by Qin Shihuang. So too the Midianites do not show up again as a people, after the episode in Judges where their princes are slain. They are referred to as a byword in the Psalms and in the works of the prophets. What happened to them? Who knows? The Tanakh simply says they were fāga‘ פגע. According to the Qur’ān, they were wiped out in an earthquake after they mocked and rejected their native prophet Šu‘ayb (7:91). By the time these books were written, by all accounts, the Midianites were already long gone.
If we’re hearing Ecclesiastes, though, then what happened to the Midianites is a secondary question. What happened to the Midianites will happen to us all. The nation called ‘America’ will disappear in exactly the same way—it’s inevitable. All of the schemes we dream up, all of the human heroes we worship, all of the projects we build, is all hebel hebelîm הבל הבלים, ‘vanity of vanities’ (Ecc 12:8)… yet the same book exhorts us to work with all our strength! What is this riddle? Why bother to work if it’s all going to dust in the end? Why bother striving if we never nega‘ נגע the result?
We work because there is One—and only One—Who can see the result, whatever the end may be.
~~~
‘Only then every man can peacefully remain in his own abode, and his mind and thought may be able to attain (a rest).’
I’m actually grateful to PY Saeki for phrasing it this way in his English translation of the Sutta of Beginning to Hear the Messiah. It’s brilliant, actually, but it resonates more to an East Asian ear than to an English-speaking one! Saeki manages to show the lexical bridge between the Five Classics—and particularly the Odes—and the Semitic textual tradition of the Syriac Pǝšiṭta represented by Bishop Aluoben. The Classics broadly approach the question of how to secure tranquillity and give rest to the people (anmin 安民). And here the author of the Sutta is using the language of an 安 and xin 心 to echo to the language of the Odes and the Documents.
The second sentence in this passage, between zhi 至 and xin 心 and the two lexemes derived from it, yi 意 and dao 到, is remarkable for its balance and artistry, but that’s only a small part of the point. The elliptical grammar of the author’s medieval Chinese, suggests that the breath of the One Whom Heaven exalts (Tianzun qi 天尊气) is the only force sufficient to establish the tranquillity sought by the authors of the Five Classics, in each household (jia 家) and in each heart (xin 心) and thought (yi 意)—in that order. Note the parallel structure to the ‘Great Learning’!
欲治其國者，先齊其家；欲齊其家者，先修其身；欲修其身者，先正其心；欲正其心者，先誠其意。
Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. (Rites 42.2)
The Sutta, by the way, predates the entirety of the lixue 理学 turn in Confucian thought by at least 150 years, if we take Han Yu’s (768 – 824 AD) career to be the start of that turn. It is necessary to understand this because the culture of the literati at the Great Tang (618 – 907 AD) court, though it had some exposure to Buddhist ideas, was not yet shaped by the anthropocentric and rationalist preoccupations of the literati of the Song (960 – 1279 AD) and Ming (1368 – 1644 AD) Dynasties. An Old Text scholar of the Ritual School hearing this Sutta, would thus garner from it that the author is appealing not only to the distant antiquity of the ancients (meaning the literary Yao and Shun), but also to their hard-bought and fragile alignment with Heaven.
That ran shi 然始 at the beginning would thus have been a provocation to the Ritual School hearer. The Sutta is proclaiming a force that could suddenly begin to achieve the tranquillity and repose that the ancients had struggled to retain in their own states.
