Yubu
Yubu, translated as Pace of Yu or Step of Yu, is the basic mystic dance step of religious Daoism. This ancient walking or dancing technique typically involves dragging one foot after another, and is explained in reference to the legendary Yu the Great, who became lame on one side of his body from exerting himself while establishing order in the world after the Great Flood. Daoist religions, especially during the Six Dynasties period, incorporated Yubu into rituals, such as the Bugang 步罡 "pace the Big Dipper", in which a Taoist priest would symbolically walk the nine stars of the Beidou 北斗 "Big Dipper" in order to acquire that constellation's supernatural energy.
Terminology
The term Yubu 禹步, defined as boxing 跛行 "limp; walk lame", compounds two Chinese words.Yu was the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty, and worked so long and hard fighting the mythical Great Flood that he became partially paralyzed. Yu was also called Dayu 大禹 or Xiayu 夏禹.
The Shuowen Jiezi gives the earliest Chinese dictionary definition of yu 禹: "a "bug; reptile", from the "animal trampling tracks" radical, a "pictograph". The bronzeware script for 禹 depicts a head, legs, and tail. Shuowen commentators interpret this as meaning qu "decayed and missing teeth; bad teeth".
Axel Schuessler reconstructs Old Chinese *waʔ 禹 "insect; reptile", and gives an etymology from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *was "bee; honey" or Proto-Waic *wak "insect".
Bu means " walk; step; stride; tread; pace ". In this Chinese character 步, the top element is "foot" and the bottom was originally 止 backwards. Early bronzeware and oracle script characters depicted bu 步 as a "left foot" and "right foot".
Schuessler reconstructs Old Chinese *bâh 步, which has Sino-Tibetan cognates of Mru pak "go; walk" and Lushai vaakF / vaʔL "go; walk". Thus, two millennia ago, the ancient Chinese pronounced Yubu something like *waʔbâh.
Yubu "Yu steps" is related to the words Yuxing 禹行 "Yu walk" and Wubu 巫步 "shaman steps". The Confucian classic Xunzi uses the phrase Yuxing er Shunqu 禹行而舜趨 "Yu walk and Shun run" to mock the Confucian disciples of Zizhang 子張: "Their caps bent and twisted, their robes billowing and flowing, they move to and fro as thought they were a Yu or a Shun—such are the base Ru of Zizhang's school." The Korean Buddhist monk and scholar Honggi 洪基 was also known as Yuxing 禹行.
Yu myths
Yu the Great is the subject of many mythological stories. Anne Birrell says, "The myth of Yü and the flood is the greatest in the Chinese tradition. This is not just because the narratives tell how he managed to control the flood, but also because numerous myths, legends, and folk tales became attached to his name. In every case, Yü is depicted as a hero, selflessly working on behalf of humankind, and succeeding in his task."According to early Chinese mythological and historical texts, a Great Flood inundated China during the reign of Emperor Yao. Yao appointed Yu's father Gun to control the flooding, and he spent nine years constructing dikes and dams, which collapsed and killed many people. After reigning for one century, Yao abdicated the throne to Shun, the last of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, who fired or killed Gun and appointed Yu to replace his father. Yu the Great devised a successful flood control system through undamming rivers, dredging riverbeds, and constructing irrigation canals. In fighting the floods for thirteen years, Yu sacrificed his body, resulting in thick calluses on his hands and feet, and partial paralysis. Shun abdicated the throne to Yu, who founded the Xia dynasty.
The Daoist classic Zhuangzi quotes philosophical rival Mozi, founder of Mohism, to tell the myth of Yu controlling the flood.
Master Mo declared, "Long ago, when Yü was trying to stem the flood waters, he cut channels from the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers and opened communications with the four uncivilized tribes and the nine regions. There were three hundred famous rivers, three thousand branch rivers, and countless smaller ones. Yü personally handled the basket and the shovel, interconnecting the rivers of all under heaven, till there was no down on his calves and no hair on his shins. He was bathed by the pouring rains and combed by the gusting winds as he laid out the myriad states. Yü was a great sage, and he wearied his physical form on behalf of all under heaven like this."
Chinese origin myths have stories about two primordial sage-rulers being divinely inspired by patterns on turtle shells. Fu Xi devised the bagua "eight trigrams" of the Yijing from seeing the Hotu 河圖 "Yellow River Map" on a turtle , and Yu devised the basic magic square from seeing the Luoshu 雒書 "Luo River writing" on a giant turtle shell. "The Great Treatise" commentary to the Yijing has an early reference to the Luoshu.
Heaven creates divine things; the holy sage takes them as models. Heaven and earth change and transform; the holy sage imitates them. In the heavens hang images that reveal good fortune and misfortune; the holy sage reproduces these. The Yellow River brought forth a map and the Lo River brought forth a writing; the holy men took these as models.
The Yijing sub-commentary explains, "The water of the Ho sent forth a dragon horse; on its back there was curly hair, like a map of starry dots. The water of the Lo sent forth a divine tortoise; on its back there were riven veins, like writing of character pictures."
The Luoshu is a 3x3 grid of dots representing the numbers 1-9, with the sum in each of the rows, columns, and diagonals equal to 15. The Luoshu, also known as the Jiugongtu 九宮圖 "Nine Halls Diagram", is central to Chinese fortune telling and Fengshui. Yu supposedly used the Luoshu to divide ancient China into Nine Provinces; Michael Saso says the "Steps of Yu" dance is thought to ritually imitate Yu's lamely walking throughout the Nine Provinces, stopping the floods, and restoring the order and blessing of nature.
Andersen describes the symbolic relation between Yubu, Steps of Yu, and legends about Yu.
In Chinese mythology Yu is known first of all as the one who regulated the waters after the great flood, a fact he accomplished by walking through the world. His steps provide the exemplary model for the ritual form of Yubu. The flood may be equated with primordial chaos or, in a more synchronic mode of thought, the chaos underlying the existing state of order. And the cosmic order established by Yu may be identified with the societal order instituted by the emperor in accordance with the patterns of the universe.
Thus, one explanation for the Yubu is as a ritual reenactment in imitation of Yu's gait as the lamed flood-hero. An alternative origin myth for the Yu Pace is that Yu himself invented it, inspired by the movements of a divine bird; and, that when Yu assembled the gods together, he used this dance.
Donald Harper says, "Forms of magic related to Yu 禹, the flood hero and legendary founder of Xia, indicate his importance in Warring States magico-religious and occult traditions. Yu's legendary circumambulation and pacification of a world in chaos appear to have made Yu the archetypal pacifier of the spirit world that continued to exist alongside mankind."
Classical texts
The Chinese classics provide important information about Yubu "Paces of Yu".Shizi
The Shizi 尸子 "Writings of Master Shi", which is attributed to the Syncretist philosopher Shi Jiao 尸佼 could contain one of the first references to Yubu. The "Ruler's Governance" chapter says,Formerly, the Longmen were not yet opened up, and the Lüliang were not yet tunneled through, the river emerged from high in the Mengmen. greatly overflowed backed up, there were no hills or mounds, tall hillocks were destroyed by it: called the flood. Yu thereupon dredged the Huang and Jiang rivers, and for ten years did not glance at his home. hands had no nails and lower legs had no hair. contracted a partial-paralysis sickness, walked not step past the other, which people called the "Pace of Yu". [君治, 禹於是疏河决江十年未闞其家手不爪脛不毛生偏枯之疾步不相過人曰禹步] Yu had a long neck and a bird’s beak, and face was likewise ugly, the world followed him and considered him a worthy and enjoyed learning.
Fischer calls this "one of the most famous stories in all of Chinese mythology", and notes the "'Pace of Yu' would go on to have an important place in early medicine and later Daoist ritual."
This descriptive term is Chinese pianku 偏枯 "paralyzed on one side, hemiplegia".
Fayan
The Exemplary Sayings by Yang Xiong mentions Yu and the early physician Bian Que as examples of falsely borrowing names.In the past, Yu controlled the waters flooding the land, and now shamans dance the many Steps of Yu. Bian Qiao was a man of Lu, and now many healers and called men of Lu. Those who want to sell what is fake inevitably borrow from the genuine. [昔者姒氏治水土而巫步多禹]
Since the original literally reads "[wubu 巫步] "shaman's steps" many Yu", an alternate translation is: "Formerly Sishi 姒氏 regulated the waters and the earth, and the steps of shamans in many cases are those of Yu".
The French sinologist Marcel Granet hypothesized that Yubu dancing, which enabled Daoist priests to achieve a state of trance and become the instrument of a spirit, derived from ancient Wu techniques of ecstasy, such as tiaoshen 跳神 "perform a shaman's trance-dance".
Baopuzi
's Daoist classic Baopuzi contains some of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the Paces of Yu, in which "each pace comprises three steps, and the movement thus appears like the waddle of a three-legged creature". The three paces of Yubu were associated with the performer's movement through the three levels of the cosmos, the Santai 三台 "Three Steps; stars within Ursa Major" in Chinese astronomy, and the Three Steps of Vishnu across earth, air, and heaven in the Rigveda.The fact that already in the early Han dynasty, the steps seem to have been connected with the three pairs of stars that are situated under the Northern Dipper and referred to as the Three Steps, or the Celestial Staircase, would seem to support this. It would appear, in other words, that even in this early period the Paces of Yu constituted a close parallel to the three Strides Viṣṇu in early Vedic mythology, which are thought to have taken the god through the three levels of the cosmos, and which indeed, just like the Paces of Yu in Taoist ritual, are known to have been imitated by Vedic priests as they approached the altar—and in the same form as the Paces of Yu, that is, dragging one foot after the other.
The Big Dipper had central importance in Han cosmology, and was seen as the instrument of the emperor of heaven, Taiyi 太一, who resides in the bright, reddish star Kochab near the pole of heaven. In the so-called "apocryphal texts" or weishu 緯書 "glosses on the classics that allege esoteric meanings", the Big Dipper or Shendou 神斗 "Divine Dipper" is described as, "the throat and tongue of heaven", which "contains the primordial breath and dispenses it by means of the Dipper".
The Baopuzi "Genie's Pharmacopoeia" chapter tells Daoist adepts how to go into the mountains and gather supernatural, invisible shizhi 石芝 "rock mushrooms/excrescences".
Whenever excrescences are encountered, an initiating and an exorcising amulet are placed over them, then they can no longer conceal or transform themselves. Then patiently await the lucky day on which you will offer a sacrifice of wine and dried meat, and then pluck them with a prayer on your lips, always approaching from the east using Yü's Pace and with your vital breaths well retained.
Yü' s Pace: Advance left foot, then pass it with the right. Bring the left up to the right foot. Advance right foot, then pass it with the left. Bring the right up to the left foot. Advance left foot, then pass it with the right. Bring the left up to the right foot. In this way three paces are made, a total of 21 linear feet, and nine footprints will be made.
The "Into Mountains: Over Streams" chapter describes Yubu as an element in the Daoist astrological celestial stem-based "magic invisibility" system of Qimen Dunjia "Irregular Gate, Hidden Stem". The Dunjia 遁甲 "Hidden Stem" calculates the position within the space-time structure of the liuding 六丁 "spirits that define the place of the Qimen 奇門 "Irregular Gate". Andersen says, "This gate represents a "crack in the universe," so to speak, which must be approached through performing the Paces of Yu, and through which the adept may enter the emptiness of the otherworld and thereby achieve invisibility to evil spirits and dangerous influences."
"When entering a famous mountain in search of the divine process leading to geniehood, choose one of the six kuei [六癸] days and hours, also known as Heaven-public Days, and you will be sure to become a genie." Again, "On the way to the mountains or forests you must take some superior ch'ing-lung [青龍] grass in your left hand, break it and place half under feng-hsing [逢星]. Pass through the ming-t'ang and enter yin-chung [陰中]. Walking with Yü's Pace, pray three times as follows: 'May Generals No-kao and T'ai-yin [諾皋大陰] open the way solely for me, their great-grandson, so-and-so by name. Let it not be opened for others. If anyone sees me, he is to be considered a bundle of grass; those that do not see me, non-men.' Then break the grass that you are holding and place it on the ground. With the left hand take some earth and apply it to the first man in your group. Let the right hand take some grass with which to cover itself, and let the left hand extend forward. Walk with Yü's Pace, and on attaining the Six-Kuei site, hold your breaths and stay where you are. Neither men nor ghosts will be able to see you." As a general rule, the Six Chia constitute the ch'ing-lung; the Six I [六乙], the feng-hsing; the Six Ping , the ming-t'ang; and the Six Ting [六丁], the yin-chung.
"As you proceed with the prescribed Yü's Pace you will keep forming hexagram No. 63. Initial one foot forward, Initial two side by side, Prints not enough. Nine prints are the count, Successively up to snuff. One pace equals seven feet; total, twenty-one feet; and on looking back you will see nine prints."
Method for walking Yu's Pace. Stand straight. Advance the right foot while the left remains behind. Then advance in tum the left foot and the right foot, so that they are both side by side. This constitutes pace No. 1. Advance the right foot, then the left, then bring the right side by side with the left. This constitutes pace No. 2. Advance the left foot, then the right, then bring the left side by side with the right. This constitutes pace No. 3, with which a Yü's Pace is completed. It should be known by all who are practicing the various recipes in our world; it is not enough to know only the recipes.
This Yijing Hexagram 63, Jiji 既濟 "Already Fording" is composed of the trigrams li 離 Fire and kan 坎 Water.