From: tgpedersen
Message: 63876
Date: 2009-04-23
> Edwin G. PulleyblankBut cf.
> Central Asia and Non-Chinese Peoples of Ancient China, p. 523
>
> 'The view that before their rise to power on the steppe the Xiongnu
> had long been neighbours of the Chinese and were not newcomers from
> north of the Gobi is supported by evidence of Chinese influence
> that we find in their state organization. The full title of their
> ruler, Chengli gutu chanyu .. .. .. .. .. .., of which the first
> four characters are translated into Chinese as Son of Heaven, is
> clearly borrowed from China. Chinese directional color symbolism
> appears in the four divisions of their army at the siege of
> Pingcheng in 201 B.C., with white horses on the west, dappled
> (bluish) horses on the east, black horses on the north and red
> horses on the south. This was another enduring organizational trait
> that was passed on to later nomadic empires (Pritsak 1954. Ma
> (1962) thinks that directional colour symbolism was an age-old
> tradition of northern peoples and explains the terms Red and White
> Di in this way as part of his argument that the Di were Turkish. It
> is possible but by no means certain that the terms Red and White
> referring to sections of the Di reflect the same directional colour
> symbolism but, if so, it must reflect a Chinese, rather than a
> steppe, tradition. Association of the four colours, green/blue,
> red, white and black with east, south, west and north, as well as
> with the annual revolution of the seasons, spring, summer, autumn,
> winter, sometimes with the addition of yellow for the centre, was
> part of very ancient Chinese cosmological ideas. It was
> incorporated in the speculations of the Five Phases School that
> originated with Zou Yan in the Warring States period and flourished
> in Han but it certainly goes back much earlier. As applied to
> military organization we find it in the description of the army of
> Wu that confronted Jin at Huangchi in 482 B.C.in Guoyu 19.). Long
> standing Chinese influence may explain why the Xiongnu were much
> more successful in state building than the Xianbei, the fraction of
> the Eastern Hu who succeeded them as masters of the steppe in the
> second century A.D.54 (On Xiongnu titles passed on to later nomad
> overlords of the steppe see Pulleyblank 1962).'