Qiqi (tilting vessel)

Six received texts in the Chinese classics mention tilting vessels, four Confucianist (Xunzi, Kongzi Jiayu, Han shi waizhuan, and Shuo yuan) and two Daoist (Huainanzi and Wenzi).

Five of these six, excluding the Wenzi, contain an anecdote about Confucius (551–479 BCE) visiting an ancestral miào (廟, "temple; shrine") and being surprised to see an ancient tilting vessel.

Since none of these early texts gives any disclaimer regarding the tilting-vessel anecdote's historicity, we may safely assume that people two-thousand years ago believed that Confucius’ temple visit had taken place as described.

Tilting-vessel accounts in the four Confucian texts are very similar, such as using the hapax legomenon shǒu miào zhě (守廟者, "temple caretaker") that is only recorded in these contexts.

[持滿有道]" Confucius said, "Perceptiveness and sagely knowledge is to be kept by foolishness, a worldwide achievement is to be kept by yielding, bravery in protecting the world is to be kept by cowardice, the prosperity of the globe is to be kept by modesty, and this is what is called the "Way of Bringing through Losing."

Although later scholars dismissed the Kongzi jiayu as a forgery, archeological discoveries in the 1970s revealed fragmentary copies of the book written on bamboo strips in Western Han tombs dating from 165 and 55 BCE.

[19] The pre-2nd century BCE Wenzi ("[Writings of] Master Wen") version of the tilting-vessel story uses the unique terms jiè zhī qì (戒之器, "warning vessel") and yòuzhī (侑卮, "urging goblet").

[24] During the Abbasid Caliphate, tilting vessels "aroused the keen interest" of Persian scholars, who "greatly developed their possibilities", as seen in Banu Musa's 850 Book of Ingenious Devices, which described many types of automata, such as valves that open and close by themselves.

[25] The sinologist and translator D. C. Lau[7] analyzed all six versions of the tilting-vessel story, and found that the descriptions of whether the container had two or three positions provided a historical key for the direction of borrowing.

In the simpler Daoist two-position version, the legendary vessel is upright when "empty" (沖 or 中) and overturns when "full" (滿 or 盈).

The commentary of Guo Xiang (252–312 CE) says, "A [zhi] (wine cup), when full, overturns, and when empty, faces upwards" (夫巵滿則傾, 巵空則仰).

Guo Xiang unambiguously describes it with the word kōng (空, "empty"), which, unlike zhōng (中, "middle"), is not open to "deliberate misinterpretation".

The Daoist version called the tilting-vessel yòuzhī (宥卮, "goblet for encouraging a guest to drink wine") and this was changed to yòuzuò zhī qì (宥座之器, "vessel placed on the right of one's seat") in the Confucian one.

This was changed into 抑而損之 (Han shi waizhuan, "The method of controlling fullness is to repress and diminish it), which describes the way to attain qiying in the Confucian sense.

[32] The expression 益而損之 is further explained in the Daoist version by the passage in which the general principle is stated that things when they reach the highest point of development will decline.

[34] Daniel Fried, professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of Alberta, combined Chinese textual and archeological evidence to propose a "speculative history" of the Zhuangzian zhī "goblet" trope, associating it with the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE) qīqí (欹器, "tipping vessel") designed to tilt and empty when filled to capacity, and ultimately with a Yangshao culture (c. 5000 – c. 4000 BCE) irrigation vessel that would tip over automatically.

[35] The Leiden University scholar Paul van Els describes Fried's paper as "an insightful discussion of the vessel's various uses, with illustrations of the object".

In the 1950s, Chinese archeologists excavating the Banpo site in Shaanxi discovered narrow-mouthed, narrow-bottomed amphora jugs dating from the Yangshao culture (c. 5000 – c. 3000 BCE).

Zhang Ling[37] first identified this particular shape of narrow-bottomed jug as the referent in both the Xunzi passage on the qiqi and the Guo Xiang commentary on the zhi.

Huang Chongyue (黄崇岳) and Sun Xiao (孫霄), researchers at the Banpo Museum, published a series of articles based on experiments with the amphoras.

Their unusually high center of gravity relative to the handles will cause the jars to display the properties of the tipping-vessel as described in the Xunzi, namely, that it "slants when empty, stands upright when half-full, and tips over when full".

The use of the vessel in irrigation "was driven by its ability to deliver a constant, low-flow stream of water, without the attention of the farmer, who held strings attached to the handles while the jugs tipped over of themselves".

[38] Fried speculates that advances in agricultural technology, such as the introduction of the water-raising well-sweep into China around the 5th century BCE,[39] may have caused farmers to discontinue using the ceramic tipping-vessels for irrigation.

This point is confirmed by the youzhi (侑卮, "urging goblet") that the Wenzi version describes as a possession of the mythological kings, indicating that Duke Huan was not considered ancient enough to be associated with the uncommon tipping-zhi.

Around the time when popular usage of the tipping-zhi was dying out, Zhuangzi (d. c. 286) metaphorically described his own style of speech with zhi signifying both instability and timelessness.

Sima Qian's c. 91 BCE Records of the Grand Historian usually mentioned them in contexts of highly formal occasions, often in conjunction with toasts for longevity or ritual dedications.

[42] In the context of Du Yu's frustrating attempt to reconstruct a zhi tipping vessel without a working model, the Book of Jin says the last surviving one was lost by the end of the Han in 220 CE, and it was exclusively a royal regalia by that point.

[35] The biggest problem with this upper-class connotation of jade-zhi goblets frequently used in toasts for longevity is that it appears incompatible with the Zhuangzi description of zhiyan.

Focusing on the Xunzi and Wenzi anecdotes, Fried briefly refers to the Huainanzi, but mentions neither the Kongzi jiayu nor Han shi waizhuan versions.

[44] Van Els disagrees with Lau's hypothesis that the Daoist version (e.g. Huainanzi) was the original anecdote, which was borrowed into Confucian writings (e.g. Han shi waizhuan) and transformed to suit their teachings.