RT Article
T1 The Tricks of Jing (Jing jue 荆決): The Beginnings of jue 決/訣 as an Epistemic Genre
JF International journal of divination and prognostication
VO 5
IS 2
SP 163
OP 187
A1 Cook, Constance A.
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1908732202
AB The Chinese genre of text named jue 訣 dates back to the Han dynasty. It encompassed esoteric Daoist manuals and medical handbooks, translated as “tricks,” “methods,” “instructions,” “secret instructions,” and “rhymes.” This essay translates “tricks” and “secrets” for its early use, referring to “writings” (shu 書) linked to privately transmitted technical information, such as divination tricks, alchemical techniques, or medical recipes. Initially, these writings relied on oral instructions and implicit knowledge (“orally transmitted secrets,” koujue 口訣). By the medieval period, as seen in the Dunhuang manuscripts, the link to exclusive oral instruction had weakened, and the jue genre evolved into “how-to” (hezhi 何知) manuals for quick reference in a broader body of formally transmitted texts, like “canons, scriptures” (jing 經). The jue genre began as rhematic (rather than thematic), specifying techniques or “methods” (fa 法), whether Daoist, medical, or divinatory.
K1 Daoism
K1 history of knowledge
K1 Epistemology
K1 secret knowledge
K1 Divination
K1 Dunhuang manuscripts
K1 jue 決/訣
K1 Ancient China
DO 10.1163/25899201-bja10015